Lakers beat up the Kings without LeBron: The good, bad and story

The story from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:

Russell Westbrook…

Buckle up Los Angeles Lakers fans, the barometer of how well this Lakers team does will be connected to how this guy plays. In the first half, Westbrook was terrible. He missed layups, he missed free throws and gathered his normal collection of turnovers. The offense was so bad, it looked like he couldn’t run an offensive set. The Lakers go into the locker room behind right?

Well in the second half, Russ goes nuts scoring double-digit points while pushing the pace when the defense picked up. After that, AD got started and played solid two-way basketball. Finally, Malik Monk did his part to finish Sacramento off.

Now we are going to see if Russell Westbrook takes Kendrick Perkins’ advice?…

We’ll see. Russ finished with 23 points (9-21 shooting!), 5 rebounds and 6 assists.

This game really doesn’t matter…It’s all about LeBron James and his return!

Look no one thought the Sacramento Kings would take two in a row from the Lakers. The players are getting used to interim coach, Alvin Gentry and are back to playing the lazy basketball they showed under Luke Walton.

Now the Lakers have to play some real opponents in the Los Angeles Clippers and the Boston Celtics, who blew them out of the state of Massachusetts a week or so back. While these games are going on, the storyline will be around LeBron’s return.

Here’s the breakdown of how the NBA Health and Safety protocols work.

• If a player has received a positive test for COVID-19 that eventually gets confirmed, the NBA mandates a minimum of 10 days of isolation away from his team without any physical activity.
• Assuming things are not serious, the player must undergo a cardiac screening and recondition before being cleared to return to the court.
• The best-case scenario at this point is if LeBron clears the protocols by receiving two negative PCR tests within a 24-hour period. In short, that is what Frank Vogel meant in his statement by hoping it’s short-term.

The next two games will show how badly this team needs LeBron. These two teams will have schemes ready for the Lakers. Either they will load up on AD and beat him up down low or bait Russ into dominating the ball looking for his offense.

Frank Vogel has work to do. The team still struggles with bad teams and the next two games are against playoff contenders.