Lakers Podcast: Wes Matthews was most disappointing of opening night

The Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Los Angeles Clippers on opening night and Wesley Matthews was particularly bad.

The Los Angeles Lakers started the 2020-21 season the same way that the team started the 2019-20 season: with a loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. Now, the purple and gold look to end this season the same way they did last year: with a championship.

There was nothing outright terrible about the way the Lakers played in this game, they were just so… meh. The Lakers showcased the textbook example of a championship hangover on the night that they got their rings, especially after a shortened offseason.

LeBron James and Anthony Davis combined for only 40 points in 59 combined minutes, which is fairly low for the superstar duo. New faces Dennis Schroder and Montrezl Harrell played great offensively, although they were not part of the championship-winning Lakers.

Surprisingly, the most disappointing player from opening night was not a player that was suffering a championship hangover. It was a new face: Wesley Matthews.

You could make the case of Marc Gasol being more disappointing, but I had fairly decent expectations for Matthews and he just was not good in this game. He did not do a single thing offensively and was not good defensively. I broke down the numbers in the latest episode of the Lake Show Life Podcast.

Daniel Preciado and I talked about the Lakers’ opening night loss and previewed the team’s next game, which falls on Christmas Day on primetime against the Dallas Mavericks.

The Mavericks present a compelling matchup with Luka Doncic — the preseason MVP frontrunner — leading the way. However, with no Kristaps Porzingis, the Lakers may be too much to handle for the Mavs.

We give our Purple and Gold players of the game, which are role players on each team that we should be focusing on while watching the game. We also picked against the spread as well as the game’s total points scored, with both of us going 1-1 in the first game of the season.

If you have any questions for us on the Lake Show Life Podcast be sure to leave them in the comments down below or in the form of a review on Apple Podcasts!