Los Angeles Lakers: 4 Lessons from win over New York Knicks

The Los Angeles Lakers are going to have to “Send a message” to the rest of the NBA about rough plays to their players.

Now you just saw the hard fall that AD took on the previous page. That was incidental contact. Randle had nothing to do with that injury. Now, lets discuss the cheap shots that happened that probably will be addressed by Kiki Vandeweghe at the NBA offices in New York.

Knicks power forward, Bobby Portis was sent to the showers early with a Flagrant 2 for hitting Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the head. As you can see here, there was no play on the ball and he wound up and swung at KCP’s head.

This is also the guy that fought his own teammate when he was in Chicago. Nikola Mirotic and Portis got in a fight in practice and Mirotic ended up with broken bones in his face. Looking at Portis’ expression as the video was being reviewed, it looked like he had no remorse.  Caldwell-Pope left the floor for a period of time to be evaluated in the concussion protocol. He did return, and helped the Lakers pull away in the fourth quarter.

KCP wasn’t the only Laker to take a cheap shot in this game. JaVale McGee got collared around his neck that drew a Flagrant 1 foul from former teammate Reggie Bullock.

The Los Angeles Lakers are now the hottest commodity in the NBA right now. Sure the Milwaukee Bucks have the best record, but they don’t have the shine and the media exposure. Giannis is the “Greek Freak”, but he’s one player. The Lakers are a entertainment machine right now. Jealousy is floating around the NBA. Teams are going to try stuff like this going forward.

The Lakers are going to have to lay some wood of their own. Let’s look at how the Lakers handled this.

You see LeBron James getting involved and Rajon Rondo trying to play peace maker. This is not the way this needs to be handled. You find a few players on the bench that have no problems putting players on the floor.

Jared Dudley and Dwight Howard definitely fit the bill perfectly. Both were not in the game, so they couldn’t get involved here. You sub them in to send a message to the Knicks and the rest of the NBA that this type of play won’t fly. If the opposing team sees their players flying into the third row, they’ll think twice about this type of behavior.

This type of play is not over for the Lakers. For the majority of the season, the Lakers have embarrassed the rest of the NBA with their numerous highlight plays and dunks. This is the way lesser teams might push back.

On a side note, if Rajon Rondo can put up his dukes against Chris Paul, where was that energy against Bobby Portis? Oh well, moving on.