– Ball hangs with Wall
Coming into the game, all eyes were on the matchup between Lonzo Ball and John Wall. Due to the Lakers also having Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, we knew that Lonzo and Wall wouldn’t be going against each other the whole night. However, Ball did play pretty well against Wall when the two matched up. Ball was able to have a few strips on Wall on drives to the basket, as he clearly wasn’t tortured by him like Gortat said he would be.
As the game went on Wall eventually got going a bit in the third quarter, but it ended up being a down night by his standards. In the loss, Wall totaled 18 points on 7-for-22 shooting with nine assists and three rebounds.
Even though Wall outscored Ball, Lonzo was able to have more assists and more rebounds than Wall. As a proven All-Star in the NBA, it would have been pretty shocking to see Lonzo come out and flat out destroy Wall. However, this ended up being a close matchup, and that is one of the reasons why the Lakers won. Shooting continues to be an issue for Ball, but he is playing very well in every other aspect of the game. With him at the point, the Lakers’ offense is looking good and the team is 2-2.