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Bruise Course: Will the Lakers' troubles lead to sensational dismissal? - Walla! sport

2021-05-10T07:51:10.683Z


Before the season opener, there was only one consensus among NBA commentators: the Lakers' clear favorite to repeat. But after the injuries, it's not so clear anymore


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Bruise Course: Will the Lakers' troubles lead to sensational dismissal?

Before the season opener there was only one consensus among NBA commentators: the champion is the clear favorite to repeat.

But after the injuries, entanglement and grievances of the polished politician LeBron, it is clear that the problems discovered during the season are more serious than he thought.

For it to end in a ring, James and Davis will need a miracle

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  • Los Angeles Lakers

  • LeBron James

  • Anthony Davis

Assaf Ravitz

Saturday, 08 May 2021, 13:30 Updated: 13:31

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The situation is getting more complicated.

LeBron and Davis (Photo: AP, Ron Jenkins)

Before the start of a season in which nothing was clear, there was only one consensus among commentators: The Lakers are the clear favorites to win the championship. The team that traveled to the championship in the bubble only got stronger in the summer, at least on paper, and by most predictions was supposed to travel this year as well. Therefore, the injuries of the champion stars and its deterioration in the Western table are very dramatic occurrences, ones that can change season orders. It seems that many still believe that in the end everything will work out, that LeBron will return and the Lakers will start to run over and again be dominant in the playoffs. This possibility cannot be ruled out, it is very difficult to bet against King James, but it is also impossible to ignore how worrying the situation of the team is at the moment. This looks like a true alarm.



Let's start from the end. Tonight's game between Portland and the Lakers was one of the most important in the regular season placement battles. It was a direct battle for sixth place securing a playoff ticket, while seventh place leads to the playoffs. Portland’s win gave it not only an advantage of a game over the Lakers in sixth place, but also the tiebreaker between the teams, which means the gap is equivalent to a game and a half. The Lakers will have to win two more games than the Blazers to overtake them back, with only five games left until the end of the season. It's not impossible, Portland have more games left against Utah, Phoenix and Denver, but the Lakers will face Phoenix and the Knicks in the upcoming games, when it is not yet clear if LeBron will be able to take part in them.



Fifth place is no longer really within the reach of the Lakers. Dallas opened a two-game gap over the champion there, she also won the season tiebreaker and the game schedule that remained very easy for her. Therefore, LeBron's team is in a head-to-head battle for sixth place with Portland, where it is a clear underdog. The Lakers would very much like to avoid the play-ins, but even sixth place right now is not a big deal for them. Right now, this place is leading to a first-round encounter with the Clippers, the team best built to face LeBron and Anthony Davis, with a battery of quality guards on forwards who can provide good personal defense throughout the 48 minutes. LeBron will probably not want to meet Kwai Leonard, Paul George, Marcus Morris and Nick Batom's team in two weeks, when he will probably be far from fully fit. It is important to emphasize that the positions of all the teams can change, the Clippers are also in the fight for third place with the stubborn Denver.



But right now the Lakers are going to sign for sixth place and a derby in the first round, the play-in tournament is much more stressful for them.

Reminder of format rules: The teams in seventh and eighth place will play against each other and the winner will receive seventh place in the conference.

The loser will play against the winner in a match between ninth and tenth place, in a battle for eighth place.

One loss will not lead to the dismissal of the champion, but two losses will.

The tournament will take place from May 18-21, will start in another ten days, and it can already be announced that the Lakers will not reach it in an ideal situation and that it is very difficult to assess what this means for their chances of success in it.

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Two of the greats of the decade head to head in the playoffs?

LeBron and Kerry (Photo: Reuters)

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Whoever is currently waiting for the Lakers in eighth place is none other than Golden State, which will lead to a very spicy encounter between LeBron James and Steph Kerry. Two of the great players of the past decade in the NBA, two who have won the last seven of the league's last nine championships together, who have played against each other in the league finals 22 times, may meet in a whole new situation for both of them. They have never been prepared for such an important game at such a point in the season, they have never played a single decisive game in the NBA other than as part of a series. This duel will be even more spicy if it is in the game of being or ceasing, in the second game of the play-in and not the first. That could happen if Memphis beats Golden State in a battle for eighth place and defeats the Lakers in the first game (and Golden State defeats San Antonio in another spicy battle). Memphis, by the way, experienced this situation last season in a game against Portland, so it can be said that Ja Morant is more experienced than LeBron James in the play-in format.



To understand how non-ideal the Lakers' lead-up to the playoffs and playoffs is, one has to go back a few months. The Lakers' problems began on Feb. 15, when Anthony Davis aggravated an Achilles tendon injury and was absent from the pitches for more than two months. On March 20 the obstacle became a real distress, when LeBron James was diagnosed with a high ankle sprain, a much more problematic injury than a regular sprain, which led to an absence of almost a month and a half. LeBron managed to play two games before he began to feel pain in his injured ankle and was disabled again, a very bad sign two weeks before the playoffs. Davis has been back to play regularly for the past two weeks, but in a derby against the Clippers yesterday he fell three times in the first nine minutes and was eventually sidelined for the rest of the game due to back pain.



Since Davis' injury, the Lakers have won 16 games and lost 23. The good news for Frank Vogel is that the defense has remained very strong this season as well and is ranked third in the league since the AD injury. It goes without saying, Davis was the defensive anchor and a legitimate candidate for the title of defensive player of the season before he was injured, LeBron is also one of the most important defensive players on the team. But Vogel's defensive machine works great even without them. His players come to work every game, prepare for every opponent, read high-level moves. Impressive to see the defensive upgrade of players like Kyle Cosma, Cantabius Caldwell Pop and Alex Caruso, who becomes a senior defensive guard for everything. Today it's just a team loaded with very good defensive players. The defense won the Lakers a few games and prevented a much bigger fall.



The attack, however, simply collapsed. It is ranked 26th in the league since the injury of AD, weaker than just Cleveland, Houston, Orlando and OKC, teams not trying to win basketball games this season. While the Lakers 'roster is wide and laden with players of different types in each position, it is a collection of sub-players that are nourished by the stars' creative ability. Vogel has no serious offensive plan beyond relying on LeBron's genius, Davis' exceptional abilities and to a much lesser extent Dennis Schroeder's talent. Attacks in which one of these three initiators does not usually get stuck.



On the face of it this is not a problem, the stars will return to initiate and the sub-players will return to being fed by them.

But the offensive collapse means the Lakers do not have the tools to tackle offensively even with a situation where senior players are not at their peak.

The premise of the Lakers offense is that it is not possible to deal with LeBron or Davis one-on-one, that the defenses will have to crowd or send significant help.

For them to be these non-stop players it is not enough that they will be on the floor, they need to be fit for the playoffs.

This is not something that happens from one day to the next, even the biggest players need time to get themselves into things after a prolonged injury.

Completely stuck without it.

Davis (Photo: GettyImages, Tom Pennington)

They are not close to that at the moment. Before tonight's successful game against Portland, in the first eight games after returning from injury Davis scored 16 points on 39.4 percent from the field and 19.2 percent from the three and added six rebounds per game. His net rating since returning is minus 13.1, the lowest on the team by a large margin. Also tonight, when he scored 36 points, the minutes he played the Lakers lost by 11 points. He is very far at the moment from the player he was in the last playoff.



LeBron demonstrates another problem: Attempting to return to high intensity too quickly leads to the danger of exacerbating the injury. When King James visited the play-in format this week he not only demonstrated the abilities of a polished politician that contradicts what he claimed a year ago, but it could be concluded that this tournament worries him. He understands what it means for games to be or cease in a week and a half, of having to bring oneself to a maximum level of physical readiness in such a short period of time. The playoffs will force LeBron and the Lakers to walk a fine line of balance between a high level of readiness and caution that will not endanger him for the rest of the playoffs, which in order to finish in the ring will have to include four tough series without a home.



In addition to the rest of the trouble, Schroeder gets into the Corona Protocol and is expected to exit it just moments before the play-in, so he will have to get himself back into playing shape.

And if that's not enough, then Andre Drummond really is unable to fit into the team in the meantime.

The new chin barely touches the ball on offense and is very disappointing on defense, his defensive ratings are the weakest on the team and the players around him do not trust him in exchanges on outside players.

It’s hard to blame Drummond, who joined an impossible situation and barely got a chance to get to know the stars.

The trio of LeBron, Davis and Drummond have so far played 28 minutes together.

Drummond is not a classic Pick n 'Roll player, should learn it and the nuances of his acting, especially LeBron.

Until that happens, he will have a very hard time being an effective player and it might be better for Vogel to return to the original rotation in which Mark Gasol rises in the top five and Monterz Harrell, who was ejected from the rotation recently, is the replacement chin.

Did not find the right balance.

Frank Vogel with LeBron (Photo: AP)

In general, Vogel has had a very hard time creating a clear rotation and the vehicles running together this year.

Only one Lakers quintet recorded more than 80 minutes in common this year, the original top five with Gasol as center, and they also played 281 minutes, exactly 400 minutes less than the Phoenix first five, for example.

As long as Drummond goes up in the top five instead of Gasol it becomes a completely different top five in terms of style, reaching the playoffs without any joint experience.



Therefore, apart from the question of the stars' fitness, the Lakers will also have to deal in the playoffs with the question of team connection, while meeting very connected teams like Utah or Phoenix, one of which will probably wait in the first round.

While most of the rotation players were in Los Angeles last season as well, the three chins and senior center are not and they are an important part of the rotation and style.

The road to replay looks very complicated at the moment, and it can already be said that if that happens it will be a much more impressive achievement than the bubble championship.

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Source: walla

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