2. The Bench was just BAD!
The bench play for the Los Angeles Lakers basically won the game on Saturday night against Portland. Against the Raptors…not so much.
The bench was non-existent in this game. Rajon Rondo was wildly inefficient giving up dribble penetration that contributed to breakdowns all night long. Don’t let the ten points fool you. Those points were scored when the game was out of reach. By the way, he was on the bench too while the Lakers made the big run in the fourth quarter.
The rhythm of the players seemed off all night long. The substitution patterns of Luke Walton has to come into play here.
The coaching concept here is simple. Find a combination of five players that will play hard and compete on defense and let them play. There you go. Everyone else needs to sit. Doesn’t matter if you are the supposed leaders (That would be Rajon Rondo and LeBron James here!) of the team. No defense, no play. Ball is a willing defender. Rondo is not.
If Luke Walton wants to send a message, bench LeBron James for a minute for these breakdowns. Have Rajon Rondo watch Lonzo Ball play for about 35-40 minutes a night until he decides to stop allowing the opposing point guard easy access to passing lanes and layups to the basket.
But it bears repeating…
Magic Johnson tells ESPN 'we're not going to fire' Luke Walton barring something drastic, confirming what he said to the LA Times earlier on Sunday. https://t.co/1pkCEFuPWb
— Ohm Youngmisuk (@NotoriousOHM) November 5, 2018
If this is not drastic enough…maybe this is!