2. Let’s not forget what the Los Angeles Lakers did in the playoffs last year
It is easy to only look at the most recent result for the Los Angeles Lakers and the most recent result is not a good one. The Lakers lost Game 1 and now trail in a series that they don’t have hourt-court advantage in. That is exactly the opposite of what you want to happen in Game 1.
But when we look back at the Lakers’ title run last season we then realize that this happened not once but twice to the Lakers. Los Angeles lost Game 1 to both the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets before going on to gentleman’s sweep both teams, winning in five games.
Of course,the situations are different as they are not in a bubble and the Suns are not either of those teams, but it helps represent what happens in a typical Lakers playoff series.
Frank Vogel is the master of adjustments and sometimes those adjustments lead him and the Lakers to not play the best basketball right away. Once they lock-in, the other team is hopeless. That is what happened to both Portland and Houston as the Lakers thoroughly outplayed them.
We saw an exaggerated version of this in the play-in game against the Golden State Warriors. The Lakers made the right adjustments, starting hitting the shots they were missing in the first half and were very obviously the better team in the second half.
That will happen in this series. By the time it is all over and the Lakers win their fourth game of the series it won’t even look like the same Suns team that played in Game 1.