The Lakers played their second consecutive game on the road and a late run killed their chances as the Thunder beat them, 113-96.
Oklahoma City went on a 13-0 run after the Lakers, who played from behind for the most part, cut it to a 95-91 deficit with 4:30 left. Russell Westbrook scored seven points on that decisive run; he continued his Destruction Tour to the tune of 33 points, 12 rebounds, and 16 assists. But where the Thunder won the game was in transition and in the paint. OKC scored 62 points inside the key (44 for the Lakers) and that’s how they built the lead in the first place. And the Thunder in transition couldn’t be stopped (26 fastbreak points compared to 9 for the Lakers). The game was sloppy at times; Lakers had 22 giveaways compared to the Thunder’s 20.
I applaud the Lakers’ effort on defense but, once again, the fundamentals weren’t there, which contributed to the big deficit. There were times when the Lakers were leaving a shooter open with a hard, unnecessary double team. There were also times where they gave too much space to the designated shooters. Maybe some of it was by design because OKC isn’t exactly full of great shooters (they went 9 for 26, .346 overall) but I wouldn’t leave an NBA player that’s capable of shooting a three any sort of breathing room.
The Lakers missed some bunnies early and while there was a time where they were able to make some threes, they weren’t great overall in that department (which, once again, contributed to OKC’s big lead; they went 7 for 32, .219). They only shot .402 from the field. Some of the Lakers’ turnovers were also silly. They threw four lobs that went into the hands of the Thunder. Lob City they are not; the Lakers aren’t even Lob Street.
Even with all of those mistakes, there were still some encouraging things to see. I liked Julius Randle’s aggression early (ended with 20 points). Nick Young’s (16 points) defensive effort can’t be ignored, even if his shooting was up and down. Jordan Clarkson (14 points) bounced back nicely. And D’Angelo Russell (20-5-5) is unshakable. They were able to cut the deficit to four twice before they were overwhelmed by those Thunder runs. Also, hi, Jose Calderon. Welcome to the NBA season.
Of course, you want to see continued improvement from this young team. Hopefully, they can shoot better in the next few games. I would love to see the Lakers box out better. I would love to see them continue to fix and improve that pick-and-roll defense. I would love to see them take care of the ball better. And no erratic lobs, of course. Still, Brandon Ingram throwing a lob to Metta World Peace for, I guess for a dunk, is high comedy. (On a positive note, I’m glad Ingram is okay.)
The Lakers are now 1-2. They go to Indiana next and they play on Tuesday. Paul George, Myles Turner, and company await the young team. Maybe they’ll fare better this time.
In the meantime, go get some wings and enjoy some Sunday Night Football.
new rr says
http://www.livefyre.com/profile/109260178/14 minutes ago
This is the first game I have seen all the way through. Thoughts:
Deng: Looks old and dead-legged and like he is no longer an NBA 3. Maybe he is hiding an injury.
Mozgov: He is useful as a rim protector and interior presence who can make the occasional shot. Much better than Hibbert. I am still not seeing that he is worth what they paid him, especially playing 22-26 minutes a night.
Randle: He will get his points and boards, but I still do not see him as likely to be exceptionally valuable two-way long-term. Is very useful and occasionally exciting.
Russell: Very talented on O and will be bad news in a couple of years. Still do not see him as the kind of elite athlete that can anchor a team as a two-way PG–like the guy OKC has. Still think DAR can be an All-Star in his prime.
Ingram: Same as Russell, but younger and has a better chance to be That Guy. .
Young: I give him and Walton a lot of credit for adjusting his game, but the fact that he is starting and going 30 minutes is not a good sign for the roster.
Clarkson: No change from what I thought two years ago: 6th man combo guard.
Williams: Still the same guy and would be better off on another team.
Coaching: Seeing plusses to Luke all over the place. Tactical moves, like going to the press and posting up DAR in the 4th. Team consistently generates off-ball action and always has guys spotted up at the arc. Breakdowns on D are more due to youth and personnel.
Big Picture: Exactly what I and most expected. Team is reasonably fun to watch and competes, and is headed the right direction. Some vets don’t fit.
Tonight was a good example of why the NBA is still a stars’ league. Biggest difference was obviously Westbrook.
new rr says
Drorvodka
Yes, Ingram was used as a PG on some possessions.
30twhite40 says
Enjoyed the ending to Sunday Night Football.
netgarden says
Biggest observation in this game is around D’Angelo Russell frustrations, some of which is his fault, some of which is on his teammates. On the not his fault side, there were several instances in this game, and the first two games, where teammates bobbled what were crisp, clean passes, or were not anticipating the pass in the first place. Case in point, twice tonight he found Mozgov dropping to the basket, and twice Mozgov bobbled the ball. Add to that, tons of misses by his teammates on easily make able shots, and you’ve got a 5-6 assist/game player, who is probably more like a 7-9 assist guy.
On the negative, he makes too many boneheaded plays, like behind the back passes in traffic that lead to turnovers, and in the 3rd quarter, showed clock unawareness where on an inbound pass, there were 3-4 seconds on the clock, and he had no clue on the clock. For a point guard, not to know the clock is basketball 101, so that was a head scratcher.
The other is that he seems to pre-disposed to spot up perimeter shooting (which he is very good at), as opposed to attacking the paint, or at least working into the lanes a bit, forcing the defense to work harder. Hopefully, with actual coaching, he will improve in these areas.
Renato Afonso says
new rr I agree with almost everything you just said. I would just add that our transition defense was lacking and the weakside help from our perimeter players (Clarkson and Russell are the main culprits but they also play longer than others, so…) is almost non-existent. Guarding Westbrook is probably the toughest assignment a guard can have in this league. The guy is just relentless and by the 4th quarter your legs are surely gone. However, there are ways to minimize the damage done by providing good help defense and doing a better job on pick and roll defense.
Clarkson is probably a 6th man, as you said, and this makes Lou Williams absolutely redundant. The more games I watch the more convinced I am that this Russell-Clarkson pairing is not the answer due to defensive issues. Defensive ratings are not even the issue here, as the bench players can be even worse on defense. Too bad that Brown didn’t develop a proper 3 pt shot. An Anthony Brown-type of player would be the perfect backcourt teammate to Russel with Clarkson coming off the bench.
On offense, you can see the strides Russell has made but they’re mostly about individual skill. Better dribbling, better shooting and a little bit faster getting his shot up. The only problem is that he’s not a “floor general”. He’s not controlling the tempo and he’s taking a few risks in the wrong places. For example, the late turnover on the pick and roll with Randle that led to Westbrook’s dunk. If you’re running that play in the middle of the floor, you must be aware that there’s no help if you lose the ball. You’re the last man back. With that being said, what you cannot try is a soft drop pass to your screener when facing an aggressive defense. A crisp pass, if it misses the target, will probably go out of bounds and you have time to reset your defense. The option he took, well…
Anyway, what Russell’s lacking on the offensive end is certainly very coachable and theour coaches are doing a much better job than their predecessors. Some point guards need 4 or 5 years to “get it”.
Renato Afonso says
new rr Oh, and yeah, the team is trending in the right direction, five years later… Maybe coaching does make a difference.
JuanJ says
Re: Westbrook – the man is on a mission, clearly. No one is gonna stop him. Still, Deng (as rr pointed out) looked pretty bad on him.
Man, Ingram is gonna be somethin´ some day.
Funny stuff from the LA Times:
`The Lakers stayed at the Skirvin Hilton during their trip to Oklahoma City… – “They say it’s haunted,” (Lou) Williams said.
& the kicker, hilarious:
Seventeen-year veteran Metta World Peace said he felt a ghost’s presence during his stay and even said one touched him in a way he didn’t like.
“I swear to you,” World Peace said. “Honestly, definitely I felt something go like that.”
He glanced his hand over his face to demonstrate.
“It might have been around my chest,” he said. “I definitely felt it.”
bluehill says
It will be interesting to see how long Westbrook (and Harden) can keep going. It’s kind of like the Lakers teams after Shaq left. Kobe was in his prime and carried the team into the playoffs, but couldn’t get past the first round.
LKK says
rr makes a great point about the league in that it still belongs to the true superstar. Great ensemble casts are nice, but every great film needs a star. Our Lakers need to find one. Our younguns show grit and potential and one or more may reach that level. Time will tell. In the meantime, cutting down the turnovers and focusing on improving the pick and roll defense will keep things on the court interesting. As I watch other teams though, I see youngsters who fly under the radar in their development. The young core here will have to improve under the scrutiny of a rabid fanbase. One of Coach Walton’s biggest challenges is managing expectations as he oversees the ups and downs of his team’s learning process.
_ Robert _ says
Rey: “Of course, you want to see continued improvement from this young team” Agreed.
Let’s forget the 1-2 record (that is probably close to being in line with most of our expectations), but we want to see signs of improvement.
rr: Nice post . Why do you have to be so realistic and accurate? I just re-read your player evaluations so let me see if I am paraphrasing properly: Deng: We have a guy with dead legs for 4 more years; Mosgov: He’s OK – but we overpaid for him. Randle: “do not see him as likely to be exceptionally valuable two-way long-term” ; Russell: Good chance to be All Star but little chance to be SuperStar; Ingram: Our franchise hope at this point – very early for evaluation (I agree – he is our best big hope); Young: “is not a good sign for the roster” Lou: ” better off on another team”.
Wow. And nobody is disagreeing with you and everyone including me liked your post. Please try to cheer me up in your response : )
Mid Wilshire says
_ Robert _ Let me suggest that we wait a while before offering definitive conclusions on this team and its key players. After all, they’ve only played 3 games.
Regarding Luol Deng, against OKC he was horrible. But in the prior game, he had a double-double (12 and 12) and was probably the Lakers’ best player.
I would suggest that we compare notes at mid-season. We’ll know more then. And we’ll know even more next year.
Right now, everythings up in the air. The rotations aren’t even set. By February 2017, we should have a better sense as to what kind of team we have. Right now, we really don’t know.
new rr says
_ Robert _
new rr says
_ Robert _
Well, I wouldn’t frame it exactly that way, but, yeah, what I was mostly getting at in the post is that I had some opinions about these players and the way the roster was constructed coming into the season, and I haven’t seen anything yet that makes me want to move off of those opinions. Young and Walton as noted deserve ups for the changes in Young’s approach (dribbling less, moving the ball better, playing harder and more alertly on D) and those changes were apparent in preseason. And even so, he is 31, and he is still just Nick Young.
WRT Deng and Mid’s post: Deng has played 3 games as a Laker, but 888 (counting playoffs) in the NBA, and his production has been consistent during most of that time. Maybe his bad start is just a blip, but there were strong indicators last year that he is not better suited to be a 4 than a 3, which is one big reason some of us questioned the signing in the first place. Given how he has looked on the floor so far, I see no reason not to keep questioning it. Along those lines, Williams and Mozgov are Williams and Mozgov. Their skillsets and likely contributions are not up in the air. The young guys are of course different, but again, they have looked pretty much how I thought they would.
On another note: some research has suggested that young teams have larger performance differentials home/road than veteran teams do, which seems, intuitively,like it would be the case. So I expect that we may see the team look much better at Staples than they do on the road for, at least for awhile.
Clay Bertrand says
new rr _ Robert _
Oddly, I agree with both new rr and Mid-Wilshire.
I have not been blown away by Deng and Mozgov although I didn’t really expect to be.
I think that D’Angelo Russell is immature and finds it hard to impact the game when his shot isn’t falling. He has to toughen up in this regard.
Randle is trying to find his way in the team structure and carve out his individual game within it. He has enough alpha to want to carry the team at times and at times, he has. I can’t predict how he will end up in 3 years at this point.
I don’t subscribe to the firm branding of Jordan Clarkson as a 6th man per se. He is as good or better than a lot of starters in the league for sure. Is he an ALL STAR?? Is he a top 10 player?? Of course not.
Is he a sixth man in the vein of Iguodala, Odom, Thurl Bailey etc. where the team is actually STARTING a lesser player to tweak the chemistry of the starters some??? Is he a sixth man who could start for a team depending on how they want to stagger their line up?? Clarkson COULD start or come off the bench depending on the talent around him and the way the coaching staff wants to mesh it all together. There is no definitive pigeon hole for him at this point to me.
These performances by our young players are not unique to our guys either. I see a lot of inconsistency with the league’s young players night to night. Porzingis, Myles Turner, Devin Booker, even KAT are not playing consistently with predictable numbers nightly. One night, Turner has 30 and 15 the next, 12 and 8. Booker has had shooting slumps to start the season. KAT looks great mostly but even he has periods of ineffectiveness. These are still young players and tough to gauge long term at this point.
rr is correct in his evaluation SO FAR………but clearly, the sample size is limited and there is a TON of basketball, learning, coaching, and role defining left to be done over the course of the year. Its hard to measure progress from the micro perspective with any comfortable definity. We have to get a bigger sample size to get a clearer picture IMO.
Our brutal early schedule also makes evaluation of the team at this juncture problematic. Playing Golden State 3 times before December and having 4 out of your first 5 on the road only to return to face the Ws on your first home game back, would be a tough beginning for any team. A team with a new coach and so many young and new players has it even tougher.
Hopefully, the guys will learn from these hard knocks and be much more seasoned by February.
Lastly, for all his greatness and drive, Westbrook is going to play DOUBLE THIBODEAU minutes this year. At his pace of play and with his furious aggression, I would not be surprised to see him injured. Further, Westbrook’s game will not age well. OKC is riding the next Kobe into the ground with who they’ve got around him and he is perfectly willing to go that route. I love his fearless, relentless approach, and he’s a true superstar. But I fear it will ultimately doom him if he isn’t given more help and if he can’t evolve his game as the years go on.
The only true evaluation I am willing to make at this point is:
THIS IS MUCH BETTER THAN LAST SEASON!!!!!!!!!
Go Lakers!!!!!!
John Citizen says
At this point in time, its clear to me that Russell and Ingram are for real. As such the whole team must be constructed around them. This must be made clear to all other players, especially Randle, who seems not willing to pass the ball to Russell.
I would hope they get rid of Young, Lou and no confidence Nance and bring a wing young defender.
Seriously Nance, why the hell you play basketball in the NBA if you lack confidence.
Busboys4me says
Loved it actually!!!
KevTheBold says
Mid Wilshire
The downers are at it again,…. already ! Lol