The Los Angeles Lakers suffered a tough overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Here are five takeaways from the game.
This is the Los Angeles Lakers that the front office had in mind! Showtime is BACK…for one night. The Lakers lost a heart breaker to the San Antonio Spurs 143-142 in a game that no matter what happens for the rest of the season will rank as the game of the year. In a back and forth game that saw LeBron James go from getting hit in the eye to trying to call a timeout to knocking down a 28-footer to send it into overtime (More on him later.) Kyle Kuzma finished the game one point shy of his career high with 37 points while grabbing eight rebounds. LeBron James finished with 32 points and 14 rebounds. Josh Hart finished with 20 off the bench.
The Los Angeles Lakers may have lost this game, but they have now found conclusive evidence concerning the rotation and what direction this franchise needs to go to be effective in the vision of Magic Johnson, Rob Pelinka and Jeanie Buss. I never believed the cliche’…”In every dark cloud there is a silver lining.” I still don’t, but last night’s game was about as close to that statement you can get considering the circumstances.
With the suspensions of starters Rajon Rondo and Brandon Ingram, the Lakers inserted Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma as the starters. Both played very strong floor games and knocked down shots.
The Lakers are 0-3 right now and the news of the day in La La Land will be that the sky is falling and what in the world is wrong with the Lakers. Let me shock everyone…NOTHING IS WRONG! That can’t be corrected.
On one condition…Everyone has to do their jobs and everyone has to play hard and compete! This game was totally different from the first two games against the Blazers and Rockets. In the first two games, the only players I saw play hard on a consistent basis was Josh Hart and JaVale McGee. Last night everyone that touched the floor…played hard! Luke Walton had issues with the officiating aka “cut the check” but listen here…
In my opinion his technical foul came one game late, but he can actually make an argument here that he couldn’t make after the first two games. If all of your players are aggressive, you can complain and have an argument. To be clear, Walton does have beef because Josh Hart had no business not seeing the free throw line once.
The constant “The Lakers will it figure out” argument was straight garbage because if they do not play hard, they can’t improve. Now everyone can take a look at what the Lakers have on their roster and make moves based on what happened last night.
I know what I saw last night Lakers fans. The Lakers had start moving the minutes meter over to the young guys and that play hard with some energy. Let’s get started with the breakdown…
The magic words of the day are…“Played” and “Hard”! Here are five takeaways from the loss.