LeBron James sits with narrow scoring title lead in Lakers loss to 76ers

The Los Angeles Lakers returned home after a fougame road trip on the East coast. The Lake Show started the trip with probably the worst performance of the season after getting destroyed by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Karl Anthony-Towns and Patrick Beverley openly mocking Russell Westbrook’s 3 point shot late in the game maybe was the splash of cold water needed for the rest of the trip.

Since then, the Lakers finished the trip 2-1, defeating the Toronto Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers to not only finish with a split but breaking an awful eleven-game losing streak on the road. Couple that with Russell Westbrook’s rise in consistency, the upcoming game against Philadelphia would be quite interesting.

Then there’s LeBron James making sure that the debates on his “motivation” on what needs to be accomplished gets back into the spotlight.

After dropping 38 points in his triple-double performance against Cleveland, LeBron is enjoying the season (Thankful…that makes sense!) and “having the time of his life” according to ESPN.

"“I’m going to play with a lot of passion, a lot of energy, give my teammates what they deserve, what they need, and like I said for the rest of the season, hopefully I can stay somewhat injury-free,” James said Monday. “Obviously, I’m dealing with a few injuries right now, but I’m working through it and we’re working through it and that’s all that matters. We leave everything on the floor and control what you can control and what you can’t you don’t worry about. Just my mindset.”"

Just not against the Sixers it seems. The Los Angeles Lakers announced before the game that LeBron James would be held out because of soreness in his left knee.

The Lake Show continue to play very good basketball, but they ended up losing to the Philadelphia 76ers 126-121.

A special Lake Show Life shoutout goes to Dwight Howard. This dude was balling in this game. He finished with 24 points and 8 rebounds. He hit his season high scoring and made the Sixers think twice while shooting layups. There were a lot of missed Philly shots at times in this game which included Joel Embiid.

Sadly, he’ll probably be back on the bench Sunday because…Frank Vogel is the Los Angeles Lakers head coach.

Vogel took Dwight out of the game for Wenyen Gabriel and the Sixers scored immediately afterward with an alley-oop to close the game out.

Jason Kidd and Lionel Hollins should take the credit for coaching this team to the NBA title in the bubble. Yes, this writer said it.

The good from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss:

Stanley Johnson came out on fire in the first quarter!

One look at the starting lineup and the first question that would come to mind is where in the world would the offense come from. Stanley Johnson answered that question after the National Anthem was done.

Johnson knocked down five shots (Including three from long distance!) for 13 points in less than 12 minutes. He was aggressive and stepped up big time in the offensive category. The problem is that he sat down and when he got back in didn’t take another shot. What is it about the Lakers putting hot shooting players on the bench?

Johnson finished with those same 13 points with 8 assists and 5 rebounds. He took only two more shots for the rest of the game which added to 23 more minutes. Really?

Malik Monk is not starting but he’s got starter’s responsibilities!

Malik came off the bench for the second game in a row but he looked a lot more engaged in this matchup by looking for his offense as soon as he got into the game. This dunk alone showed the listlessness of James Harden (Man the Lakers own him!) and Joel Embiid.

He helped spark the Lakers off the bench with 8 points. The Los Angeles Lakers could quietly have the hottest scoring bench in the NBA if D.J. Augustin is allowed to ride out his hot shooting streak and Carmelo Anthony gets into one of his famous scoring grooves.

Lik’ Lik’ finished with 23 points (10-20 shooting!), 3 assists and 2 steals. He has got to get stronger around the rim because the referees are going to start swallowing whistles around playoff time. The playoff teams are going to rough him up.

Frank Vogel might realize that his employment in the Los Angeles Lakers organization is down to a few weeks!

At this point, the Lakers are toast in terms of the regular season. They are not catching the Los Angeles Clippers and the San Antonio Spurs are not catching them to get in the play-in tournament. The staff of Lake Show Life already figure that the Lake Show will be taking on the New Orleans Pelicans first. We’re so sure that we have a pregame analysis setup with David Grubb who covers the Pels to provide complete analysis. A week ago, the Lakers had no chance. But now via Lakers Nation, has Frank Vogel caught a clue and realized that this roster doesn’t fit his philosophy?

"“You have to put some of your own ego aside at times. If an offensive lineup is what you feel like is gonna help you win the most games, you have to put that aside and you have to go with it. I’ve done that a lot this year, it hasn’t resulted in enough wins and it’s been very disappointing some of the defensive performances we’ve put out.”  “You have to make the pieces fit offensively for us to win, the goal is to perform well enough on both sides to score more points than the other team, it’s not just to be a great defensive team,” he said."

Don’t ever insinuate that this Los Angeles Lakers website didn’t warn Lakers Nation. We have receipts from…like the offseason.

• Los Angeles Lakers Rumors: Is Frank Vogel’s job security still stable?
• Lakers vs. Trail Blazers: Lakers won’t make the Finals with Frank Vogel
• Time to fire Frank Vogel as the Los Angeles Lakers lose in Triple OT
• LeBron James should want Frank Vogel fired after Lakers loss to Kings
• Lakers must fire Frank Vogel after Pacers loss or the season is over

The staff of Lake Show Life has been consistent in these five articles alone that a major part of the Lakers collapse this season has been Frank Vogel’s now admitted refusal to let go of his philosophy based on how the roster has been constructed. The good news is that he sees his issues and adjusted. The bad news is that it took (Checking the schedule) 72 GAMES TO DO IT!

Important message from former NBA player Gilbert Arenas in the first two minutes alone on why the coaching has been a disaster!

Maybe Russell Westbrook was dropping science at times this season. By the way, he finished with 24 points, 8 assists and 9 rebounds.