Malik Monk should run away from Lakers after yet another ugly loss

The Los Angeles Lakers have found a way to dominate the NBA news cycle in every negative way that a team can going into the matchup against the Dallas Mavericks. The post-game reports have been reduced from analysis reports, to beat reports reporting what happened with certain players to a weak version of a gossip rag. How many ways can one writer explain that the team is awful after forecasting it in the preseason?

The common words that have been used with the Lakers are “rock bottom”. Since the All-Star break, not only was the New Orleans Pelicans loss embarrassing but what is worse is that no one really cares!

• Was it LeBron James basically sending smoke signals that he is gone when his contract is done? 
• How about Rich Paul probably getting lit up by the Lakers organization for LeBron’s passive-aggressive comments?
• Was it the fact that the Los Angeles Clippers can find five guys from Compton and still beat the Lakers?
• How about LeBron James calling out The Athletic’s Bill Oram for his article and telling fans not to believe anything he says because he’s negative? Then apologizing after…
• The New Orleans Pelicans gave the Lake Show business cards beating them by nearly 30 points? Fun fact: The Pelicans are the 11th seed in the West!  

Nope. This is rock bottom. LeBron James and Trevor Ariza got into it with paying customers that spent a lot of money to watch them quit. There’s strong language here so be careful if kids are around.

Then Russell Westbrook DOUBLED DOWN and made things worse!

"“Nah,” he said. “Take it home? For what? S—. Take it home? I got three beautiful kids at my house. Why would I take it home? If they boo, they can take their a$$ home. I ain’t worried about that. It doesn’t bother me none. … “I can only answer if I take them home: No. But as for our team, I don’t think it’s something we got to deal with. And kind of move forward.”"

In games like these, character is exposed. Would the Lakers completely let go of the rope or would they show they had a pulse? For a while, it was the former but luckily the latter showed up late.

The Los Angeles Lakers fell behind by 21 points before a furious rally gave them a six-point lead in the fourth quarter. But the Mavericks hit seven straight shots and the Lakers ran out of gas. The Lakers lose (Again!) 109-104.

The Lakers have now lost three straight, seven of their last ten and this losing streak extends to an absurd 15 out of their last 21 games. The Lakers are two games out of the play-in tournament with New Orleans and Portland inching closer.

The good from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss:

What the Los Angeles Lakers are doing to Malik Monk is a shame and he needs to leave because of it!

In yet another case of “Who do you think you are fooling?”, Lakers Nation pretty much knows at this point that Malik Monk should be in the starting lineup considering he averages close to 20 points per game. However, Frank Vogel keeps bringing off the bench for Trevor Ariza, Avery Bradley, Stanley Johnson and Austin Reaves.

Let’s be clear here, if Ronald Agers was on the roster, Vogel would start him before Malik Monk.

But seriously folks, Monk gets in the starting lineup and low and behold, he puts up buckets. He scored 10 points in the first half. He was one of the only players that showed athleticism. Let that sink in.

Monk finished with 17 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists. He gotta finish those layups with contact though!

But Lake Show Life has a theory. The Lakers know they can’t keep him because they can’t afford him. They are sabotaging his value giving him uneven minutes to mess with his stats for more negotiation value. Well, it won’t work.

Malik…RUN!

Carmelo Anthony along with the aforementioned Malik Monk kept fans from turning the TV set off!

The Lakers could have been down 30 points in the first half if Melo and Malik weren’t scoring the ball. Anthony kept firing in 3 point shots to help with 10 points in the first half. To watch this dude maximize his game with bad knees in his 19th year is amazing and should be celebrated. The fact that he had two fouls in the first half (He got away with two other pushes!) showed that he at least put a body on somebody.

Melo finished with 20 points on 6-11 shooting with 3 rebounds.

The third quarter!

To put this proper perspective, most thought the game was over at halftime. The TNT studio crew was playing “It’s over” by Kurupt (Song here!). But the Lakers came out on fire with a 13-1 run to make things interesting. In other words, there was no second-half repeat of Sunday night.

When the third quarter started, the Lakers were down 71-56.

Then LeBron dropped three shots from the land of the extra point and the Lakers played the best team defense in weeks forcing seven turnovers to outscore Dallas 31-14 to go into the final quarter UP 87-85.

Well, DeAndre Jordan is no longer a part of the Los Angeles Lakers!

Let’s all enjoy a video library of DeAndre’s contributions to the season…

There’s an old saying…You can’t coach seven feet! What’s sad here is that he’ll probably be picked up by a contending team (Think Philadelphia 76ers) and have a deep playoff run. The Lakers will have the pleasure of watching him on cable sitting at the back of the bench of a team that could go to the NBA Finals.

Cold world Lakers Nation…cold world.

What’s worse? The Lakers front office according to NBA columnist, John Hollinger, mishandled getting rid of Jordan at the trade deadline!

"Lakers cost themselves roughly $5M in tax payments and a small trade exception by not just sending cash to another team to take DeAndre Jordan at the trade deadline. Hey, it’s the Buss’s money, but that’s some FO malpractice right there."

This sounds like the bad section of the post-game report, doesn’t it? Well then let’s go to what went wrong in this game!