Anthony Davis shows true colors as Lakers get thumped without Westbrook

The Los Angeles Lakers won’t have Russell Westbrook to kick around anymore. Well, at least not in this game. After shouldering a ton of the blame for the loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday, he was held out in Wednesday night’s matchup against the Denver Nuggets.

No disrespect to Shams Charania, but this is the absolute kindest way to say that Russell Westbrook will never grace the starting lineup again. It’s almost getting to the point that the Lakers are sending a message.

• Number one, Russ will regret the convenient “hamstring” issue in the last preseason game and claiming he did not know how to adjust his routine.
• Number two, after that debacle on Sunday, if there’s one more incident consider the man sent home BEFORE Dennis Schroder gets back. It’s that bad.

The Lake Show are officially the joke of the NBA after getting blown out by the Denver Nuggets 110-99. This is the first time that a LeBron James-led team started 0-4 since his rookie year. The Cavs went 0-5 that year and this team might too.

The Los Angeles Lakers have to pray that the Minnesota internal beefs are true with Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert and Danny Ainge threatens to fire Will Hardy if he continues to go against Utah’s “Victor Wembanyana tanking plan” with these early wins. The Lakers are facing an 0-12 start and that’s no lie.

The good from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss: 

Anthony Davis is starting to figure it out…like at the beginning of games!

Now, what does this headline mean? Sure he has put up stats at times this season but were they meaningful stats that can lead to wins? In this game, the Lakers made sure they fed him the ball early and often, something that they got away from in the closing moments of the previous game.

He scored eight early first-quarter points and 16 in the half. If the Lakers can dress as outside shooters for Halloween, it would open up the drive for the alley-oop to AD. Nobody can stop the play if they get defenders on their hip with the drive. AD has to be aggressive when he is on the floor…period. The end of games is a different story. More on that later!

Man this Lonnie Walker IV kid…can play!  

Lonnie Walker IV is this year’s Malik Monk with more strength, defense and athleticism. It is so good to see his potential after being handcuffed if San Antonio. He had 11 points and 2 steals in the first half and he always has at least one layup that would make Dr. J proud. This dude can touch the rafters. He finished with 15

The huge Lakers run at the end of the first half!

That 13-3 run may have been one of the better stretches of the season for the Lakers. They disrupted the Nuggets’ offense and immediately turned it into points. But there’s always the third quarter though…more on that later.

It was good to watch a game where someone else can be blamed for this awful shooting besides Russ!!

Look, Russell Westbrook can’t shoot. That’s not news. He turns the ball over at a high rate. That’s not news either. But he doesn’t shoot every time down the floor, the Los Angeles Lakers do. Coming into this game, the Lakers are dead last (By metric tons!) in these categories.

• Offensive net efficiency…
• Overall shooting: As a team, they shoot 40.7 percent which has not been accomplished for a full season since the 2014-15 Philadelphia 76ers who are directly responsible for the tanking awareness that is going on now! Remember “Trust the Process”?
• 3-point shooting: The second worst in the shot clock era over three games since the Atlanta Hawks. The Lakers are shooting 22 percent (21 percent on open threes!). The 29th-ranked team is shooting 29 percent. Fun fact: Russ is shooting 8 percent. This is a true story. 

Like we could go on but we have to get back to the game. But the moral of this analysis is that the Los Angeles Lakers can’t throw the ball in the Pacific Ocean while Corky Carroll is surfing the high waves.

The bad from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss: 

Welcome to the newest Lake Show Life segment named…”What does this mean?”

Guest star this report: LeBron James!

The Lakers shot 4-16 from beyond the arc in the first half. Bruce Brown shot four shots from the same area. To the readers that are thinking…Who? That the point.

Shooting 8-30 (27 percent!) from long distance means that the Lakers haven’t paid the bill…they are delinquent and the amount they owe has already been reported to collections! For future reference, just mentally change the team name to whomever the Lakers lose to in the future.

The third quarter:

The Lakers were tied at the half, they were up 56-54 and then a 29-9 run basically blew them off the floor in a quarter that this team takes a nap for 12 minutes almost on a nightly basis.

Has anybody noticed that Pat Bev is just as bad as Russ shooting the ball?

Keep picking on Russ but 1-4 for 6 points and gonna get it. Austin Reaves shot only five times for 8 points.

The story from the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss:

Anthony Davis showed the world that he does not want to play the five spot and what is LeBron trying to accomplish?

The Lake Show Life staff gave LeBron his props over the last two games, but who shoots the ball once at the end of the first quarter and coast until the second half on a team that can’t score? 19 points (8-21 shooting!) and 8 turnovers? This is ridiculous. If he’s not tired, okay. But this leads to this point…

As for Anthony Davis…

He disappears in the second half…why? After 16 points in the first half, he finished with 22 points and 14 rebounds. Nikola Jokic?