It seems like the Lakers love to make fans like me who were so confident that we’d win Game 4 look like a buffoon, idiot, imbecile, dummy, whatever you want to call it. In the words of Maino, ALL OF THE ABOVE. I guess I should have known better given our inability to play well on the road during the regular season. Hell, when’s the last time that the team played like “defending champions”?
Obviously, it’s premature to upgrade our concerns to Defcon 5 at this point, but after the last game, I’d consider it safe to say that the finger is definitely on the trigger. This isn’t even about repeating anymore. This series against the Thunder is realistically one that we can lose. All of the negative talk that’s been going around for the last few years about the Laker point guards and their inability to defend is finally reaching a crescendo against Russell Westbrook.
Last year against Aaron Brooks, we were pushed to the brink by having to play a Game 7, but Westbrook presents all kinds of additional problems for our defense – as he can easily finish at the rim or get to the line, which leads me to believe that another deciding seventh game is all too possible. I couldn’t have been more disappointed in our performance on Saturday night. While the referees definitely seemed to be working against us, the bottom line is that we must play better defense without fouling. I just don’t understand why the urgency and intensity is so absent with this Lakers team.
With the always dangerous “swing game” in Game 5 looming over the entire city of L.A., there’s a few things that the team needs to fix immediately if we’re going to get out of this series against OKC.
NEXT: The play of Pau and Drew
Weren’t we supposed to dominate the undersized Thunder big men throughout the first round matchup? The final tally on the boards from Game 4 (50-43 in favor of OKC) don’t even begin to tell half of the story. It’s not always about how many rebounds you give up, but more a matter of when. It seemed like every time the Lakers were even beginning to show minute signs of life and attempting to chip away at the early deficit, inexcusable offensive rebounds were given up to the Thunder – two to Westbrook that led to easy dunks.
Bynum and Gasol are playing at an unacceptable level on the glass. They are both getting out-worked by Serge Ibaka alone much like last year’s series against the Rockets when Carl Landry was giving us massive headaches. This is the playoffs where every single possession is so valuable and things like offensive rebounds give young teams a lot of life, especially at home.
Our bigs need to shove some smelling salt up their noses and realize that the “length” that all analysts refer to when discussing the Lakers’ advantage against the rest of the league is not going to allow rebounds to magically fall into their hands. Crashing the boards is all about attention to fundamentals meaning, box your man out! There’s nothing more frustrating than watching Bynum and LO try to grab rebounds by tipping the ball to themselves or seeing Pau get pushed out of position by the likes of Ibaka and even Jeff Green.
In addition to the meager, heartless effort being given towards rebounding, I find it absolutely incredulous that our bigs can’t even gain decent offensive post position against Krstic, Green, Collison, and Ibaka. All of the Thunder big men are fronting Drew and Pau and to think that they can’t work a little bit harder and fight for space just makes me want to rip off my fingernails. The rest of the team can even perhaps help with this as Stu Lantz even harped on it during the game saying that if the Lakers want to make an entry pass over the top, they can’t just go for it directly, but rather make a couple of ball fakes towards the ground, get the defenders’ hands down and lob it over the defense.
If you’re going to tell me that we can’t even figure out a way to accomplish simple entry passes into the post to Drew and Pau, then I’d say let’s just pack it up and go fishing because what’s the point of even playing the rest of the series? It’s obvious that something’s got to change, whether it’s an effort issue where our bigs must simply jockey for position with more ferocity or if it’s a technical issue where the angle and type of entry passes must be revised. Whatever the case, Game 5 cannot see the Thunder’s big men dominate the Lakers on the glass and defense like they have been for most of the series.
Just “pounding it inside” is not going to get it done, especially when our bigs aren’t even in good positions to score anyways. The spacing on the floor has to be improved because OKC is just collapsing every time and most importantly, we must hit shots when the ball is kicked out.
NEXT: Give us a little offense Ron!
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I don’t know what’s more nauseating, Ron Ron being 3 for 23 from behind the arc in this series or thinking about what Kirstie Alley looks like naked. Feel free to shudder for a moment because I just did. While Artest’s defense is obviously a huge component to our hopes at repeating, shooting 13% from deep is just as huge of a detriment and might even spell disaster for us in this series alone. More than just the fact that we must hit our open shots, missed threes usually lead to long rebounds and as we’ve seen with the Thunder, they are looking to push the ball and run every chance they get. In case you’ve missed Games 3 and 4, the Lakers aren’t exactly fresh spring chickens and are losing the transition battle as bad as they can.
I do understand the importance of defense and believe me, I love watching great defense and eat up any awe-inspiring performances, but I really wish he was doing better offensively because we would all refrain from constantly bringing up Trevor Ariza and his hot shooting from last year’s title run. He shot a blistering 47.6% from three-point range in the entire playoffs last season and I really can’t even recall any of his misses. That’s just how on fire he seemed to be, draining it every time Kobe of Pau kicked it out to him.
As unfortunate as it is, if the Lakers fail to repeat (don’t even want to imagine failing to get out of this series), the demons of Artest vs. Ariza will haunt not only Ron, but Mitch Kupchak and Jerry Buss all the way through to next season’s NBA Playoffs because the critics will have a hell of a time ostracizing the front office’s decision to let Trevor walk. It is massively unfair, especially because I know a lot of us Laker fans have come to love having Ron Ron on the team, but such is the life of a professional athlete. Every major player will be compared and measured against another, but I can only hope that Artest was fully prepared to make a run for his first ring under that shroud of evaluation and that he can step up and get it going.
NEXT: How do we stop Westbrook?
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To be quite honest, trying to figure out a feasible defensive strategy to use against Westbrook takes me back to my days in high school when I was attempting to navigate my way through pre-calculus and take my word for it, I’m like Adam Morrison when it comes to upper level math. With the personnel that the Lakers have at the lead guard position, this current puzzle that we’re stuck with solving eerily mirrors those unfruitful memories I have of thinking that I had answered the math problem correctly and traced my steps over and over, only to have the teacher keep telling me that I’m wrong. I mean, if the team hasn’t figured it out by now, how am I supposed to?
It’s clear that Phil Jackson, Brian Shaw, Jim Cleamons, and Frank Hamblen haven’t devised an effective blueprint to stopping, even slowing down Russell Westbrook yet. If there’s anything that I myself can suggest though, it would be to control the things that our team is more than capable of dictating.
First, the turnovers must be cut down to five or less per game against this fast OKC Thunder squad. The run outs are killing us and all it does is harden our young opponent’s belief that they can control the tempo and even perhaps win this series by doing so. Westbrook feeds off our giveaways and has been making all the right consequential plays. Taking care of the ball is a simple start to minimizing Russell’s impact in the running game.
Second, I’ve got to go with communication on defense. I touched on this in my previous editorial and unfortunately, it has not improved. Allowing deep penetration on the break is a bit more understandable, but we cannot allow Westbrook to get to the rim in half-court sets. Despite the fact that Fish is just incapable of keeping up with Russell’s dribble drive, it also does seem like Phil is employing a similar defensive tactic to the one used against Aaron Brooks last season. In Game 3, Doug Collins mentioned the fact that Drew and Pau were just not on the same page with Derek because it did appear that Fish was allowing Russell to make his take to the cup, but none of our bigs were there to back him up. After Collins had highlighted that, on the next defensive possession, Gasol was shading to Fisher’s side and roaming along the paint, but it needs to be consistent and executed better. Communication is imperative on defense and again, it’s something that can be controlled so let’s hope everyone gets on the same agenda.
Lastly, as stupid as this may sound, I’d even go so far as to say that we should dare Westbrook to beat us all on his own. He knows it, we know it, the world knows it – none of our point guards can stop him and he’s going to get his regardless. Even though Durant’s scoring is at his usual clip, his shooting percentage is way down in the series and for the most part, everyone would agree that this is more Westbrook’s coming out party and he is the Thunder’s MVP right now. The Lakers must continue to make life uncomfortable for KD, but also, we can’t give up any easy open looks to the likes of James Harden, Jeff Green, and even Serge Ibaka who nailed a couple of timely jumpers in Game 4 that kept their momentum strong. As I stated, I realize it sounds risky and even foolish, but I’d be hard pressed to believe that Westbrook can win this series on his own without any substantial help from the rest of his teammates.
The Lakers have two days to do all the discussing and tweaking that they have to do until Game 5 hit the Staples Center on Tuesday night. As I’m sure we all do, I hemorrhage purple and gold so I’ve got to believe with every ounce of my Laker loving soul that the team will play with more heart and pride for the rest of this series.
Let’s go Lakers!
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