Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers Confront Critical Moment as JJ Redick, Big Three Struggle With Team Identity

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Lakers start a stretch of must-win games Tuesday night against Orlando, but can they build enough chemistry to actually take advantage of their schedule? That's next. You are Locked-on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers first listen to every day, Monday through Friday, sometimes on weekends, and even on holidays,

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Starting point is 00:00:50 or universe or galaxy. I'm Brian Kamenetsky with Andy Kamenetsky. Cover the Lakers for nearly 20 years with ESPN, the LA, LA Times with the athletic. Andy, the Lakers are entering a very critical stretch of schedule here because

Starting point is 00:01:06 the games, certainly over the next five, and even a few beyond that, if you're looking at the whole picture here, are extremely winnable. And given their challenges against some of the better teams in the league, they simply cannot afford to give away games or lose games against lesser teams if they would like to be in a position to take advantage of playing well at the end of the year. And just to avoid the playing altogether, you know, three through six, three through seven or eight is potentially going to be very, very tightly bunched as it off it is down the stretch in the Western Conference. And the Lakers have done a really good job this year for all of their inconsistencies, for all of their flaws. They've done a good job this year beating the teams that they should. You can have concerns about their ability to beat the harder teams, but the teams that they are supposed to beat, they just. generally have. The slate begins with a home game against the magic, no Franz Wagner, maybe no Jalen Suggs. He's dealing with the back injury. Either way, Orlando has been disappointing all season.

Starting point is 00:02:16 They're below 500 on the road. Then he got the Sons with no Devin Booker, no Dylan Brooks, no Jordan Goodwin, maybe no coveted Haywood Highsmith, possibly no Grayson Allen, then the Warriors with no Steph, no Jimmy Butler, Porzingis, and Draymond Green, unclear. Sacramento, no anybody who matters. The Pelicans, who might have, it's kind of easy to forget, DeJante Murray's been on the team. He may be back by then. I don't know if he'll be on any type of restrictions.

Starting point is 00:02:48 He's supposed to start playing Tuesday night. So, I mean, he'll be presumably would be available for that game next week. But even with that, it's not a good team. No, not good at all. Then you got Denver, that's obviously tough. And then the tank and pacers. The Lakers, in my opinion, need to go six and one in this stretch at worst. Like maybe there's a context you can talk me into where five and two becomes acceptable.

Starting point is 00:03:19 But I see six and one as both reasonable, practical, and we cannot afford to F around with this like if they if they manage to pull off seven and oh awesome but they yeah to my original point they cannot afford to boot winnable games while jockeing for these spots and other than Denver all of these games are imminently winnable they have to win these games yeah i mean i agree with that i mean i think five and two you know you look at phoenix orlando denver those are the three most competent teams on there. You get two of those are on the road, Orlando's at home.

Starting point is 00:04:03 You need to win five days. Phoenix is a zombie squad. I don't consider this version. I'm just, I agree with you. And then there, you know, it's especially important because that is the team that you are trying to keep in that seven spot.

Starting point is 00:04:19 You know, the Lakers are two games as play starts on Tuesday. The Lakers will be two games ahead of the suns. Lakers tied for fifth right now. Now the Suns are in seventh. You know, the Warriors are in eighth, but there's a pretty good gap between Golden State and the Lakers. You know, don't have to worry about that quite yet.

Starting point is 00:04:37 But like that Phoenix game's a big one. And it was fun. I got a, I was, you know, just kind of looking on socials and stuff this afternoon. And I saw a tweet. He made the point that if they don't fix themselves during this five-game stretch,

Starting point is 00:04:55 he's just talking about the game before Denver and Indiana. It's just not going to happen. Three games against injured and struggling teams, then two against some bums. And I agree with a lot of the evaluations of the players, but the part about this that I think is really important is like, there's not a fix here. This isn't a question of, to me at least,

Starting point is 00:05:15 like can you fix this team? Can they find like they better fix it implies that there's like a thing that they can find and, you know, click into that will, suddenly make them the sort of best version of themselves that we've all kind of been hoping to see over the course of the year. This is a stretch and they talked about a little bit at practice on Monday. This is like a process. I've got like 26 games or whatever it is to figure out how they can get to an endpoint. They need to win these games because if they don't,

Starting point is 00:05:52 reaching that endpoint may not matter very much. If you want to want to make that end point have value, you got to have enough wins piled up that you still have an opportunity to be a three, a four, a five, you know, certainly avoiding that play in or having to really sweat being in the play. Yeah, LeBron said after the Celtics loss, talking about where the team is right now and the chemistry, in particular between him and Luca and Austin not being there. And he said, quote, I don't think we're right, we're there right now. I think we've got some games, but obviously it's a sprint now, but we've got to figure it out.

Starting point is 00:06:32 And it's not just me, A.R. and Luca, obviously, we've got the ball in the hands majority of time. We've got to make sure to keep the other guys in tune and in the flow. So the offense is five guys, not just three or two or one. Whoever's on the floor, it's got to be five guys being able to play off each other. And maybe when we get back, we can get into a little bit of specifics or thoughts about those sentiments from LeBron in terms of some of the things that we are seeing and some of the things that if nothing else, you are correct, you are not going to instantly fix everything over three, four, five games, but you can start making tangible steps towards progress and moving in the right direction. So hopefully by five games left in the season, four games left in the season, it really does feel like you are consistently playing. your best ball. So we can get into that coming up next. But first, Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Indeed. You got workplace chaos, deadlines stacking up in blocks, in box overflowing. And one position

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Starting point is 00:09:38 be big potential about the three of us, him, Austin, LeBron, playing together. You read LeBron's quote. I don't think we're there right now. I think we've got some games, but obviously it's a sprint right now. We've got to figure it out. And it's not just me, A.R. and Luca. And, you know, it's a whole team thing. You go to Marcus Smart. We're good. The talent is there. We've got the pieces.

Starting point is 00:10:01 It's just making them mesh. We definitely have some work to do. Everybody knows that, but we're hanging in there. The question just becomes, can you against these, particularly against teams that allow you a little flexibility to do things. You can improve on things against the pacers in ways that you

Starting point is 00:10:22 probably can't against the Celtics. can you know the magic like you mentioned are not a great road team they're missing some guys the the the warriors are going to be missing players like this affords you the opportunity to get real reps and get better at stuff and make those start to make those improvements um if you can find the right balance of things and remember to do certain things like what are you looking for There are two things that jumped out, both from the postgame comments and then some of what was said during Monday's practice in El Segundo. The idea that the ball isn't moving enough. And when they lose games, it is often a byproduct of the ball not moving enough.

Starting point is 00:11:11 Or when the offense specifically is not working well in losses or even wins where they don't look so hot, it is often the byproduct of the ball not moving enough. and that really is something that Luca, LeBron, and Austin have to address the most because they're the ones who have the ball the most. And I looked up some splits for passes in wins versus losses. In wins, Luca is averaging 55.1 passes per game, generating 9.2 assists per game and in particular, three-point shooting off his passes at almost 39%. LeBron in wins, 49.8 passes, almost eight assists per game and 39% three-point shooting. Austin, 52.1 passes per game, 6.3 assists, a little under 35% for three-point shooting. In losses, Lucas passes go down from 55 to 51. LeBron's go down from a little under 50 to a little under 43.

Starting point is 00:12:18 Austin's go down by almost 10. And by one would say definition or logical reason, their assist numbers all go down. And also, two, the three point percentages go down. I think in part because the ball isn't moving enough and it makes it easier for defenses to key on what they're doing. It makes it harder to get the cleaner looks that you want for these outside shooters. Also, the outside shooters are often not in any type of rhythm. them because the ball isn't moving. They're not moving. They're not moving.

Starting point is 00:12:52 Right. Exactly. And you can see that again, there's context in all of these numbers. You could go through each game and find specific. Sure, but they are what they are. They are what they are. I think was their lowest number of passes this season or damn close to it. Right. It's very stark those differences in the amount of passes for those three guys. on average between wins and losses. I don't think that it's a coincidence that those are often the times when the offense falls apart because the offense at that point just starts becoming more predictable. Like when any of those three have the ball in their hands a lot, looking to create

Starting point is 00:13:37 ISO, I'm not going to say it's easy to stop because you're talking about three talented offensive players, but it becomes much more predictable and predictable is helpful for a defense. It's both. I think it is easier to stop. I mean, it's, it's, it's, you know, we spent Tuesday's show talking a lot about like what physical defenders can do with Reeves. Like that helps when it's sort of an ISO game. When, you know, when there's less movement, fewer eyes, the rotations are tighter, the, you know, the, the, the, the switches are more aggressive, whatever it might be. All of that plays kind of against Austin. And, and, you know, they need to figure out what's, you know, they need to figure out what's, you know, the, the, the, the, the switches are. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the switches the balance with the big three because they do tend still to struggle with all three of them on the floor at the same time. Who is, you know, can D'Andre Ait and provide you with enough defense while still figuring out how to get you the, you know, you need him to find a little bit more of his offense? Well, JJ mentioned too, and this is directly related to passes, the need to get him the ball

Starting point is 00:14:40 more. Like there's stuff that D'Andre has to be proactive on, you know, as far as getting to spots quicker, like, you know, getting to spots more forcefully, stuff like that. But also just he needs to get actually the ball to him. He cannot get himself the ball. And that is often a problem in games where it doesn't feel like DeAndre's doing much. He often isn't given as much to do. Well, one of the, one of the tricky things, and I know Rui talked a little bit about this

Starting point is 00:15:10 at Monday's practice as well. It's like now that everybody's back, everybody gets slotted into. theoretically what their roles ought to be. Like, you know, Aitin would have been doing different stuff in that incredible November that he had. Might have looked a little different if the Lakers had all of their players at that time. And so, like, everybody's finally, you know, Rui is not as good off the bench as he is as a starter. He makes way more sense on this team coming off the bench.

Starting point is 00:15:39 Sure. But he is, you know, much more effective, I think, on a night-to-night basis as a starter than he is. as a reserve. That doesn't mean I think they should start him. It just means he's got to figure out how to be as useful as possible as a reserve. They need to figure, you know, the balance of where Luke Kennard fits in is still something they're working on. But fundamentally, it's like, what are the combinations that you use at different times? How much can you use the big three together?

Starting point is 00:16:13 Who are the two other players in what situation? are there they can tweak that just to turn the dial enough to make those minutes a little bit more productive because frankly you know they are they do better when they're two of the three um lebron is dragging down some of the numbers for all the combinations but generally speaking certainly two of the three is better than all three of them together there's a lot of reorganizing that you just don't want to have to be doing in February, but that's where they are. Like there's no way around it.

Starting point is 00:16:54 And it's a challenge for JJ Redick and the coaching staff because you need to be able to find stuff quickly, experiment a little bit, but also give players reps and look. that are consistent enough that they can use these last 20 games or something to get better with at least some knowledge of what's coming. So like you may not, I don't think they have time. Tell me if you disagree. I don't think they have time to find like the ideal rotations, the ideal combinations. You're going to have to just sort of find stuff that they feel like on a, it kind of works,

Starting point is 00:17:34 you know, and let it go. We'll see if they can get this thing off to a good start where they, victory over the limping Orlando magic Tuesday night at The Crypt. Lockdown Lakers on YouTube is where you're going to hang out with over 37,000 subscribers. We'll see everyone after the game.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers Confront Critical Moment as JJ Redick, Big Three Struggle With Team Identity

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