air gordon wrote:is the play harder against him narrative sort of a cop out? beverley is on another planet defensively and that game ball blew up, phoenix was terrible on the picks.
there was a little hype with the wiz game but from the action i saw, he was just missing shots and the wiz stink on defense.
almost half of ball's shots are from 3pt land (making only 28%) and he barley goes to he ft line. odds against him to have a solid ts%
I'm not buying the "they play harder against him" thing either. It's a combination of him just missing shots, settling for shots & the ankle which he said is still at 85% according to Stu & Bill. From the last game against Detroit it's also more evident he made much more of an effort to get in to the lane than take off the screen or pass out three's which should help. I'm not really concerned about his offense, it'll come. I do think the coaching staff should involve him in more slashing/cuts to the basket type plays. D-Lo & Ball would have been such an interesting back court. Wish they would have at least given us a taste of it and then made the trade come trade time in Feb.
That game against Detroit was something. The Pistons didn't shoot free-throws till like the fourth quarter! The starters came out with good energy, the reserves also played their usual good brand of basketball and Randle has really been bringing it since that game where he called himself out. I'm actually loving Don Julio again!! A bit odd he was pulled in the second or third and replaced by Bogut though. None the less, loving his effort.
Josh Hart has been quite a revelation too, dude just plays solid basketball. Correct plays on offense, takes what he's given and plays hard on defense. The Lakers draft department really do a solid job with these guys.
Ingram played fantastic too. Didn't force too much, was active on D and just played within the system/his role. 13 points, 5-6 rebounds a few assists and a steal should be realistic for the kid. Magic shouldn't have come out and said they expect 20 ppg from him.
That's one thing I can say about these Lakers...they at least try on defense. It's such a better brand of basketball than the previous couple of years. It's just better basketball in general to watch. That's all Laker fans should expect from these guys; effort on a consistent basis. Both on D & O but I believe if your D is there, the O (which is pretty much run, run, run) will happen by itself.
On a different topic: Wtf is up with these Nike jersey's? That canary yellow isn't Lakers Gold. The color just seems off to me. Also they wear their purple away jersey's somewhere end November for the first time. I wish Nike didn't fuck the whole system up. It was working just fine. Also get your colors down Nike.
End jersey rant.
