Los Angeles Lakers: Lessons from the loss to Houston Rockets

Kyle Kuzma competed hard and is becoming a nightly threat

I want to tell the Los Angeles Lakers fans something…Kyle Kuzma is going to be the Lakers most consistent player. Write it down, keep this postgame report, whatever. This dude has a motor and he does not take any plays off.

Kyle Kuzma scored 24 points and dished out 5 dimes and continued his very strong floor game for the Lakers. Plus he kept the Lakers in shouting difference in the second half by dropping 12 in the 3rd quarter. Look, he had his issues with guarding Harden in the game, but you can chalk that up to inexperience. Harden knows all the tricks in drawing fouls and putting players in bad positions. This is a great learning tool for Kuzma. Now he will be able to adjust for future matchups.

Now it’s not like he didn’t get a piece of Harden now…

With time running down on the shot clock, Kuzma  hits James Harden with a behind the back dribble and hits a fade away 3-pointer going to his left. Yes, I know what you are thinking. Where’s the foul? Yep he got fouled and no, it was not called. But Kuzma did not let it get to him. He just kept playing.

Then he decided to take Harden off the dribble and meet Clint Capela at the rim. Let’s just say, Capela got a real close look at the explosion capabilities of on Kyle Kuzma!

It would easy for a young player to be intimidated and down on themselves the way Harden played in the game. But Harden looked very bad defensively on this play. Watch how he allows Kuz to go by. This is how you take the challenge and compete. Make Harden work both ends of the floor. It’s common knowledge that Harden doesn’t play good defense. Sometimes you can wear down a scorer by scoring.