The Los Angeles Lakers had an opportunity to leave Memphis with a pair of wins in their first-round playoff series. But despite an impressive performance from LeBron James, the Lakers’ offense just couldn’t get going in their 10-point loss in Game 2 against the Grizzlies.
Coming back to Los Angeles with the series tied at 1-1 is still an accomplishment for the Lakers and now they need to protect their home court. But with Grizzlies star Ja Morant out for Game 2, it still feels like an opportunity was missed overall.
Oftentimes when the road team wins Game 1, they take their foot off the gas in Game 2 having accomplished what they needed to. But LeBron doesn’t feel that was the case for the Lakers, believing the team was prepared but just didn’t execute the way they needed to, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“There doesn’t need to be a discussion, at the end of the day we understand what a series is all about. It’s not the first to one win or two, it’s the first to four and we just got to prepare each and every game. Every game is its own entity so you got to prepare for that challenge. I feel like we were prepared tonight we just didn’t execute as well as we did in Game 1 for close to 48 minutes. They made adjustments, we made some adjustments, and you tip your hat to them they played a whale of a game tonight.”
The Lakers shot just 41.2% from the field and 26.9% from 3-point range on the night. Aside from James and Rui Hachimura, who answered Desmond Bane’s challenge with his second strong performance, the Lakers got little else in terms of offensive support.
As for what hurt the Lakers, LeBron pointed to the Grizzlies’ defensive strategy causing them to have to work against the clock and the need to play faster:
“We definitely can play with more pace. I think they did a good job of, they switch a lot of our pick and rolls today which kind of stalls your offense out. We were trying to go to a lot of the mismatches once we got the mismatch after the pick-and-roll and it kind of got us down in the shot clock and we were playing up against the shot clock a lot, especially in the second half. We got to watch the film and see ways that we can get into our offense early and then when they do switch we can make plays happen so we’re not playing up against the shot clock.”
In any case, Saturday night’s Game 3 is the biggest game of the season for the Lakers and they need to make whatever necessary adjustments to ensure they come out on top.
Dillon Brooks calls Lakers’ LeBron James old, challenges him to score 40 points
And if James needed even more motivation, well-known agitator Dillon Brooks provided it for him. After Game 2, Brooks called LeBron old and said he doesn’t respect anyone until they score 40 points on him.
In his 20th NBA season, LeBron reached the 40-point mark five times so he is certainly more than capable of another one, especially on this big stage. Brooks might just get exactly what he wished for.
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