Los Angeles Lakers move closer to elimination in Game 5 loss to Suns

There’s not much to say about Game 5 other than this was a must win game for the Los Angeles Lakers. Why? The winner goes on to win 82 percent of the playoff series! Phoenix ran the Lakers out the gym in the first half to win easily and the season finale for the Lake Show might be on Thursday night.

The Los Angeles Lakers went into the Game 5 matchup against the Phoenix Suns without Anthony Davis, who injured his left groin in the previous game. While many media outlets gave the Lakers no chance, Lake Show Life did come up with a survival guide with tips to win the game despite AD’s absence.

•  Los Angeles Lakers: 4 Lessons on how the Lakers can survive Phoenix

Here are the cliff notes of what the Lakers needed to do not just to play without AD, but win another game!

• The Los Angeles Lakers needed LeBron James to score 40 points for the rest of the series!
• Dennis Schroder had at least two games to prove Ronald Agers wrong!
• Pressure the Suns guards full court and start bodying them!
• Play ALL THREE CENTERS and start laying the wood to Deandre Ayton!

The Lakers started the game on a 5-0 run. Oh and the uniforms they wore looked nice.

It’s difficult to report a game without totally dogging out the team you are supposed to cover so Lake Show Life will let the score tell the story.

Phoenix Suns: 115, Los Angeles Lakers: 85

Game 6 is on Thursday night and it’s looking like the last game of the season.

Don’t bring up the “Memorial Day Massacre” when they lost to the Boston Celtics in the 1985 NBA Finals. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is not walking through that door. Magic Johnson is not walking through the door. James Worthy, Byron Scott, Kurt Rambis are not walking in and Pat Riley is not around to coach the team. At last check Jerry West was the running the Los Angeles Clippers.

Here’s a thought. Call up Portland in the offseason and offer 2/3rds of the roster and Lakers season tickets for the next 25 years for Damian Lillard.

The good from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss:

(Checking notes…) Nothing. There’s a comment section for readers if they saw something. Good luck!

Social Media was funny! 

The one thing Lakers Nation is very good at is letting the Lakers have it when they stink. Enjoy!

• The LeBron Lakers needed vs the LeBron they got
• LeBron: “can you guys please help me?” The rest of the Lakers roster:
• LeBron, KCP, Kuzma, Wes Matthews, and Andre Drummond in China next year
• Dennis Schroder, Wesley Matthews & LeBron James – Los Angeles Lakers vs Phoenix Suns, June 1st, 2021.
• LeBron during half: “How to shoot 3s”
• LeBron without a super team
• LeBron without superstar help
• LeBron need them to come out of retirement to save this series

The bad from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss:

Man, Devin Booker left his slump in Los Angeles. He was on fire early.

In the Lake Show Life survival guide, it was important that the Lakers loaded up on Devin Booker with physical play. Booker has one of the purest shots in the NBA. The Lake Show could not afford to allow him to get comfortable. Well…the Lakers let the man get comfortable.

• He had 10 points in the first 7 minutes.
• He had 18 points by the end of the first quarter.
• He had 22 points at halftime!
• He had 30 points after three quarters and chilled out in the last quarter.

Cameron Payne has quietly destroyed the Lakers this series too!

Here’s an excerpt from the Lake Show Life survival guide…

"Lake Show Life could mention Cameron Payne, but the Lakers should be embarrassed that he basically punked Alex Caruso and has continued to give them work throughout this series. Only hardcore fans knew this guy even existed before this first-round matchup started."

Payne matched Devin Booker’s total of 10 points in 4 minutes. The Lakers guards had to lay wood to the Phoenix guards and did the exact opposite. To put this perspective, Chris Paul only took two shots (Missed them both!) and the offense was still rolling! Anthony Davis was reported telling his team that they couldn’t allow Cameron Payne to beat them.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1399922799192412160

Just let that last bit of information to set in…“Don’t allow Cameron Payne to beat you!”.

The second quarter.

• The Suns went on a 24-2 run.
• The Lakers shot 2-17 from the field.
• The Lakers only scored 10 points.

The Los Angeles Lakers have been notorious for having at least one bad quarter. This one applies after a 3-16 shooting performance in the third quarter of Game 4. Moving on!

The entire Los Angeles Lakers guard rotation not named Talen Horton-Tucker…

On offense…

• Dennis Schroder: Zero points. 0-9 shooting (0-4 from beyond the arc!), 4 rebounds and an assist. (Aka cardio!)
• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: Zero points. 0-1 shooting, 1 rebound, 2 assists and a steal. (Aka cardio!)
• Ben McLemore: Zero points. 0-5 shooting (0-2 from beyond the arc!), 6 rebounds with an assist and a steal.
• Wesley Matthews: 5 points. 1-5 shooting (1-5 from beyond the arc!), one rebound and a steal.
• Alex Caruso: 5 points. 2-8 shooting with a rebound.

On defense…

Damian Lillard had 55 points…just saying!

The story from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss:

Chris Paul reaggravated his shoulder!

Wesley Matthews hit CP3 on his shoulder trying to box him out that caused enough pain to stop the game for a few minutes. The Lakers had better pray he sits out Game 6.

Anthony Davis is not guaranteed to play Game 6.

If he does play, he’s not going to be effective. Anyone that disagrees has never had a groin injury. Save the delusional medical theories for another Lakers website.

What does that mean?

The Los Angeles Lakers are going to say 1-2-3 Cancun on Thursday.

It’s over folks. Lake Show Life had a list of things this team had to do to have a chance. They did none of them.