Los Angeles Lakers: 4 lessons from victory over Chicago Bulls

The Los Angeles Lakers were able to snap their losing streak against the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night. Check out our four lessons from the game!

The Los Angeles Lakers are in a state of turmoil right now. After being the laughingstock of the NBA for the past 48 hours, losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the worst team in the NBA on Sunday night ending their 12-game losing streak, the Chicago Bulls came into Staples Center looking to end their seven-game losing streak.

No rest for the weary for the Lakers, they play the worst team in the Cavs on Sunday, on Tuesday in comes the second worst team in the NBA, the Chicago Bulls.

I mean the Staples Center is the place for tanking teams to end losing streaks right? The New York Knicks ended their eight-game losing streak not too long ago. After the Lakers lost to the Cavs, this game turned into a must win for the franchise and Luke Walton’s job, who is now on the proverbial hot seat. Anyone who thinks different…okay.

As this piece is being read, this game takes about seven rows of seats back from the real storylines going on in Laker land! The news about LeBron James’ evaluation comes out and more rumors of Walton’s tenure as the Lakers Head Coach.

Let’s just say it’s complicated, to say the least.

The Los Angeles Lakers ended up winning this game 107-100 in a game so bad that I was challenged by my father, Walter Agers to make this postgame entertaining. Well it’s going to take some work because this game was absolutely bad on both sides. Well somebody had to win.

I want to give a special shout out to Pippen Ain’t Easy, the Chicago Bulls website who also have the challenge of doing a post game as well. Good luck!

For a team whose coach is in so much trouble that it is rumored that Jeanie Buss is the only person standing between Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka’s wishes to send him to the unemployment line, the Lakers came out listless, again.

But not because Luke Walton did not make adjustments.

Tyson Chandler and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope were called up to the starting lineup, replacing Josh Hart and JaVale McGee. One of these moves I could understand (KCP for Hart) and the other (Chandler for McGee? More on that later…stay tuned!).

The Lakers finished the first quarter up 19-18 and the halftime score was 44-43. My point? I think the Lakers could have easily lost to any other team last night. The Bulls dysfunction makes what’s going on with the Lakers actually enjoyable.

The second half was when the Lakers came out and took the game over. With the game tied at 48 (No typo!) with 9:24 remaining the Lakers went on a 13-7 run including eight straight to get some type of lead. Guess who was the catalyst?

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Lonzo Ball.

He led the charge with 11 straight points which included three 3-pointers.

Words from Luke Walton:

"“He’s got a knack for hitting big shots. He’s not afraid to knock down a 3 when we needed it,” Lakers coach Luke Walton said. “What is great is seeing him more confident in getting to the rim. He can draw contact but still be able to finish.”"

Believe it or not, the Lakers found a way to take the joy out of a win. First, the Lakers blew an 18-point lead in the 4th quarter and let it dwindle down to five. A couple of KCP free throws late sealed the win.

Two, there is a fun promotion in the Staples Center. If the Lakers hold an opponent under 100 points, the crowd get free tacos. Man the Lakers had the Bulls at 98 points with time running down and this happens.

I’m literally laughing as I write this because Ivica Zubac fouled a three-point shooter. The Chicago Bulls couldn’t throw the ball in the Pacific Ocean neck-deep all night plus Harrison just threw the ball at the basket facing the other way! But what really was funny was the second clip where you can hear the fan screaming at the Bulls over them messing up the chance to get the tacos! The Bulls ended up making two of the three free throws…no tacos.

A special shout out to the “Players Only” crew on NBA TV, being Brendan Haywood, Isiah Thomas and Derek Fisher. They were more fun than the game. ANYONE that can get Rafael De La Ghetto reference into an NBA game…

…needs their own show!!! Bless you, guys!!!

Let’s get to it.

Lake Show Life lessons!

The Los Angeles Lakers lose this game without Lonzo Ball

This is no exaggeration Lakers fans. Lonzo Ball was the real deal and he played possibly his most influential game in the most important game of his career. When the team was struggling to create distance from the Bulls, he took it upon himself to provide the spark and do it himself…

"“It was a must-win today, I knew I had to pick up whatever I could,” said Ball, who also had eight rebounds and six assists. “We were missing shots early but we got it together.” “We’ve been losing and wanted to go out on the road with some momentum,” Ball said."

That’s being quite humble. Let me channel my inner LaVar Ball…

Lonzo Ball was easily the best player in the building scoring 19 points while grabbing 8 rebounds and dishing out 6 assists. What the most impressive aspect of his game against the Bulls was the aggressiveness. I mean that “Get some of this!” aggressiveness!!

No more excuses Lonzo! The precedent is set. Any more timidness warrants any criticism you get.

He was that good.

Lakers fans will be hard pressed to remember the last time he led the team in shot attempts. He shot 17 times! He shot well hitting 8 of them. When the Lakers couldn’t hit a 3 pointer to save their lives in the first half (2-15), Ball lead the Lakers surge in the second half (6-11) with those important three shots from deep in a row! He didn’t even miss a free throw! He didn’t take one, but hey! Baby steps!

I’m not a fan of how Luke Walton has dealt with Lonzo Ball this season to say the least…

Los Angeles Lakers: Luke Walton is sabotaging Lonzo Ball

Lonzo Ball did not play in the fourth quarter of the Los Angeles Lakers loss to the Magic. After playing well the last few games, what gives?

But Luke Walton is going to have to find a way to make sure this guy is in a position to succeed no matter when LeBron James comes back to the lineup. Lonzo needs the ball in his hands to do what he knows.

Period.

Brandon Ingram was…well…okay?!

The more games that Brandon Ingram plays, the more fans are going to have to take him as is.

You are not going to get a flashy loud type of game that commands attention like Jayson Tatum, the Splash Brothers, Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry, or Kevin Durant.

One of the funniest moments during the Players Only broadcast was Isiah Thomas and Brendan Haywood arguing about the comparisons between Ingram and the “Greek Freak” Giannis Antetokounmpo. For the record, Thomas thought Haywood was nuts when he tried to make the comparison. I did too, but man they were funny.

Ingram is just a guy that just probes and uses his instincts to play the game. Kind of like this play here.

See the speed? Brandon Ingram just casually bring the ball up and finds JaVale McGee in stride for the slam dunk. Then he just runs back down the floor. Nothing more…nothing less!

B.I. scored 16 points while grabbing 9 rebounds and dishing out seven assists. Think about this, he almost got a triple-double but it is the quietest stat line you will ever see. It’s like no one would have even noticed.

The noise that Lonzo Ball made in this game was supposed to be made by this guy. I think this is what everyone wants, but it remains to see if he has that fire to be that guy. Don’t get me wrong, Ingram is really smooth on the court, seems almost effortless.

Maybe that’s his charm on the court, maybe we should adjust to him instead of the other way around. We shall see.

Kyle Kuzma did not shoot great…but he had a great game!

Kyle Kuzma must have watched film of the last three games because adjustments were made. For the last three to four games, we knew one thing was going to happen.

When Kyle Kuzma got the ball, it was more than likely going up. As strange as this sounds, he may have helped the Lakers more in this game than he did when he lit the Detroit Pistons up for 41 points.

Someone got into his ear (or showed him the Lake Show Life post-game reports!) that he needed to do more on the court than just looking to score.

Kyle Kuzma produced his third double-double of the season, scoring 16 points and snatching 12 rebounds. He only shot 6-15 from the field and was 1-6 from the land of the extra point, but the good thing is that he didn’t keep firing up shots and hurting the team with bad shot selection.

Now he electrified the crowd now! It only took a few seconds…

After receiving the pass from Lonzo Ball, he just left Kris Dunn in the dust after a bad closeout and made Zach LaVine make a business decision about testing him and wonder if Kuz should get an invite to the Slam Dunk Contest at All-Star weekend in a few weeks.

Kuzma could have easily chased that reaction all night long, remember that was the first bucket of the game. He could have easily been seduced into thinking it was his night.

It wasn’t. It was Lonzo’s! Kyle recognized that.

That’s a major hurdle being jumped by Kuzma.

Message to Luke Walton…This better work!

After the Cleveland Cavaliers loss, Walton stated that there would be lineup changes.

One was no surprise…one was a shock! At least to me.

Josh Hart was benched for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and JaVale McGee was benched for Tyson Chandler. The KCP move worked out well with him scoring 17 points and playing some good defense on Zach LaVine (Some of it was self-checked!). Caldwell-Pope was confident and played like he wasn’t trying to give the spot back anytime soon.

Now for JaVale McGee…this one was different. Let’s start here in the game vs. the Jazz…

Donovan Mitchell plays the high pick and roll with Rudy Gobert. Josh Hart goes over the pick (Big mistake!) and Mitchell takes off and dunks on McGee.

JaVale voiced his frustrations about the defensive schemes:

"“I just feel like some of the coverages that we were in should have been adjusted earlier,” McGee said. “But, we didn’t adjust and they kept succeeding at what they were doing.” He added, when asked about Mitchell: “They were setting good screens, and he was getting to the rim, and [Rudy] Gobert was dropping really hard, so it was kind of a conundrum being in between the Gobert lob or the Donovan Mitchell layup.”"

Yes, JaVale they should have…like in the preseason. This is nothing new. The Lakers have put him in this position all year-long. I guess an embarrassing dunk on national TV was the last straw.

Now Luke Walton’s take:

"“The deep drop is one of our coverages, and when we’re playing it the way we should, we’re actually really good in our deep drop,” he said after practice on Saturday. “Between some of the bigs we have — JaVale, Zu, Tyson — we clog up that paint. We’ve got long perimeter guards to get the back pressure, so it’s one of our better coverages. “We didn’t do it great last night. They shot a low percentage, but we could’ve done a much better job. To us, as a coaching staff, it’s always, ‘Well, let’s just play our coverage better. Let’s do a better job of what we’ve done pretty well this year.’ We switched the coverage up and had some success with our switching. We’ll move forward and get better.”"

Now all of a sudden McGee is on the bench? Coincidence? You make the call.

No offense to Tyson Chandler, he played well. He scored 8 points, didn’t miss a shot, grabbed 3 rebounds, has 2 assists and a block.

The point here is that JaVale McGee was the Lakers ONLY defense for the first eight games of the year until Tyson Chandler put on a Lakers uniform. If he is upset, he deserves to be. But McGee went out and played hard. Commendable.

For Luke Walton…

LeBron James and Rajon Rondo haven’t played consistent defense all year-long. Where were their benchings? How about a mean look? How about a “Umm…you missed that rotation.” Both players have been guilty of so many missed rotations that the amount would be an in-depth piece within itself. This looks petty.

When LeBron James and Rajon Rondo come back and pull the Lakers out of this mess…

Will you hold them to the same standard that you are holding JaVale McGee?

If not…

This is another vote for the Magic Johnson/Rob Pelinka regime to fire you. Because you have lost all credibility as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Breaking News to Lake Show Life…

LeBron James will NOT travel on the road trip for the next two games against the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets according to ESPN. The Lakers have not ruled him out against Golden State next Monday (Umm….spoiler alert: Don’t count on it! I’d like to be wrong…but I doubt it!).

The Los Angeles Lakers are at the halfway point in their long journey through the NBA season. Lake Show Life will be there every step of the way. Continue to check in for Lakers news, previews and reviews.