The Lakers got their shit kicked in by Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers tonight in Game 1 of the Western Conference Playoffs.
The Lakers have played SOOOOO bad in the bubble and now it is coming back to bite them.
LeBron had a triple-double but disappeared down the stretch. Anthony Davis was not good from the field, hitting only 8 of his 24 shot attempts. They both missed huge free throws (4 in a row!) late in the game as well.
As bad as they played, they still weren’t the biggest problem the Lakers need to fix.
The team as a whole shot a whopping 18% from three (5-32), 35% from the field, and 65% from the charity stripe.
Two of the leading contributors to this abysmal performance were Danny Green and KCP (aka KCPoop as Stu Lantz calls him). They were absolutely atrocious tonight.
Danny Green has not been very good from downtown all season long. He is only shooting just above the league average in three-point percentage at 36%. For a guy who was supposed to be the shooting savior the Lakers needed from the guard position, he has definitely not lived up to the hype. And tonight was no different. He was 2-8 from beyond the arc and has looked lost since the bubble restart.
To be honest he has laid more brick this season than a stone mason.
Danny Green should be thrown in jail for robbery. I mean he is making $15 million this year to shoot worse then me (ok, maybe he’s not THAT bad). If the Lakers are going to win this series, let alone a Championship, DG is going to have to step it up big.
Next up on the shitty scale is KCP.
KCP is the real Mr. Triple Single (sorry Draymond). He had one point, one rebound, and one assist tonight. He was mainly out there to work on his cardio. Lakers fans cyberbullied KCP on Twitter earlier this season, and they’re going to have to do it again because that stat line is unacceptable. I know I’m going to do my part to help Make KCP Great Again.
Before I wrap this up we really need to have a conversation about Frank Vogel. Frickin’ Frank had his head so far up his ass tonight that his nose smelled like colon. JaVale McGee must have some serious dirt on Frank Vogel because that’s literally the only reason I can think of for why he’s still in the starting lineup.
Whenever he’s on the floor the spacing sucks, he clogs up the paint and AD has a harder time working down low in the post. Not to mention that during a lot of games this season (like tonight) the opponent can get out to a big early lead, and a big reason is because JaVale can’t do a whole lot on offense or defense anymore. Everyone and their mother can see this. The only person who can’t is one Frank Paul Vogel.
On top of JaVale, Vogel for some reason doesn’t want to put Karl Kuzma in the starting lineup (yes I know his name is Kyle, but Charles Barkley called him Karl during the pregame show so that’s his name now). I can understand why he didn’t start at the beginning of the season because the Lakers needed scoring off the bench and he could provide that. Now, they don’t need his scoring off the bench because you have another scorer in Dion Waiters leading the second unit. There has never been a team who has won an NBA finals with their “third option” coming off the bench and the Lakers won’t now if he doesn’t start.
Speaking of Dion Waiters did he and J.R. Smith die? They were nowhere to be found tonight. I think they played a combined one minute. There is an old saying that goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well tonight it snapped in half and what did Frank P. Vogel do? Not a damn thing. He didn’t change his lineups one iota and it burned him. I mean Clay Helton adjusts more at halftime then Frank Vogel and that’s saying something. If KCP and Danny Green can’t score, then maybe lets put some guys in who can score like Waiters and Smith, but that thought never crossed his mind once and I don’t think it’s going to for the foreseeable future.
My last grievance that needs to be aired is when Rajon Rondo inevitably comes back in the next game or two and takes playing time away from Alex Caruso. Rondo’s prime is long behind him, but the Lakers coaching staff plays him like he’s 2010 Rondo. He can’t shoot (not that he ever could anyways), he can’t play defense, and he can’t space the floor very well (the opponents leave him open since he can’t hit jumpers). The only thing he can still do decently is pass, but he still makes dumb decisions with the ball that lead to costly turnovers. Nevertheless, he’ll still get his spot back even though when Caruso started guarding Damian Lillard in the second quarter he held him to 1-10 from the field.
Hopefully the Lakers can turn it around on Thursday, but if tonight is any indicator, this could be a very long series.