Los Angeles Lakers: LeBron takes over and beats Memphis, 4 Lessons
By Ronald Agers
Based on advanced stats, the Los Angeles Lakers are world-beaters. Lake Show Life calls it fool’s gold!
Three teams have held the number one seed in the last week. The Phoenix Suns (Now in second), the Los Angeles Clippers (Now in third) and now the Lakers. Of course this doesn’t mean much at this point because every team seems to be one to two games out of first place in the loss column.
But here’s where the Lakers stand out. The Lakers actually entered this game as the only NBA team ranked in the top five in offensive (Second at 115.7 points a game) and defensive efficiency (Fourth at 104.5 points per game).
In the Lakers’ six wins, look at the teams that they beat.
- On Christmas Day, the Lakers beat a Dallas Mavericks team without Kristaps Porzingis that played so bad, Luka Doncic called out the team’s toughness after the game.
- Then they beat a bad Minnesota Timberwolves without Karl Anthony Towns.
- They beat a San Antonio Spurs team twice without LaMarcus Aldridge.
- Now they took a two game set with Memphis without their three top players in Ja’ Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Justise Winslow.
The Los Angeles Lakers have allowed huge Memphis runs in both games of this two-game set. After allowing a huge 27-5 run on Sunday, the Lakers allowed two in the first half with of 21-9 and 14-5 run in. This goes back further to the two games in Texas where they allowed the Spurs to hang around as well with offensive explosions from young players.
After blowing Dallas and Minnesota out of the gym, the Lakers have played down to the level of their competition. Only Portland burned them. What’s the difference? The Blazers have stars. The teams the Lakers are feasting on don’t. Hence the skewed stats.
The center position is getting worse.
The center matchup was a disaster. With Marc Gasol saddled with fouls, Gorgui Dieng and Jonas Valanciunas collectively dissected the Lakers inside. They combined for 26 points and 15 rebounds while Gasol finished with 3 points and 5 fouls.
Either give Markieff Morris more minutes or move AD to the center spot. At this rate, Montrezl Harrell will be worn out banging on centers by playoff time. At this point, find some minutes for Devontae Cacok. Is he under sized? Sure. But when have you seen him get bullied on a basketball court? We’ll wait.
Hopefully Alex Caruso and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will be back in the lineup at Staples Center.
No need to discuss Schroder. Let’s discuss KCP and AC Fresh. It will be wonderful to watch those guys move the ball and cut to the basket in the structure of the offense. maybe then LeBron doesn’t have to take the ball and play pick and roll with AD to survive bad teams!
The final lesson is bigger than basketball!