Los Angeles Lakers survive the Trail Blazers without LeBron James
By Ronald Agers
The bad from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:
The Lakers’ second-quarter defense was atrocious!
Stop the staff of Lake Show Life if you haven’t seen this movie before. See the Lakers run out to a big lead (In the first quarter 15 points!) and it looks like an easy night coasting to a win. Here’s the twist though…the Lakers stop playing defense, particularly on the perimeter and the opponent comes roaring back!
Well, the Lakers should have been focused on this happening again after blowing a double-digit lead to Atlanta over the weekend. Instead, the Lake Show allowed Portland to shoot 8-11 from the land of the extra point to cut the lead to 54-53 at halftime.
The Lakers were outscored 37-26 in the second quarter.
How does a Blazers team that shoots 34 percent from the field, 38 percent from the 3 point line, and 63 percent from the line still be in the game you ask? Well, here’s how!
The Los Angeles Lakers turn the ball over way too much!
To paraphrase Rick Pitino’s quote here…
LeBron James is not walking through those doors fans…for a while!
While he’s out the Los Angeles Lakers need to find a player that can orchestrate the offense without turning the ball over! The Lakers turned the ball over eight times and most of them led to Portland baskets. The major culprits? Russell Westbrook and Talen Horton-Tucker who had six of them.
Overall the Lakers had 16 turnovers that led to a ton of Portland points. More on that later!
Offensive rebounding!
The Portland Trail Blazers had 18 offensive rebounds.
The Los Angeles Lakers had 12 offensive rebounds.
Do the math! That’s a losing formula on most nights in the NBA.