Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

Ime Udoka explained the absence of Kevin Durant on the bench.
KD was getting treatment 24 hours
he wasn't on the bench
Ime Udoka says Kevin Durant is receiving around-the-clock treatment for his ankle. Udoka says last night during the game, Durant was receiving treatment which included running on an underwater treadmill.

 

He’s toast. This series and in Houston.

(or not )

 

"Running on an underwater treadmill" seems like an apt metaphor for KD"s entire career, except for when he couldn't stand not being the #1 guy with GSW, where he could've taken a pay cut and won at least one more ring, but hey, what do I know?

 

What happened to the ever so cool Zero Gravity treadmills?

 

Game 4 in HOU, KD sitting again: HOU came out desperate; we were not desperate. From about 5 mins in you could read this as a bad sign, maybe even in Braille.

I'd like to see the refs call Sengun for an offensive foul at least once when he backs down a guy (DA/Hayes/Rui/Marcus/Jake) like that. I mean, most of it is legal taking position but some of looks really borderline to me. Anyway, we weren't winning this one. You could just see it in the level of urgency by both teams.

HOU up 9 at half; if Lakers come out with better cutting, moving the ball in the 3rd, this might be a game: it wasn't: HOU won the 3rd by 16 and the 4th was garbage.

Highlight for me - call me a "bad sport" if ya wanna, you're probably right - was DA's left hand shiv to Sengun's head. I don't think DA got his money's worth, either. Not at the price of getting kicked out.

Really felt the lack of Luka and/or AR in this one.

 

I have never understood why that’s allowed. Defender is in position not fouling and offensive player gets to pound him with their body backward with multiple leveraged from size bumps 6-8’ backwards. It’s the same as a charge but instead he’s allowed to go right through through the smaller defender’s established position.

 

Just take a step back and make the d****** fall. Done that hundreds of times, always makes me laugh.

 

yeah, i kept waiting for someone to pull the chair on sengun, and i'm still waiting for better digs at the ball when he goes into the back down routine.

anyway, i agree with lebron that he set the tone with some pretty bad turnovers. it was like the full-game equivalent of when he used to take dribble pull up threes in the half court offense--let's see if we can put this away quickly. well, we most certainly couldn't, and i wonder if we had the mindset to grind out instead of knock out if the game goes differently. but some of those hit ahead attempts just seemed like ways to conserve energy.

then the whole team caught the bug, and we were just assisting their fast breaks, which REALLY lets houston off the hook. especially without durant!

anyway, super disappointing effort led by vets who should know better. hopefully, things get corrected in game 5 or the pressure reverses in potentially catastrophic ways.

 

Tough loss since we had a chance to sweep

We still have 3 games to close this out

Team needs to dig deep and find the answer

Collapsing is not the way

 

Not worried, only OKC is sweeping this round.

It's damn hard to close a very young team out, when you as an older team only have one recovery day for an OT playoff game where you played massive minutes.

Phil was of the belief that one playoff game is = 2-3 regular season games in terms of what it takes out of you.

We'll wrap this on Wednesday when we have some legs and rest.

 

This is my explanation as well. They came out very flat and looked like they were still tired from the OT minutes.

 

Lebron looked like a typical 41 yo old and Lakers lost. That is pretty much the whole of it

I'm going to reiterate time to move up Vando and give him all of Jakes minutes

They are letting Amen and Eason to go to their right way too easily. Tighten that up

Hopefully the roleplayers like Kennaed get the homecooking next game

 

There was one play in the 1st half I replayed because I was impressed how quickly Jake moved his feet to actually stay in front of Amen when he put on a burst for about 20 feet trying to get around him to the base line to attack the basket, and Jake shut it down. Amen was going to his left.

 

Always felt like the Lakers were willing to lose this one so Reaves can play in game 5 and get some run in before OKC.
They played like it.

 

I don't think you tank playoff games, at least on purpose. We are severely weakened with major injuries and weren't supposed to win 3 games so I don't think the guys thought that. We are grinding out wins, not rolling past Houston.

I do believe their intensity went down a little due to being ahead 3-0, it's unconscious but it can happen. That together with the short turnaround after an OT game, resulted in not being at the intensity level we need to be to offset our lack of talent.

Fully expect to comeback in game 5 at the level of the first 2 games. Hope it's enough to pull the dub

 

monster game by Ayton wasted

 

We’ve got to figure out the Reed Sheppard matchup. He’s starting to cook and Rui can’t exploit him in the post because his low post game is nonexistent smh.

 

Man that was a rough one to lose, tantalizing in that Lakers cut it from 13 to 3 pretty quickly, but just couldn't close it, hit fairly open 3s, etc.

HOU wins Game 5, 99-93.

Good to have AR back, though he was rusty and 4 for 16. Gotta hand it to HOU's defense.

Ayton was great: 18 and 17, with 10 of those 17 as offensive boards.

Let's close out this jit in Game 6!