Los Angeles Lakers: The good, the bad and the story in overtime thriller vs Hornets

The Los Angeles Lakers started their downward spiral losing not only to the Oklahoma City Thunder for the second time, but playing their worst game of the season against the Portland Trail Blazers over the weekend.

There was no rest for the weary as the Lakers had to play yet another young team in the Charlotte Hornets featuring LaMelo Ball, who is being compared to another famous Los Angeles Lakers point guard from the past.

LaMelo Ball finished with a triple-double with 25 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists.

The Hornets came into this game after getting run out of the Staples Center by the Clippers the night before giving up a 22-0 run. There was no repeat performance because the Los Angeles Lakers basically gift-wrapped a late Charlotte Hornets run to force overtime blowing a 14 point lead.

The Lakers survived in overtime 126-123 to a very hard-working Hornets team.

The good from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:

Lake Show Life has figured out a way to not only get Russell Westbrook out of his playing slump but get DeAndre Jordan to play better!

Russell Westbrook has been in the spotlight after his very poor 1-13 shooting performance in Portland. He stated that he needed to play harder. Lake Show Life states that he just needs to play smarter. Not only will he get untracked, but he can also make DeAndre Jordan relevant in the Lakers’ early success.

Just run plays like these…

• Instead of standing on the wing waiting for the basketball or going back towards half-court chasing the ball, he does the right thing at cuts to the basket.
•  DeAndre passes the ball to him and immediately follows Russ to the rim knowing that Mason Plumlee will have to step over to stop penetration.
• That half-second opens up the lob from Russ to DeAndre for the easy slam dunk.

These two connected on another alley-oop play for a dunk to open the game. The Lakers big man came into the game averaging only 5 points for the season and had 10 points by the end of the first quarter. If anyone wants to ask Frank Vogel why Jordan was never seen again, pass it along to Lake Show Life.

Russell Westbrook is too talented a player to struggle with his entire offensive game for a long period of time. But he doesn’t have to abandon the entire Lakers offensive scheme (Okay…if there is one) not using the centers or Anthony Davis in the pick and roll. He needs to heed Lake Show Life’s advice. More on that later.

Where in the world would the Los Angeles Lakers be without Carmelo Anthony? 

Would it be crazy to say that Melo might be the most consistent Lakers player this season? No seriously. He has been a huge part in saving two or three games for the Lakers (Probably would have been more had Russ just looked for him on that break against OKC instead of throwing the ball into the cheap seats!) and easily was the only one that competed in the Blazers game.

Melo showed LaMelo Ball the true meaning of the nickname dropping 12 points (3-6 shooting!) in only 13 minutes in the first half. He looked in total control getting to his spots for his shots and knocked down two huge triples in the process. Then when the Lake Show fell behind in the third quarter, he started heating up again scoring 5 points sparking a 11-0 run to get the lead back.

He has so many nicknames that started with “Hoodie Melo” but the Lake Show really needs “Original Melo” to survive LeBron’s extended absence.

The Los Angeles Lakers actually won this game. 

If the Lakers had lost this game because of the horrible illustrations of how a team loses it’s cool, Lakers Nation would really be upset. The so-called veterans made plenty of rookie mistakes.