Lakers welcome back LeBron in blowout to Celtics: Good, bad and story

The bad from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss:

After a strong defensive first quarter, the Lakers let Jayson Tatum get untracked.

The Los Angeles Lakers had Tatum on the ropes a bit in the first quarter drawing two fouls on him and holding him to 1-5 shooting. Well, that was all well and good before some shots started falling and Tatum started going off for 14 points in the second.

Writer’s note: Should we comment on the turnover…the OLAY! defense and wanting the ball inbounded to him afterward? Okay…let’s move on.

Tatum rebounded from a slow start to have 17 points by halftime. This dude has too much talent for the Lakers not to keep putting pressure that they had on him early. Instead of trying to get a third foul on him, which would have had him sitting much of the first half, they let him off the hook.

Well missing that small attention to detail ended up with Tatum absolutely embarrassing the Lakers to the tune of 37 points (13-26 shooting!), 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals and a block. When the Lakers tried to double him (Oh it was that bad!) he just passed the ball to wide-open teammates for easy baskets or Lakers fouls.

Not only did the Lakers let Dennis Schroder go off in this game, but his backcourt teammate, Marcus Smart was even better!  

Lake Show Life has discussed the saga of Dennis Schroder’s one season with the Lakers and his contract situation at nauseam so we are not going to deal with that. What we will discuss is that Dennis Schroder is the second “former” Lakers point guard that handed out business cards this week after Lonzo Ball went off for 27 points.

Schroder carved out the Lakers’ defense with smooth moves to the rim for easy layups with very little resistance from the Lake Show.

• Dennis became the “Menace” again with a stat line of 21 points (8-14 shooting!), 6 rebounds (3 offensive!) and 6 assists. 
• Then Marcus Smart set the table for the Boston Celtics not just scoring the basketball, but with his playmaking and defense. He finished with 22 points (9-13 shooting!), 8 rebounds (3 offensive!), 6 assists and a steal. 

Notice that the Celtics guards combined to have 6 offensive rebounds that almost matched the Lakers as a team with 7. This showed how badly the Lakers got outplayed.

But wait until LeBron comes back…(Check notes) oops! He played.

The Lakers starting guards…

Talen Horton-Tucker had one of those nights, to say the least. 2 points on 0-6 shooting.

Avery Bradley had 6 points on 2-4 shooting.

Let’s get to the bonus analysis section to update Rajon Rondo and Wayne Ellington. They scored…well…close your eyes. What do you see? Nothing? That’s what they scored combined.