The Los Angeles Lakers had yet another Sunday matchup against the Brooklyn Nets, whose dysfunction matches or surpasses the Lakers this year. If it weren’t for the total embarrassment of a start for the Lake Show, the Nets would probably be the laughingstock of the NBA. It seems both teams share the same issues…
- Both teams had ineffective coaches (Frank Vogel: Lakers…Steve Nash: Nets) that had no control over their locker rooms or a scheme on the floor.
- Both teams’ front offices allowed their respective superstar cast to dictate roster moves that have exploded in their faces.
- Both franchises have point guards (Russell Westbrook: Lakers…Kyrie Irving: Nets) that keep them in the NBA news cycles for the wrong reasons!
- Both teams now have new coaches (Darvin Ham: Lakers…Jacque Vaughn: Nets) that have been left with the unfair task of cleaning up the mess!
- Both teams have a superstar tandem that has provided half of the production for the price of the investments!
- Is anyone tired of hearing false trade rumors about these two teams every day?
We could go on, but that would be a feature article in itself (Why not this week?), but these two teams had to look past all of these issues and play a basketball game. LeBron James did not play because of injuries but that paled in comparison to what the Nets were missing. Ben Simmons. Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving were not in the lineup so that left Kevin Durant to carry the scoring load.
The Los Angeles Lakers rolled over the Brooklyn Nets 116-103…yay!
The Lakers break a five-game losing streak before their very winnable matchup Friday against the Detroit Pistons. This was an impressive team win to build on because as we all know, this franchise really needs one that doesn’t include Matt Ryan bailing them out with fadeaway 27-footers to force overtime.
The good from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:
Lonnie Walker IV set the tone for the Los Angeles Lakers with a strong scoring start!
With LeBron James out for the foreseeable future with foot and groin injuries, Anthony Davis would be anyone’s first choice to step up and be dominant from the start. That was not the case, as Lonnie came out on fire with 10 points before the arena lights got warm.
The biggest impact from these points was from beyond the arc and the free throw line where the Lakers as a team tend to struggle. Look for Walker IV to get even better when his sore right wrist gets better.
In the final quarter, when the Nets closed the lead to four points, Walker IV kept pouring in the points from all spots on the floor.
Lonnie finished with 25 points on the strength of four shots from beyond the arc in five tries. Enjoy his while you can Lakers fans because he will get a big contract offer elsewhere and the Lakers probably won’t match it.
Here’s how the Lake Show Life knows Anthony Davis ACTUALLY showed up to play!
The Lake Show Life staff will give fans a tip on how to tell if a fan is watching the games (Also read: a casual!) as opposed to watching box scores or stat screens. If they just spout AD’s season averages and say he is not one of the problems, they are not watching the games.
Bottom line, AD has underperformed most of the year and tends to disappear late in games. In the first half of this game, it was his most dominant. He scored 16 points and grabbed…get this…11 REBOUNDS! What’s even better? Six of them were on the offensive end!
https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1591989654110494722
Granted Nic Claxton of the Brooklyn Nets looked like he didn’t want to be there with his level of play, but that is not AD’s fault. He has to do this every single night for both halves of a basketball game particularly in crunch time and with LeBron in the lineup.
AD finished with 37 points 18 rebounds and 2 assists while playing great two-way basketball. He had more offensive rebounds than the entire Brooklyn team.
The bad from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:
Read the caption…like this website is going to get creative on how bad the Lakers are in the third quarter!!
Ended the quarter on a 16-3 run! pic.twitter.com/jR2Llgt54h
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) November 14, 2022
Kendrick Nunn…
Will be in street clothes completely out of the rotation when Dennis Schroder gets back.
The story from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:
The Los Angeles Lakers beat up the Brooklyn Nets in the fourth quarter!
The Nets had things close in the final quarter, but the Lakers put the game to bed with an 18-4 run. The defense locked the Nets not named Kevin Durant (Especially Royce O’Neal!) in a broom closet so badly that they actually shot worse than the Lakers from the 3-point line. Let that sink in.
The Lakers’ guards and wings dominated Brooklyn’s!
These post-game reports have criticized the other guards for not contributing offensively. That was not the case tonight. Lonnie Walker IV was special and AD was dominant, but look at the others…
- Austin Reaves: 15 points on 5-8 shooting. This is the second game in a row he actually looked at the rim to shoot with any consistency.
- Troy Brown Jr.: 9 points on 4-7 shooting.
- Wenyen Gabriel: 9 points on 4-7 shooting.
What about Russell Westbrook? Well let’s talk basketball shall we?
How Russell Westbrook is impacting the game while shooting poorly!
Yes, Russ has not shot the ball well the last couple of games, but he is one of the main reasons why the Lakers won this game.
He started on the defensive end by blocking Kevin Durant’s shot while guarding him one on one.
https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1591992959054012418
Then he played through his shooting struggles and handed out 12 assists and cut down on his turnovers to only four. He provided energy to a game that had many lulls to it. Like AD though, can this happen when LeBron James comes back to the lineup?