Undermanned Grizzlies Embarrass LeBron's Listless Lakers
Seeking to take a 2-0 series lead over a Memphis team missing injured players Ja Morant, Steven Adams, and Brandon Clarke, the L.A. Lakers sleepwalked through the first quarter and barely woke up the rest of the way as the Grizzlies evened up the series with a 103-93 win. The Lakers took homecourt advantage by winning game one, but they must play a lot better to make sure that their first win in the series is not also their last.
Xavier Tillman--who may not be a household name in his own household, to borrow an old quip--led Memphis in scoring (22 points on 10-13 field goal shooting) while grabbing a game-high 13 rebounds, outplaying Anthony Davis (13 points on 4-14 field goal shooting, eight rebounds), who is a member of the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team. Davis did not look like the 75th best player in the NBA now, never mind being one of the 75 greatest players of all-time. Jaren Jackson Jr., who just won the Defensive Player of the Year award, added 18 points, nine rebounds, and three blocked shots. All five Memphis starters scored in double figures, and they were joined by Luke Kennard, who contributed 13 points off of the bench.
This game was not about offense, though. The Grizzlies shot just .427 from the field, but they held the Lakers--who have not one but two members of the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team--to .412 field goal shooting. Despite being without Adams and Clarke, the Grizzlies outrebounded the Lakers 49-47 and held the Lakers to a draw in the paint, with each team scoring 50 points. That draw is a win for the undersized Grizzlies.
LeBron James, the Lakers' other member of the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team, had one of his quintessential stat padding performances, scoring 28 points on 12-23 field goal shooting while grabbing 12 rebounds. I can think of at least two ESPN "journalists" who are probably writing articles (or filming standups) about how James cannot be blamed for this loss--without mentioning that James had a game-worst -17 plus/minus number. How does the self-proclaimed greatest player of all-time score 28 points while his team "loses" his on court time by 17 points? One clue can be seen in James' three point field goal shooting: 1-8. James is a force of nature, and Memphis is an undersized, undermanned team, so the Lakers' winning formula is obvious: attack the paint to score layups and draw fouls. James refused to do that on a consistent basis, and this cannot just be dismissed as something caused by his advanced age; James playing passively and not attacking the paint has been a recurring theme throughout his career, and this is made all the more glaring by the fact that in the playoff runs when he attacked the paint his teams won championships. We know that James can attack the paint because we have seen him do it. We also know that some of the Lakers' best plays in this game happened as a result of James attacking the paint.
What we don't know is why James often refuses to attack the paint; I have said for 20 years that James confounds me more than any other great player who I have ever watched or studied. His greatness is indisputable, and Skip "Clueless" is a moron for suggesting otherwise--but it is also indisputable that James does not always play in an optimal way for team success, resulting in some baffling and inexcusable losses.
The NBA is often a first quarter league, and the Grizzlies attacked the Lakers throughout the first quarter, pounding them in the paint 20-8 en route to leading 30-19 by the end of the first stanza. All season, we have heard nonsense about the Lakers needing "lasers," about Russell Westbrook being a washed up player who is supposedly a bad locker room influence, and about James needing more help. What James needs to do is attack the paint on offense and defend the paint on defense--and he needs to convince Anthony Davis to do both of those things as well.
Instead, the Lakers continued to play listlessly in the second quarter, trailing by as many as 16 points and being outscored 59-44 in the first 24 minutes. During TNT's halftime show, Kenny Smith declared that the Lakers "should be ashamed."
Charles Barkley echoed that sentiment, and identified the Lakers' unfounded self-belief as the reason "why the Lakers have been inconsistent all year." James
led the Lakers with 12 first half points--and he had a team-worst -15
plus/minus number.
I picked Memphis to win this series despite Adams and Clarke being injured (Morant got injured in game one) because the Grizzlies have been the second seeded team in the Western Conference each of the past two seasons. They are a young squad that is building a winning culture. In contrast, during the five seasons that LeBron James has spent with the Lakers the team has missed the playoffs twice, lost in the first round once, and snuck into the playoffs this season via the Play-In Tournament, needing overtime before dispatching the shorthanded Minnesota Timberwolves. Of course, the Lakers won the 2020 "Bubble" title, so James and his fans will always be able to unfurl the "Mission Accomplished" banner.
That championship does not--or should not--absolve James of responsibility for the Lakers' consistent mediocrity throughout his time in L.A.
All season long, "experts" like Dave McMenamin and Brian Windhorst insisted that all that the Lakers needed to do was get rid of Westbrook and the team would improve significantly. After the Lakers traded Westbrook, the Lakers were singled out as the proverbial "team nobody wants to face."
So far--as noted above--the mighty Lakers stumbled into the playoffs via the Play-In Tournament, won one game against an undermanned Memphis team, and then fell asleep in game two. The next predictable propaganda narrative will be that the Lakers are in great shape because they have homecourt advantage. The reality is that homecourt advantage only matters if you play hard and play smart. For the past five years, the one constant with LeBron's Lakers is that they do not consistently play hard and play smart.
Media members heap praise on the three players who the Lakers acquired for the much-maligned Westbrook, so let's look how
those players did versus Memphis in game two.
D'Angelo
Russell had five points on 2-11 field goal shooting, plus four assists and three turnovers. He is averaging 12.0 ppg on .321 field goal shooting in the first two games of this series.
Jarred Vanderbilt had eight points on 3-5 field goal shooting. He is averaging 6.0 ppg on .556 field goal shooting in the first two games of this series.
Malik Beasley had seven points on 2-4 field goal shooting. He is averaging 3.5 ppg on .333 field goal shooting in the first two games of this series.
The Lakers traded a future Hall of Famer for two unproven role players (Beasley and Vanderbilt) plus one player who has never proven that he can be an effective rotation player on a winning team (Russell)--but we are supposed to believe that this was a stroke of brilliance!
The Lakers could still win this series; they have the two most talented players in the series and they have a size advantage--but I picked the Grizzlies because I have seen who these Lakers are for five years, and because I neither respect their team culture nor do I expect it to improve, and thus I believe that even a shorthanded team with a winning culture will prevail against a full strength team that does not consistently play the right way.
The Lakers run hot and cold, so I would not be surprised if they win game three in a blowout, lose a close game four at home, lose by 10 again on the road in game five, and then fall apart at home in game six. Every time the Lakers have one good game, some media members get so excited that they forget--or refuse--to look at the big picture. Outside of the protective 2020 "Bubble," none of the Lakers' "momentum wins" in the past five years have had any long-term significance: the Lakers' game one win did not mean much, and the same will be true if they win game three.
A team that does not consistently play hard is doomed to mediocrity. That is the truth about the Lakers; anything else is propaganda that will not stand the test of time (and of teams that play hard).
Labels: Anthony Davis, Jaren Jackson Jr., L.A. Lakers, LeBron James, Memphis Grizzlies, Xavier Tillman
posted by David Friedman @ 11:42 PM
