Los Angeles Lakers vs Portland Trail Blazers fan diary

Post-Game Thoughts

The narrative coming out of this one was pretty clear: we are dreadful from 3-point land, and it’s not going to cut it. I think everyone saw that coming, but it was painfully obvious tonight.

The good news is how good we looked on the break and in the paint in general, scoring 70 in the key and shooting 48.5 percent overall. But missing your first 15 3-point attempts is always going to spell doom, especially when you don’t start correcting for that until late in the fourth quarter.

The other glaring hole in our lineup is at the five, where JaVale McGee looks good but has absolutely no backup. Again, this was fairly predictable, and it was clearly borne out in tonight’s result.

Kuzma at center is a reasonable holdover for a limited time when McGee is in foul trouble, but it’s not a feasible long-term strategy. I sincerely hope Luke Walton doesn’t plan to go that route for considerable portions of the season. Besides it being ineffective, I also believe it would hurt his development overall. He’s too important to be compromised like that.

In the end, Chris Webber’s commentary reinforced for me just how low the bar is for this season’s performances to be considered “successful.” Even as we bricked three after three, he kept reminding the audience that we were killing it in the paint.

Never mind that the score line displayed that this was not an effective strategy for winning against better teams; we looked good at the things we were focusing on – fast breaks and slashing to the basket – so it was still viewed as a net win.

And I don’t disagree with this assessment entirely. I’d have to say we performed better than I expected, especially in a hostile arena where we have been consistently awful in recent years. If our guys can stay healthy and get a chance to gel, and if we can make a couple key signings before the trade deadline – namely, a serviceable big man and at least one serious 3-point threat – we will actually be quite well situated to make the playoffs, even in a stacked Western Conference.

I don’t know about y’all, but hearing the “beat LA” chant makes my heart swell with pride. Especially in an arena with a huge portion of its own crowd cheering for us. If nothing else, that is a sign that we have a lot to look forward to.

Postscript

Did the NBA tell the refs not to give continuation calls as much this year? The Blazers got screwed on so many of those calls tonight that it will give more fuel to the fire in the “Lakers get preferential treatment” machine. God knows we don’t need any more of that

And finally, what in the name of Jerry West was that Blazers mascot? Nik Stauskas torched us, but that will disturb me all night. That is all.