On the second game of their road trip, the Lakers play the Miami Heat. The Lakers lost to the Heat in January, 78-75.
The Lakers Tanking Circus moves on to another city: Miami. The Heat have lost Chris Bosh for the season but Dwayne Wade and Luol Deng create match-up nightmares for teams trying to defend on the perimeter. The Heat added Goran Dragic at the trade deadline, giving up two first round picks for him, even though Dragic intends to pursue the free agent market which doesn’t bother Pat Riley in the slightest. Riley, part motivator, part sage, can sell an Eskimo snow. Besides, he is in the pole position, available to offer Dragic the most money which saves the Lakers from themselves and a $80 million dollar deal for Dragic.
Since Dragic has been in Miami, he has averaged 15 points and 5 assists, similar numbers to what he put up in Phoenix but his minutes have increased, something he wanted, though twice he has failed to score at least 10 points. He may not play against the Lakers on Wednesday because of a back injury, leaving the Lakers to defend against Mario Chalmers on the perimeter.
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The Heat are the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference and are trying to fight off 5 teams (Nets, Hornets, Pacers, Celtics, Pistons) just to stay in the playoffs and be eliminated in the first round. 11 of their next 23 games are against playoff teams with winning records, 6 of which are on the road. This Lakers game is as close to a must win as the Heat can get, considering their upcoming schedule.
For their part, the Lakers will continue the same trend: be the little engine that could, try hard but lose. That gutty little win streak of theirs last week did more harm than good as it put distance between them and the Knicks, four games. Three games separate the Lakers from the Timberwolves. Another winning streak will push them further behind in their chase to keep their lottery pick. Luckily, the Heat are the 6th ranked defense. The Lakers could only manage to score 75 points against them when they played in Los Angeles in January.
The development of seven foot center Hassan Whiteside should make Lakers fans more bitter than they already are towards Mitch Kupchak and the Lakers front office. The Lakers, a team without size, could have signed Whiteside this summer.
Whiteside was a second round pick in the 2010 draft. He was a one and done player from Marshall who should have stayed in school but entered the draft and was selected by the Sacramento Kings. He became defined by his D-league and international career. He played for Reno, Sioux Falls, Rio Grande Valley. Then he went overseas and played in Lebanon and China before returning to Iowa and the D-league. This summer he was a free agent.
This season, Whiteside has done some Bill Russell type things. He had 12 blocks against the Bulls. He had 24 rebounds against the Mavericks and Hawks. He should feast against the small Lakers front line who routinely get pushed around and are out-hustled. That’s the good news for the Lakers Tanking Circus.
Unfortunately, the Heat play the slowest of any team in the NBA. They don’t score a lot of points. Their best player is sidelined. They don’t rebound. They are worse at sharing the ball than the Lakers are. They turn the ball over. In other words, the Lakers have a chance.
But this is a back to back game. And Byron will play Robert Sacre and Ryan Kelly more than he should. And Jeremy Lin should start but won’t. And the Lakers offense will consist of one pass then a shot. Or, a bad three point shot. Or, a miss at the rim. And, no defense whatsoever.
In other words, the Lakers are keeping pace with the other bottom feeders.