NUGGETS -at- LAKERS - 4-3-22 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings

 
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DancingBarry
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 2:45 pm    Post subject: NUGGETS -at- LAKERS - 4-3-22 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings

Crash and Burn... If the lid on the coffin of this season was shut in the last game, a loss today seemed like the nails getting pounded into it.

The Lakers battled early behind AD and Russ. In the first half, however, AD tweaked his foot on a drive. As the game went along the body language started to change. He wasn’t getting up and down the court with speed, hung his head a bit and during deadballs tried to get comfortable on his bad wheel.

Despite no LeBron, the Lakers trailed by 1 heading into the fourth. As we returned to our stars midway through the quarter, the Nuggets started to get some separation.

Down 7 after a Jokic make, the Lakers turned the ball over on a lazy THT inbounds. That pushed the lead to 9 points with 5 minutes left.

Russ cut it to 6 on the attack over the next couple minutes. Monk could have cut it to 4 on a layup, but blew the finish with 2 minutes left. Once Jokic scored on the other end, the Lakers trailed by 8 with a minute and a half … and that was it. The Lakers fell 129-118.

The tailspin into the ground continues. The Lakers have four games remaining and the Suns up next.


Davis -- -- He had a Euro-step And-1 against Jokic in the first quarter that had him concerned. He went to sideline shortly later and took off his right shoe and had his foot looked at. He was back out there, but it’s always a concern. In the third quarter, he was still not right with it and the body language changed. He didn’t look like he was going to make it to the finish line. Great first half, regardless. Yes, 17 points on 7-13, which was mostly scores around the rim, either setup by teammates or AD doing work. (He had one drive where he lost a guard going behind his back, then finished an And-1 over a second defender.) So great on offense, but also keeping the Lakers in it on D with 3 blocks and 2 steals in that half. We needed some others to join him on that end. He faded in that third with the injury and maybe his wind. He’d look better late in the game after a rest. Hopefully, there was no setback. Sitting on the bench with the injury, we missed his leadership the past several weeks. I think he felt he didn’t have much to say as the other guys were playing (he was more involved at first after the injury, then faded into watching games more often). But you could see him engaged in this one, talking to players about mistakes. We really missed that (on the defensive end especially). We’ve been atrocious post all star game without him. The Stats: He scored 28 points on 11-25 shooting (6-6 from the line) to go with 9 boards, 8 assists, 2 steals, 3 blocks, 2 turnovers and no fouls in 35 minutes. He was a -9.

Westbrook -- -- We needed his best with LeBron sitting and the Lakers backs against the wall. They probably got that, and it didn’t matter. He had a streak in this game making 10 straight (longest such of his career). Efficient first half with 14 points on 7-9 shooting as well as 5 assists and no turnovers. He’d hit some short ones and continue to get downhill on the Nuggets in that second half as the paint was open for business. He had the ball in his hands much more with no LeBron. If you watch the game closely, you could still see how often defenders sag off him to make it difficult elsewhere in the halfcourt. The box score will never show that. So while the Nuggets were in and out of zone, they often also zoned off Westbrook. How he can mitigate that is, first, get out in transition and attack in early offense. He was getting a lot of opportunities for that and finding success (including a hammer dunk at the end of the half, as well as another And-1 layup against Jokic just prior to that). He also had a pushout on a long rebound that had the Nuggets on their heels. Playing with tempo, though, we don’t want the early offense pull-ups (unless they are two-for-ones). He can get open jumpers anytime. He did a good job mitigating that. In the half court without LeBron, we can find more opportunities to put the ball in his hand and you will get more opportunities downhill. That led to some scores or feeds to teammates (we even got him downhill on an ATO for a layup). Ultimately, we just have to be better with his off-ball positioning and action when you got your other stars out there, and we are horrible at that. The Stats: He scored 27 points on 11-15 shooting (0-1 from three, 5-10 from the line) to go with 10 boards, 7 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, 2 turnovers and 5 fouls in 34 minutes. He was a +1.

Howard -- -- You can see the fall off against Jokic from how Dwight played him a couple years ago. He’s just not as strong and active and explosive. All that reduced his impact on both ends. There was a play late in the game where he was stripped by Jokic under the hoop to prevent a score, then on the other end, Jokic easily scored on him in the paint. The Stats: He scored 8 points on 3-5 shooting (2-4 from the line) to go with 7 boards, 1 turnover and 2 fouls in 23 minutes. He was a +1.

Monk -- -- Good passing again early in this game (5 assists in the first half). He pulled at the FT line and found Dwight under the hoop. He lobbed to AD twice in the first quarter. He attacked from the corner, drew the D and hit Dwight for FTs (so no assist on that one). He got into some drives during the second quarter. Then, he sucked the wind out of the sails at the end of the first half after Westbrook had thrown down a dunk. We could have gone into the half with the lead, but he fouled a running three shooter at the buzzer to give up the lead. In the third, he’d hit a three, but just after giving up one on the other end. He’d throw an ill-advised lob, turnover. Out of timeout, though, he’d hammer a big two-handed dunk, exploding down the lane. Good, play followed by a bad shortly later as he attacked, got caught in the air and threw it away. Too many turnovers in this one. Defensively, the attention to detail and awareness isn’t always there, and the strength is a continual issue that forces us to help. The Stats: He scored 11 points on 5-9 shooting (1-3 from three) to go with 3 boards, 6 assists, 5 turnovers and 3 fouls in 33 minutes. He was a -12.


Bradley -- -- Good shooting game from him. When we got him looks, he was knocking them down. Very on-balance, unlike some of our other shooters and that makes a difference. The Stats: He scored 10 points on 4-5 shooting (2-3 from three) to go with 1 board, 1 assist and 3 fouls in 28 minutes. He was a -9.

Johnson -- -- He rattled in a three with 7 minutes left to tie things up for his only score. He had a nice offensive board in a crowd, but not a whole lot going on. He and AD were the only two guys not to foul in this one.The Stats: He scored 3 points on 1-2 shooting to go with 2 boards, 2 assists, 1 turnover and no fouls in 16 minutes. He was a +1.

Anthony -- -- Back after the illness, he didn’t look like he had his legs from the start. His threes were way short. He still had that iso midrange working and hit a couple baseline jumpers early on. He was gunning. He worked that post for scores. He’d hit a three in transition when he had all day to set up. All the other threes were off the mark. He blew an uncontested layup late that didn’t matter, but felt symbolic of this team. The Stats: He scored 17 points on 8-18 shooting (1-7 from three) to go with 2 boards, 2 assists and 3 fouls in 26 minutes. He was a -8.

Horton-Tucker -- -- That backcourt inbounds pass that was stolen was a killer. Just a lazy inbounds with a man lurking. Offensively, he’d score an And-1 layup in transition, get another hanging against contact and scoring a layup. His other bucket, he’d attack, bump and hit the short one. Very little impact. For his salary, we need a lot more. I suspect if we move Russ, we’ll see better impact from THT and his value go back up. The Stats: He scored 7 points on 3-6 shooting (0-1 from three, 1-1 from the line) to go with 4 boards, 3 assists, 1 turnover and 2 fouls in 18 minutes. He was a -11.

Augustin -- -- He’d swish a corner three on a swing pass against the zone. Probably his best look of the game. Not much else to his game in this one except a lot of fouls. The Stats: He scored 3 points on 1-5 shooting (1-3 from three) to go with 1 board, 1 assist and 4 fouls in 17 minutes. He was a -5.

Gabriel -- -- We had him matching up with Cousins off the bench early on. Just too much size on Cousins for Gabriel to deal with. He’d did get a nice block on a reverse attempt, but otherwise tough match up. Offensively, a couple of nice flashes to the middle of the paint to take psses and then score on floaters. The Stats: He scored 4 points on 2-2 shooting to go with 1 board, 1 assist, 1 block and 3 fouls in 11 minutes. He was a -3.

Vogel -- -- Key Moment: Russ asked about the coaching this season afterward: “They’ve done things they felt was best for our team. I don’t know. I’ll leave it at that.” We might have been more successful this season if we had hired someone familiar with Russ’s game as an assistant coach. But it was an ill-conceived decision to bring Westbrook in to begin with. Morey/D’Antoni found that out the hard way in Houston. Pelinka/Vogel finding that out this year.

Key Substitution: LeBron sitting in this game probably did them in. The Lakers couldn’t get stops tonight, though. Another 129 points given up. Midway through the fourth, the Nuggets hit a three on ATO and over the next couple minutes strung buckets together. After that THT inbounds pass that was stolen, that was that. AD was playing strong, but the defense just doesn’t have enough guys that are disruptive on that end. And you can’t afford to put yourself into bad positions with stupid turnovers like that.

Key Stats: Lakers scored in the paint well with 68 points. They were relentlessly attacking, but also gave up 60 themselves. The three ball wasn’t there (6-20).
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Hammett
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 2:46 pm    Post subject:

Thanks db!
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 2:53 pm    Post subject:

Good game by AD, offensively he looked rusty and about 50 times during the game I was afraid he was done. I still can’t stand the guy but props for ignoring the pain and trying to lead the team in a losing situation. Much respect.
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LakersPimp
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 3:04 pm    Post subject:

4th quarter losses...while an improvement over getting blown out...show the weaknesses in our coaching. (As if nobody knew that was an issue)
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 3:16 pm    Post subject:

Thanks DB.

I do not believe LBJ has ever been on a 50 loss team. There's always a first, I suppose, and this looks like the year it will happen.

Frustrating today because AD's injury proclivity just seems to have become worse the past 2 seasons. Clearly talented when he plays, but now that *when* is an issue. Before someone gets all devil's advocate, yes, he would typically miss about 15 games a year, e.g. close to 20% to round up (his worst in that category prior to being a Lakers was missing 26 games). However, the past 2 seasons it has become ridiculous. He missed 50% of the regular season games last year, and will likely match or exceed that this year. No matter what changes the team makes next year, if AD continues this trend, this team will not win a championship and likely be low seed playoff *at best*.
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PenG_
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:24 pm    Post subject:

We’re an awful 4Q team against good squads. Imagine this team in the playoffs… woof
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 6:18 pm    Post subject:

PenG_ wrote:
We’re an awful 4Q team against good squads. Imagine this team in the playoffs… woof


Not too long ago there were people on this board and others taking smack "If we can make it past the play in we can beat the Suns!" Yeah right!
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 11:08 pm    Post subject:

How are people pointing mainly at the 4th quarter? We gave up 96 points after three quarters!

The main, consistent problem (after team health) continues to be team defense. The main problem with that continues to be how small we are in the supporting cast because of our lack of defensive, athletic forwards with size.

Even when Westbrook plays offensively well it doesn't make up the difference of allowing opponents to score at will against us because we are often to small defensively on the court as a whole.
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A Mad Chinaman
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 11:12 pm    Post subject:

Roll the Dice and It Came Up Snake Eyes!!

With LBJ, AD and KNunn not playing or even close to 100% (yes, nobody is 100% at this time), along with the Spurs winning tonight, the next games played by both teams will officially end the Lakers' season.

The AARP Experiment with Ariza, Ellington, Bazemore, Dwight and Melo will finally be ending.

Hopefully Monk, Johnson, Gabriel and Reeves (even Mason Jones) will continue their growth next season on the Lakers coming off the bench. Time to evaluate their worth in these final games. These young players might provide the energy and legs to play a style that is more suited to LeWestBrick, as DB mentioned above
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danzag
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 04, 2022 3:01 am    Post subject:

Thanks, DB! But it's Cancun time for this team.

We played "well", considering the circumstances. AD is a great player (despite being rusty) and Westbrook had a good game. But it's just too big of a hole we're in right now
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