Los Angeles Lakers: 3 lessons from “LeBron night” vs. the Cavaliers

Marc Gasol was bad. Real bad. The only thing that was worse was the last game he played.

As you can see here, Andre Drummond is driving to the basket. Marc Gasol could be there in the picture and maybe he’s not. The point here is his quality of play is like the the Invisible man playing. Folks he was terrible.

Check out this quote from Sam Smith from Bulls.com in his Saturday post game report about Marc Gasol and the Los Angeles Lakers.

"The Lakers, 13-4, aren’t a great team; they have two great players. They started Marc Gasol at center. He was scoreless in 19 minutes and looked worse than that."

At first glance, this looked like a writer trying to sell the fact that the Lakers caught the Bulls on a bad night instead of them stinking up the state of Illinois with their play. The Bulls were down by 30 points right at halftime right?

But this writer is a New York best selling author. After watching Gasol play in this game, the post game report deserved another look. Fans, the Lakers need a center bad. Gasol was worse in this game than he was in Chicago. To put this in perspective, Gasol actually scored in this game!

Gasol had three fouls in the first three minutes of the game. What was even worse, in the second half, AD hit him with a perfect pass at the rim. All he had to do was take a step and dunk it. Instead, he looked a two smaller Cavs players and hesitated. Marc was lucky they fouled him.

Now, let’s look at a visual of how big men are supposed to take the ball to the rim.

Speaking of Montrezl Harrell, he was huge in this game bringing energy that was lacking when Gasol was on the floor. Before he entered the Lakers were down 12-6.

In 26 minutes, Harrell scored 15 points (6-9 shooting!), 6 rebounds (3 offensive!), and a block. He led the team in plus/minus (Yes that includes LeBron too!) with a +18.

One more quote from Smith that applies until this issue is dealt with.

"“The Lakers have size in James and Davis that’s difficult to defend, but it’s far more than that. Other teams are as big or bigger since the Lakers’ second unit is smaller with Montrezl Harrell at center. It’s the way the much more experienced Lakers play defense, pressuring, rotating, bumping and bashing.”"

The Lakers can get away with this playing bad teams. Cleveland is improving but they are at the bottom of the NBA in scoring. Moreover, it still took an inspired LeBron James to lead the team to victory. Sam Smith might be a homer in his words, but he knows enough basketball to see weaknesses. Gasol is now a liability that the team is running out of ways to hide.

The Los Angeles Lakers get to prove this page wrong on Wednesday against the Philadelphia 76ers. They have Joel Embiid and Dwight Howard. Lakers fans remember Dwight right?

Lake Show Life is extending it’s post-game coverage this season! There will be a short post-game report shortly after the game in addition to the extended post-game of Lake Show Life Lessons! 

More championship coverage for championship fans.