Wayne Ellington recently said this about tanking.
"“We’re men. We’re competitors. We’re all fighting for jobs here. We don’t cross those lines ever. We’re not giving up”. (Los Angeles Times)"
Note to Lakers fans: the Lakers interest in tanking is zilch, zero, nada. They are trying to win as many games as they can in spite of the collective agony of their fans who die every time the Lakers hustle, grab rebounds, make shots, and generally look like a NBA team, until the last two minutes when the Lakers can’t close, they turn the ball over and brick shots which makes their fans stand up and cheer.
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The Lakers third quarter was predictably hopeless. Whenever Robert Sacre is touching the ball more than one time, bad things normally happen. The Lakers were outscored by the Heat by eight points, erasing a half-time lead. But, the Heat are a pretty mediocre team when Dwayne Wade, Luol Deng and Goran Dragic are not on the floor which opened up the door for the Lakers in the fourth quarter.
The Lakers fought back, took the lead, but struggled making uncontested shots.
Then Wade took the game over. His turn around jumper cut the lead to one. Once the Heat had the lead, (after a Goran Dragic three pointer), Wade was Wade. With 88 seconds left, he secured a rebound and was fouled by Ellington and went to the line. He made both free throws. After a Jordan Hill layup, Wade dished a lob to Whiteside for his 5th assist. Wesley Johnson missed a three but Jordan Hill grabbed the rebound and made a spectacular reverse layup while falling sideways. Then came Wade’s 6th assist, a beautiful pass to the hands of Whiteside who just had to turn and lay it in.
Wade made sure the Heat wouldn’t lose this game and the Lakers had no other answer or Plan B when they couldn’t make shots. They were too small to defend against the seven foot Whiteside who had 25 rebounds in the game. They couldn’t make enough shots to answer the Heat’s scores even as they had a good effort from just about everybody.
Seven players were in double figures. Wayne Ellington, Jordan Clarkson, Wesley Johnson, Jeremy Lin, Ed Davis, Jordan Hill, Carlos Boozer.
Jeremy Lin had 9 assists and Ed Davis had 12 rebounds.
But, the Lakers and their lack of defensive footwork and quickness, couldn’t keep the Heat off the free throw line. Dwayne Wade and Hassan Whiteside took more free throws then the entire Lakers team. The Heat, a bottom of the league rebounding team, out rebounded the Lakers by 13. They had 6 more blocks.
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