LAKERS -at- RAPTORS - 12-7-22 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings

 
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DancingBarry
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:19 pm    Post subject: LAKERS -at- RAPTORS - 12-7-22 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings

No LeBron, No AD... And as a result, this one went as expected. The Lakers looked smaller at every position and offensively challenged against the Raptors.

To start the game, the Lakers fell back 11-0 after just over 2 minutes. They brought in Russ and pace picked up. The Lakers went on a 15-6 run to pull within a bucket. That was as close as this one would get.

Things got out of hand midway through the second quarter as the offense stalled out completely. With 7 minutes to go they were outscored 26-3 until the Lakers hit a three with a second left in the half. Bad offense also allowed for points off turnovers as they trailed 70-47 at the half.

They looked better in the third quarter as the Laker zone got some stops and a 12-4 run forced a timeout. Schröder and Reaves carried the attack in the third.

L.A. was able to trim the lead down to 13 off a late run in the fourth, but that would be it. Just out-talented tonight with their two superstars sitting. The Lakers fell 126-113.


Walker IV -- -- They needed a big game from Lonnie if they were going to have a chance in this one. The -37 in this one is pretty atrocious considering where everyone else netted out. Ham would sub him out for Russ as the starters floundered a bit. He sank a couple of threes and scored on some drives, but was inefficient, finishing with 12 points on 16 attempts. We needed a 20+ point game. The Stats: He scored 12 points on 5-16 shooting (2-7 from three) to go with 3 boards, 1 turnover and 2 fouls in 26 minutes. He was a -37.

Schröder -- -- Decent game from Dennis. We needed a little more consistent playmaking, but overall he gave the kind of production we needed. There was a stretch in the third quarter where we looked like a competent team with him helping lead the charge. He knocked down a couple outside shots, attacked for layups and a floater and drew some FTs being aggressive. There was a nice sequence on an ATO where he and Russ ran a two-man game and he hit Russ in the paint for a layup. The Stats: He scored 18 points on 5-10 shooting (1-4 from three, 7-7 from the line) to go with 5 boards, 3 assists, 2 turnovers and 1 foul in 28 minutes. He was -8.

Bryant -- -- Defensively, AD is the heart and soul of the D. The Lakers have struggled without him in the mix. The Lakers ran a lot of zone defensively (giving up 17 offensive boards). We missed our size and AD’s mobility. Offensively, he had some scores off setups by others. Great job getting to the line. Some of that was hustle under the rim, some being setup by others. The Stats: He scored 16 points on 3-5 shooting to go with 5 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 1 turnover and 2 fouls in 31 minutes. He was a -2.

Reaves -- -- We needed a much better game from Reaves to survive this one. He got some bad looks early on, late in the shotclock trying to bail out the offense. Maybe that slowed him down a little to start, but even some of the good open looks later weren’t falling. In the third quarter, though, he got it going. He found JTA for a couple scores. He scored on a drive after one of those. He attacked baseline, took contact and scored an And-1 falling back while tossing it up. After that he spun, attacked and scored a layup. Good stretch in that third, but we needed a couple more quarters of that. His good three shooting percentage will take a hit with this one. The Stats: He scored 10 points on 4-12 shooting (1-6 from three, 1-1 from the line) to go with 2 boards, 3 assists and 3 fouls in 28 minutes. He was a -11.

Toscano-Anderson -- -- Well, he ain’t replacing LeBron, except maybe on the IR now. He stepped on Bryant’s foot in the fourth quarter on defense and went down grabbing his ankle. Prior to that, not a lot of action. He sank a corner jumper off a kickout and also got some FTs trailing the break and trying to finish strong. The Stats: He scored 3 points on 1-2 shooting (1-2 from the line) to go with 3 boards, 2 assists, 1 turnover and 1 foul in 16 minutes. He was a +5.

Westbrook -- -- With no LeBron or AD, kind of odd you don’t start Russ. After we fell down 11-0 we brought him in after a couple minutes. The pace instantly picked up. I know Russ has a bench routine now, but you’re playing with reserves anyway. Not having that 11-0 hole would have been big, but I’m not sure any of that would have changed the outcome of this game. Definitely, could have used more playmaking from Russ. The team had just 15 assists on 113 points (a high amount of FTs contributed to some of the low assist numbers). As soon as he came in the game, he set up Reaves for an open three on a kickout. That jumpstarted things as we got a paint touch into a kickout for some easy basketball. Defensively, a couple nice plays with a steal on the backline rotation and he also drew a charge. But all in all, a pretty average outing. The Stats: He scored 16 points on 5-13 (1-4 from three, 5-7 from the line) to go with 9 boards (4 offensive fouls), 3 assists, 1 steal, 5 turnovers and 3 fouls in 28 minutes. He was a -18.

Brown -- -- He got robbed of an assist on one of the better plays of the game. He got to a loose ball and instantly fired it baseball-style to Russ under the hoop. Russ then choked the layup and scored on his own putback. He missed all the threes he took. He had a nice iso where he backed his man down, spun and scored a layup. The Stats: He scored 8 points on 2-6 shooting (0-3 from three, 4-4 from the line) to go with 4 boards, 2 turnovers and 1 foul in 22 minutes. He was a +3.

Nunn -- -- One of his better games. He was able to get minutes and a good number of shots up. Maybe that got him into more of a rhythm. I think getting a game where he can iso or handle more and find a comfort zone maybe helps the confidence. Dennis got a little annoyed on one sequence where Nunn ball stopped and chirped at him after the possession (I think Dennis threw a pass out of bounds on that play if I recall, but the offense stalled by multiple people that possession). He had some good effort at times on D. That benching of late probably played into that some. One of those picks turned into a transition dunk. The Stats: He scored 15 points on 6-13 shooting (1-5 from three, 2-2 from the line) to go with 2 boards, 1 assist, 3 steals, 1 turnover and 3 fouls in 20 minutes. He was a -1.

Jones -- -- A double-double. He gave us some much-needed length. Some hustle on a couple of plays for putback jams. He finished a couple of lobs from his guards, as well. Defensively, he had a nice swat, spiking the ball in the middle of the paint. The Stats: He scored 10 points on 4-5 shooting (2-2 from the line) to go with 10 boards (4 offensive), 1 assist, 1 block, 1 turnover and no fouls in 25 minutes. He was a +0.

Christie -- -- Only silver lining in games like this is the development time for Christie or maybe one of our other role players building their confidence. Not a lot of action for him. A couple scores in the second half. He attacked and hit a tough pull-up from about 12 feet out. He also swished a wing three with a man closing hard. He tried to iso on a play and threw it out of bounds. The Stats: He scored 5 points on 2-5 shooting (1-3 from three) to go with 3 boards, 1 turnover and 1 foul in 13 minutes. He was a +4.

Ham -- -- Key Moment: That 11-0 to start the game put this team in a bad position. But the offense going south in the second quarter for 7 minutes is what really did them in. Control of the game was taken there and the Lakers couldn’t recover.

Key Substitution: I probably would have started Russ. The team needed some swagger out of the gates, but got slapped down quickly. It felt like some of our guys didn’t get into a groove until quite a bit after that initial punch in the mouth.

Key Stats: Just 15 assists to 17 turnovers. The poor three shooting (7-33, 21%) played into that. There were a few late shotclock chucks, but we would have needed a good 40% shooting night from three to pull this one out.
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:08 pm    Post subject:

Thanks DB, tough one to take but I guess it should have been expected.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 4:28 am    Post subject:

This game illustrates that a player can be useful as a support piece, but not useful as a main piece. We have some guys whose games don't scale. This is true for Reaves and Brown in particular. If you put them in a more prominent role, they'll give you more or less the same thing that they'll give you as a sidekick. Compare this to Schroder, whose game does scale.

Walker was sort of in the middle. His game scales up to a point, but he's not good enough to be the focal point of an offense. The Raptors focused on him because we had a bunch of lesser threats on the court, and they pretty well smothered him.

The same was true of Westbrook, but he's just a better player than Walker. Russ' problem was that he had no one to target with a pass. He'd collapse the defense, but then who would he pitch the ball to? He wound up taking tough shots. He made some, but this isn't 2017 Russ.

Oh, well. This game felt like an extension of garbage time from the end of the Cleveland game.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 5:11 am    Post subject:

How was the Bryant-Jones tandem look with Ham's offense? clunky? actually not bad? did they get burn on the perimeter on defense?
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J.C. Smith
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 5:28 am    Post subject:

Last night's game was a painful reminder about how bad this team is without AD and Lebron. The talent just drops off a cliff after that. Their third and fourth best players are Westbrook and Schroder, who are both sixth men really (Schroder starting to move Russ there).

After that it's Walker, and Reaves? A guy who most the forum complained about paying $6.5m for one year, and an undrafted sophomore, who should not be playing this many minutes on a team with playoff aspirations.

You take away Lebron and AD and this is likely the worst team in the NBA.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 6:20 am    Post subject:

An expected outcome. Like DB, I too was surprised Russ didn't start. I guess Ham is trying to be the anti-Vogel in terms of lineup consistency.

B2B abysmal shooting nights. Whether it's Russ or LeBron, this is not a squad built for a slasher.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 9:12 am    Post subject:

Thanks as always, DB! Another great write-up!

I'll be honest. I'm surprised, and also not surprised, by some of the reactions from fans I've seen, regarding this game. A team going into a matchup where they're undersized at almost every position, on the tale end of a back-to-back, without their two star players... And, somehow, people were expecting a miracle. And, when one didn't manifest, trash the players/team. I'm sorry, but that's just acting in bad faith, imo. It is what it is, though. I'm pretty sure this is typical of all fandoms.

Moving on. Once I found out about AD, and LeBron, all I wanted to see was our team fight, and compete. And, they did, for a quarter and a half. That's when all the wheels fell off, and the Raptors blew the doors open. During that time, our team lost its composure, and tried to make up for mistakes with quick shots/drives. Which ended up as more turnovers, or defensive rebounds, for Toronto. Which, in turn, fed their scoring on the fastbreak, and swelling the lead. It was a bad spell. Really ugly. You could see a lot of head hanging from our team, to end the first half.

I was immensely happy to see a more spirited second half, from the Lakers. They began to switch up the defense, giving the Raps different looks. Especially using a lot of zone defense. This cooled Toronto enough for our guys to rally a bit, chipping the lead from 20+ points, to a more manageable 13 points. But, the Raps stayed the course, and the Lakers ran out of gas, as Toronto closed the game out, handily.

Hindsight is 20/20. But, I noticed that when Bryant and Jones were on the floor, they looked like giants compared to Toronto's players. This makes me thing that we should have utilized those two more, in our offense. The Raps strength, is also their weakness. They have a lot of guys around 6'9", who are long, slim, and athletic. Their strength is that they can switch most anything, and not compromise their defense. The weakness is that they have no stocky "bangers". We tried to "out perimeter" a perimeter oriented team. While we were shorthanded, no less. I would have liked to have seen a traditional post attack from our bigs, and seen how that might have worked. Especially with Bryant.

For a Lakers team playing a whole game with just their role players, and end-of-the-bench guys, they played with heart. Glad to see them fight and claw. Some nights, thats the best you can do. Disappointing, yes. But, on to the next.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 10:13 am    Post subject:

governator wrote:
How was the Bryant-Jones tandem look with Ham's offense? clunky? actually not bad? did they get burn on the perimeter on defense?


Felt like garbage time when we went to it later in the game, so I don't think there's a lot of good insight to pull from that stretch. Bryant needs a little more confidence in his three ball. I feel like there was maybe a corner kickout on the left side where you want him to space the floor with that duo and I don't think he attempted it.
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governator
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 10:15 am    Post subject:

DancingBarry wrote:
governator wrote:
How was the Bryant-Jones tandem look with Ham's offense? clunky? actually not bad? did they get burn on the perimeter on defense?


Felt like garbage time when we went to it later in the game, so I don't think there's a lot of good insight to pull from that stretch. Bryant needs a little more confidence in his three ball. I feel like there was maybe a corner kickout on the left side where you want him to space the floor with that duo and I don't think he attempted it.


hmm, so prob stick with AD-Wenyen frontcourt when Bron sits, really wanna see AD-Bryant pairing work
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 10:53 am    Post subject:

The “Not Ready for Prime Time” Laker team that played got invaluable PT while providing Ham more tape/video/footage on where bench players are at

Lakers have always been a “Top Heavy/Stars Laden” team. Take Shaq/Kobe or Kobe/Pau off the court and those teams would lose, especially if they are playing on the road against good to very good teams

If these players were in a Pop-style team that have had multiple seasons to know the Spurs’ offense, it would be a closer game but probably wouldn’t win many games (see what the Spurs are doing now). Dubs without Curry struggled last night and they still had Thompson playing

The Bench Mob’s purpose is to play good enough so that AD/LBJ are not required to play 35+ MPG every night - the preferred form of “load management.”

Anticipated bump that hopefully provide building blocks for success in the playoffs since we have seen how good this team can be with a healthy AD and LBJ
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