Los Angeles Lakers horrid from deep in opening night loss the the Blazers

LeBron James shines in Los Angeles Lakers debut, but poor shooting costs the purple and gold down the stretch against the Blazers.

LeBron James made his regular season debut for the Los Angeles Lakers against the Portland Trailblazers, and as expected, he did not disappoint.

LeBron scored 26 points and tallied 12 rebounds and had a monster debut for the Lakers.

Unfortunately, The Lakers were not able to pull of a victory as they fall to the Portland Trail Blazers 128-119.

The Lakers started off great as the crowd was into it very early.

LeBron’s first bucket came on a monster dunk off of a steal. Damian Lillard came back with his own dunk on the other end, and on the very next play, LeBron answered with another rim rattling dunk.

https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1053118201465171968

The Lakers played solid on defense early on as LeBron and Brandon Ingram were active early.

The Lakers did not do a good job at all shooting the ball as they shot an atrocious 23% from distance going 7-for-30 from behind the arc.

They made up for it however with easy baskets at the rim and being dominant in the paint.

One thing that was apparent early was Brandon Ingram. The 3rd year forward struggled in the first half shooting a mere 2-for-8 from the field and missing both of his three 3-point attempts.

Ingram definitely could have been more involved offensively but made up for it with some great defensive stops and active hands in the passing lanes.

KCP got the start at shooting guard, however Pope only managed to finish with 5 points and 2 rebounds as I don’t see him maintaining his starting spot if he continues to have performances like this one.

Josh Hart proved once again that he should be the starting shooting guard as he had a great performance by getting to the basket and showing his strength finishing at the rim.

Even though the 3 balls weren’t falling for the Lakers, the Trail Blazers got a little help off their bench with Nik Stauskas lighting up the Lakers for 16 points in the first half, knocking down 4 3-pointers.

In the second half, Brandon Ingram started to come alive as he had two quick buckets to start the 3rd quarter.

The Blazers started to knock down shots from the outside and started to build a lead, but Josh Hart kept putting pressure on the Blazers defense by being a presence inside and even knocked down a 3-pointer in the last few seconds of the 3rd quarter to cut the Blazer lead to 2.

In the 4th quarter, fatigue started to set in for the Lakers as their 3-point shooting woes continued to put them in a deep hole.

Josh Hart continued his dominance down the stretch and finished with 20 points and Kyle Kuzma hit a few shots in the 4th acquiring 15 points and 5 rebounds.

Ultimately, it came down to the fact that the Blazers were making shots and the Lakers were not.

The Lakers dominated down low with 70 points in the paint, but unless the Lakers can score 110 points off of 2-point shots, then shots in the paint can only help you so much.

I can’t stress enough how much the Lakers lackluster shooting from deep was their primary problem in this game.

Their occasional lapses on defense is understandable and I know that once they get used to each other they will be a better team.

They managed to stay in the game for the most part due to their constant attacking of the paint and their commitment on defense, at least early on.

But when Brandon Ingram goes 0-for-4 from distance and Lonzo Ball goes 1-4 from distance, then that doesn’t bode well for the Lakers going forward.

I don’t want to overreact to just one game, but it is apparent that the Lakers have a glaring problem with shooting from the perimeter that needs to be corrected immediately.

With the Western Conference being as tough as it is, the Lakers won’t have a lot of time to waste, so hopefully they can get it together and at least show that they can be a competent shooting team in the future.