Lake Show Life
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Los Angeles Lakers: 4 Lessons from the first road loss of the season

By Ronald Agers

Jan 27, 2021; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia 76ers forward Tobias Harris (12) celebrates with guard Ben Simmons (25) and center Joel Embiid (21) after scoring the game winning basket during the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Lakers at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 27, 2021; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia 76ers forward Tobias Harris (12) celebrates with guard Ben Simmons (25) and center Joel Embiid (21) after scoring the game winning basket during the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Lakers at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /
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Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports – Los Angeles Lakers /

The Los Angeles Lakers had their first real test on the road playing the Eastern Conference top-seeded Philadelphia 76ers. Honestly there were two games played on Wednesday night. The first game was 44 minutes long while the second one lasted 4 minutes. Don’t believe us?

Lake Show Life breaks down what else happened in Lake Show Life Lessons! The only Los Angeles Lakers extended post-game report with in-depth analysis and highlights.

Wow! A whole lot of things can happen in 20 seconds. But what led up to those 20 seconds was even more remarkable. See this game was over with about four minutes to go. The Sixers were dominating before the proverbial Los Angeles Lakers switch went into serious overdrive.

The Philadelphia 76ers almost got swallowed up with a ridiculous 16-0 Lakers run to lose the lead 106 -105 after a perfectly run play got Anthony Davis an easy layup. All the Lakers and Sixers beat writers covering the game probably went into serious rewrite and edit mode making changes. Then…

https://twitter.com/espn/status/1354631754175275009

The Lakers finally lost a game on the road after winning ten straight games. Streak over. The battle of the conference number one seeds went (FINALLY!) to the Philadelphia 76ers 107-106.

While watching ESPN’s SportsCenter for more information, Tim Legler stated that the Lakers switched unnecessarily. Let’s break the play down…

  • Danny Green passed the ball in to Seth Curry up near halfcourt. LeBron James was defending Tobias Harris.
  • The Sixers ran a pick play to force the switch which left Alex Caruso on Harris while LeBron switched to Seth Curry.
  • Curry held LeBron attention long enough for Tobias to dribble left and shoot. 
  • LeBron came to help too late and Harris hits the shot game over.

Here’s how Lake Show Life sees it.

While Legler criticized the switch, the Lakers did all of the right things here. Seth Curry was a major part of this play because up until recently, he was the top 3 point shooter in the NBA. He has to be accounted for in this situation. 

Taking things further, this is the same defense that got the Lake Show to the top defensive efficiency in the NBA. With very little practice time over the length of this season, there’s no time for adlibs.

Finally, Tobias Harris hit a great shot with a hand in his face. You’d think he would start to earn that max level contract sooner or later.

That play wouldn’t be up for discussion if the Lakers hadn’t been totally outplayed the first 44 minutes the game. The intensity of the Lakers up to the last four minutes were two different stories altogether and we mean DIFFERENT!

There were plenty of things that went wrong in this game that will be covered in detail, but the Lakers have allowed some bad habits from last year to creep up.

Missed free throws:

Free-throws have been a problem for the Lakers this season. Huge blowouts and Anthony Davis having a career-high in free throw percentages last year cleared up even Dwight Howard’s atrocious average. This year, AD is shooting a declining 71 percent. Davis and James combined to miss four free throws in a row in the last quarter. Was it the sole reason for the loss? No. But look at the final score and wonder if they could have used one of those misses.

Slow starts:

The bad trend of slow starts began in Chicago and it cost them big time in the first and third quarters of this one. There is a common denominator of these starts that will be covered.

The Lakers have a weakness at the wing position:

Ben Simmons gashed the interior defense collecting a triple-double with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. Tobias Harris on the other hand hurt the Lake Show from the perimeter scoring 24 points and grabbing 7 rebounds. Even Danny Green was putting in work from the outside scoring 14 points. Wesley Matthews might have to start sliding down the rotation for Talen Horton-Tucker and Alex Caruso.

To the new Los Angeles Lakers fans that are checking us out for the first time, welcome to Lake Show Life Lessons. Our extended post-game report with video analysis will cover the progress for the Los Angeles Lakers the entire season!

 Over the next several pages we will provide highlights of certain players and coaches. Afterward, the comment section is loaded with knowledgeable fans adding their basketball knowledge. We usually start with the stars.

 Let’s get to Lesson One to find out who!

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