Los Angeles Lakers: 5 Lessons from loss to Los Angeles Clippers

The Los Angeles Lakers started opening night against their hallway rivals, the Los Angeles Clippers. Bad execution, poor energy and awful rotations late lead to an opening night loss. 

The Los Angeles Lakers seem to keep this site extremely busy and reflective sometimes. Just like the Lakers fanbase, the staff would really like to see the Lakers do well. On the other hand, for credit-ability sake, the Lake Show Life has to tell the truth. So here goes.

For one moonlight night in Los Angeles, The Lakers showed why Laker Nation should be worried about the Clippers. The Los Angeles Clippers withheld a flurry from the Lakers early, but stayed the course and beat the Lakers soundly 112-102. This was done without Paul George playing.

The storyline of the NBA will be centered around the Staples Center all season. Both teams will be written in Sharpie ink as favorites for making the NBA Finals. The Clippers reminded the Lakers that the Staples Center is not located in Vegas.

The common sense narrative here is about the two stars, LeBron James and Anthony Davis. If this  Lakers team is going to win against championship contenders, just as a general rule going forward, LeBron James and Anthony Davis will have to set the tone. Not to say that they didn’t early in this game, it just lasted about a half hour. After racing out to a 13-2 lead, Doc Rivers brought in Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell. The physicality and skill set in and the Lakers never matched it.

LeBron James was sloppy offensively (more on this later) turning the ball over five times in crucial situations and Davis spent too much time on the perimeter, falling in love with fadeaway jumpers. Ivica Zubac looked like he wanted no part of the Lakers front-line in the first five minutes of the game, there’s no reason why the Lakers couldn’t use their size to beat them up down low.

It’s not all on the stars here, there were obviously other factors at play (Frank Vogel). But this season will be about LeBron or AD being able to produce in crunch time.

James and Davis combined for only two total points in the fourth quarter. When both teams are tied at 85, watching the Clippers outscore the Lakers by double digits in that final frame is not a good look.

Let’s get to the first edition of Lake Show Life lessons! It’s not going to be pretty.

It’s something about Patrick Beverley that exposes LeBron James for some reason. 

No matter how talented a player is in the NBA, there is always some random player that always has their number.

Charles Barkley says he can’t stop Popeye Jones. Shaquille O’Neal never could stop Bryant “Big Country” Reeves. Isiah Thomas couldn’t stop Steve Colter. Now all of these players have a couple of things in common. One, they are not superstars and two, you may have never heard of them before. None of these superstars can explain why they had so much trouble. They just did.

LeBron James has a guy that fits that category. His name is Patrick Beverley. If you strongly disagree, more than likely you didn’t see the entire game.

Lake Show Life had a comparison breakdown of Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James about their strengths and weaknesses. One of LeBron’s weaknesses listed was his avoidance of the post. It was surprising that James was down in the post banging with Beverley.

Ten seconds into the game, James sounds off the BBQ chicken alert and bullies Beverley down in the post. Seals him off and scores very easy. Zubac’s defense continues to remind Lakers fans to ease up on the decision by Magic Johnson to trade him at the trade deadline.

Lake Show Life has gone on record numerous times that no player in the NBA can stop James in the post. He is too strong and his vision allows him to carve up the defense in the post.

Check out this play the next time down the floor.

https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1186836778654658560

Right here, James takes Beverley down in the post and then fronts him and drives on him. He commands the double team from Zubac and makes the pass out to Danny Green for the 3-pointer. What’s the point? James was never seen in the post again. Beverley took on the challenge and survived. While James’ energy started to wane throughout the game, Beverley kept competing and his teammates were inspired as well to compete on the defensive end.

By the end of the game, this happened.

Lakers were down 8 points with a chance to pull the game out, Beverley grabs a rebound off a missed free throw. He then gets the ball out to Lou Williams who finds Harrell under the basket for the basket and the foul. Game was basically over then.

Hopefully, this game will serve as a wake up call for James and the Lakers. With the hype surrounding this team, there are many players around the NBA that will get up to play this team. The Lakers have to compete and play hard every night. Beverley can’t match LeBron and his talent, but he sure set the tone for the Clippers in a way that James did not.

Speaking of James, let’s see how he did overall.

LeBron James will make the highlight reel for major sports networks. Doesn’t mean he played well.

James had a peculiar habit early last season that Lake Show Life covered last year. It was discovered that he tends to disappear in crunch time. Last year, he put on a show in his first game against Portland with slam dunks and provided excitement throughout the arena with his play.

Then the 4th quarter started and he disappeared while Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum led the Blazers to a win. Now he has Davis in the fold with a tie game going into crunch time. The Lakers got this right?

The Clippers raced by the Lakers in the 4th by the score of 27-17. Where was James?

He scored two points and did not impose his will on the game like someone who spent two months talking about a “Revenge Season”. 

James got out of the gate fast scoring early in the first frame, but then his floor game started to deteriorate scoring only 18 points (On 7-19 shots), with 9 rebounds and 8 assists. His efficiency basically disappeared with his scoring in the second half.

Now he had highlights.

https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1186861129508646913

After Landry Shamet blows this layup, Davis grabs the rebound and hits James with a pass. LeBron sees Lou Williams is the only player that can stop him from getting the basket. Williams makes the business decision to move and LeBron tears the rim down. Notice the stare down at the end.

A couple of things here. Let’s deal with reality here.

Number one, James was in perfect position to receive Davis’ pass. Why? He didn’t run back on defense with his teammates. He was cherry picking.

Number two, Lou Williams led a Clippers bench that destroyed the Lakers to the tune of 60-19. Sweet Lou outscored LeBron in this game and walked out with the win.

This one will definitely make SportsCenter.

On a side note, how long has James been in the NBA? Like isn’t this his 17th year? Why is it that players continue to try layups on this guy? Landry Shamet surely watched the NBA Finals back in 2016.

The Lakers are going to find a point guard to run the offense. The second LeBron took over running the point, the offense became stagnant. Remember that pick and roll offense that was lethal in the preseason? Wasn’t anywhere to be found in this game.

The Lakers have two players on the roster that can consistently get their own shot. Those two are AD and LeBron (Kyle Kuzma maybe when he gets back). It is important for the Lakers to play with pace. Every time the Lakers made a run at the Clippers, the ball was jumping. When the Lakers got in trouble, just like at times last year, LeBron became the ball stopper. At times it looked like he and Davis were taking turns on offense shooting the ball.

But James will make the highlight reels. Everybody happy?

Anthony Davis played okay, he just needs one small adjustment.

Davis had a double-double scoring 25 points and grabbing 10 rebounds (3 offensive). He also got people involved with 5 assists and blocked two shots.

Looking at the box score, you would think that Davis dominated in this game. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here’s the rub. Davis had 25 points at the end of the 3rd quarter, which means he didn’t scratch in crunch time.

Davis did not do enough to command a double team from the Clippers in this game. Sure he scored effectively, but the Clippers could live with the jumpers he kept throwing up.

Here’s what Davis needs to do going forward. Start getting position a couple of steps deeper to get closer to the basket. Many times throughout the game, Davis would receive the ball 12-15 feet from the basket and it gave the Clippers time to rotate to the basket and make things difficult for him.

In the first half, AD was aggressive and was in the paint. But as the game wore on, Davis found himself in this position too many times.

Even though Davis scores the basket, notice where Davis receives the ball. He’s almost at the 3 point line before he faces up Patrick Patterson and takes him to the basket to score.

As the game wore on, Davis started to depend on jump shots instead of making moves like the one above. The Clippers were getting bailed out as the game wore on. Davis was so far out on the perimeter, the Clippers were never going to double him.

In the post, he has to be doubled. When he is the paint and aggressive, nobody can stop him.

Let’s talk about a player than broke a Lakers record.

Danny Green broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring record for a Lakers debut. 

If it wasn’t for Danny Green’s performance in the 3rd quarter, this game could have been a blow out. The Lakers were on the ropes down 82-70. Then Danny Green decided that he wasn’t going to miss the entire quarter. Because he didn’t.

Many thought the Lakers spent too much money on Danny Green dropping $15 million annually for the next couple of years, but those thoughts are dead.

Green erased a twelve point lead and actually put the Lakers in the lead late in the quarter. Green’s hotter than fish grease shooting from deep sparked a 15-0 run in the third quarter to set up a showdown in the 4th.

Overall, Danny Green broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar‘s record for scoring in a debut. Green lit up the Clippers for 28 points on the strength of seven 3-point shots. Add 7 rebounds, 2 steals and a block, it was clear that Green was the best player on the court.

The next Lake Show Life lesson was one of the major reasons why the Lakers lost.

Frank Vogel reminded Los Angeles Lakers fans of Luke Walton. His rotations in the last quarter made no sense

Remember the part of the game when Green couldn’t miss? He scored 18 in the 3rd quarter alone and brought the Lakers back by himself. I mean most NBA coaches would keep a player that was in a zone on the floor until he at least missed right?

It’s something about Lakers coaches these days making rotation decisions that drives fans up the wall.

The way Green was shooting, he could have scored 40 points and the Lakers may have have won this game.

Instead, Vogel put Green on the bench and found minutes for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

Really?

Kawhi Leonard must have sent a limo to get KCP to the arena safe, because Leonard got anywhere on the floor that he wanted, scoring 30 points in his Clippers debut. After a slow start, Leonard scored seven straight baskets in the second quarter alone.

https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1186873474507100161

What did Caldwell-Pope do? Zero points in 27 minutes. When the Lakers lost momentum in the 4th quarter, guess who was on the floor? It wasn’t the guy that was shooting the lights out. It was the guy that shot like the lights were out.

No matter how NBA fans feel about Rich Paul, performances like this from KCP shows that he is head and shoulders better than any agent in the NBA and it’s not even close. How this guy continues to get minutes in the rotation brings up nightmares of Luke Walton’s adjustments and rotations. Even Byron Scott had to roll his eyes on some of his decisions.

Instead of using the Lakers huge front line to wear down the Clippers, Vogel went right back to the small ball lineup that didn’t work in China. Remember, Davis said he didn’t want to play the five-spot. Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee combined for 7 points and 8 rebounds.

A loss to the Utah Jazz on Friday will start whispers of which of the three assistant coaches can make better adjustments.