D’Angelo Russell exploded for 29 points Friday night in the Lakers’ loss to Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
While the Lakers did lose the game by 17, I think Laker fans got to see what they should be excited about for the remainder of the year.
Particularly in Russell who had a great game no matter how you look at it. As per usual, his haters will say he had to shoot a lot of shots to get those 29, but you also have to make a lot of shots to score that many.
During the preseason we saw a D’Angelo who was an aggressive scorer and that’s who we thought we were going to see all season long. Then Walton told him he really just wanted Russell to run the offense and not look to score every time.
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With Lou Williams gone we also saw Russell get a lot more minutes. Typically we see Russell on the bench throughout the fourth but things are a changing. Now with Lou gone we’ll be seeing a lot more of Russell in the fourth. This makes me think we will D’angelo get a lot more points a lot more often.
That being said, Russell still has a lot of room to improve. The most obvious place is his three point shot. He needs to get into the paint primarily and only shoot three point shots when he’s wide open.
This game gives Lakers fans a revitalized hope for the future.
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Do you think Russell can keep this kind of play up or will he fall back into bad habits? Let us know in the comments section and follow us on twitter @TheLakeShowLife