Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers Lose Game 1, 117-95. Offense Struggles Despite 37 Points from Luka Dončić

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everyone, welcome to a bonus episode, another bonus episode of Locked on Lakers. Brian Komeneski, Andy Komeneske, Lakers lose game one, 117, 95. Plenty to go over. Lots of it bad. That's next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Lockedon Podcast, part of the Lockedon Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Lockdown Lakers.

Starting point is 00:00:32 First listen to every day, Monday through Friday, no matter how, where you get your podcast. this one's always free, never behind paywall. Of course, Locked on Lakers on YouTube as where over 34,000 subscribers, nearly 35 now, Andy, are all very upset at what happened to the Lakers. Saturday night at the Crip. They lose 1,1795, a game that went downhill quickly after a reasonably good opening 12 minutes to this game. Game one goes to Minnesota Lakers, really now facing a, for all practical purposes, It was a must-win game two, Tuesday night at the crypt.

Starting point is 00:01:07 This was, in a lot of ways, Andy, you know, when this matchup was set last week, you and I kind of laid out all the different things about the wolves that could be problematic for the Lakers or really any team that they play because of Minnesota's very good team. Pretty much all of them were on display in this game on Saturday, down to the, the, hey, how would you defend the Lakers if you were Minnesota scouting report that we gave in our crossover episode with Ben Beacon? So in that sense, we were spot on. Maybe we were too good. I mean, there's always a chance that Ben Beacon passed this show along to his compadres over

Starting point is 00:01:52 at the Timberwolves organization. And we incepted some ideas into Chris Finch's head, in which case, sorry. That was not our intention. Here's what I would say off the top before we get into a lot of what went wrong in this game, which is more or less all of it. I think the overwhelming majority of what went wrong in this game is correctable for the Lakers and fixable for the Lakers. I did not walk away from this game. And maybe it's just because you and I had both been emphasizing while we picked Lakers in six.

Starting point is 00:02:32 Minnesota is a good team. Close to a seven-game series and a five-game series. That's for sure. Absolutely. We both made that clear that we thought this is going to be a hard-fought series, that it was going to be something that the Lakers were going to have to earn. There was nothing that I saw tonight that made me feel like, oh, crap, this matchup is much different and worse than I anticipated.

Starting point is 00:02:59 I think much of what happened that went wrong. tonight is in the Lakers power to fix and it's going to be on them to, as LeBron talked about afterwards, control the controllables. Because I think there was a lot that was at least somewhat tangibly controllable for the Lakers that they just did a bleep poor job of handling it. Yeah, I just, I look at this game and, you know, first and foremost, I think they lose this game. You know, people are going to look at 117 points, 38 points from Minnesota in the second quarter, 35 in the third, and get credit, you know, 50% from Minnesota from the three point

Starting point is 00:03:41 range. That's robust to say the least for the wolves. And they're going to look at that and really start pointing fingers to the Lakers defense. I mean, I think the Lakers absolutely lost this game on the offensive side of the ball. And, you know, not to say that they couldn't have played better defensively. But I feel like a lot of their failures, particularly in that second quarter when they let Minnesota get away. And Minnesota puts on the rally cap at the top of the second quarter with Luke on the bench started because they could not respond to what Minnesota was doing. They couldn't get the ball in the basket to slow down transition, turn the ball over too much, bad offense leading to imbalance defense. And a lot of

Starting point is 00:04:25 of that led directly to those wide open three-pointers that the Lakers were giving up. And, you know, you just, you look up and down the box, first of all, 95 points. It's not going to get it done in an NBA game. But 16 from Reeves, 19 from LeBron, 35 points from those two guys combined on inefficient shooting. That's just not close enough. This is before you get to three points from Dorian Finney Smith in 33 minutes, you know, a bench production your three primary bench players giving you eight points on the night, all that stuff. Outside of Luca Donchich, the Lakers didn't have another guy hit 20 and only had three players and double figures.

Starting point is 00:05:09 And we can talk about assists, we can talk about ball movement, player movement, all that. Just from a straight production standpoint, the Lakers simply did not get enough from their best players. No, they didn't. And it's interesting. I agree with you about the offense versus the defense in terms of what caused this mess to a point. Because I think there was a very specific part of the defense that kept doing the Lakers in. Like they kept collapsing on either or Julius Randall on those drives and leaving shooters open over and over. They were definitely overplaying, you know, the paint protection there.

Starting point is 00:05:51 Right, like that one piece of it, I think, played as big of a role, if not the biggest. Like that one specific part of the defense, I think arguably played as big a role as anything leading to this loss. But you are correct. I completely agree with you that the offense was a big problem in this game. And in particular, too, this is something that I know I've talked about a lot during the Luca era. And I want to make it clear before anybody misinterprets this, I'm not putting this loss on Luca. Luke had 37 points. He was 12 of 22 from the field.

Starting point is 00:06:24 He hit 5-3s, 8 of 9 at the line. Like they needed Luca's offense, like full stop just before this gets misinterpreted. But this was a night where we saw super heavy usage from Luca. The advanced numbers have come out from the box score of this game. Lukas was at 35. LeBron at 27. Austin at 20. And I've talked about this before.

Starting point is 00:06:53 Knights like that are typical of when the offense falls apart and gets stagnant. Feels very your turn, your turn, I guess now your turn, because there's three guys. And you end up with very little ball movement. You end up with what feels like nothing in terms of called sets and just guys dribbling, looking for a shot. and forget what the effect of what that does to like LeBron or Austin, who I think side note just came into this game not feeling it and never really found it. But guys like Rui and DFS and Gabe,

Starting point is 00:07:33 they're not going to find any rhythm that way. And it is on them to play better than they did tonight. I'm not putting their performance on LeBron, Luca, and Austin. I'm just saying there is a bad center. between that style of playing and what you get from the role players. Well, we'd said, you know, the Lakers are least effective when you as an opponent can get them to play one-on-one, where you present that. And it's not like, it's not guys necessarily going and just playing a hero ball.

Starting point is 00:08:05 It's what you are presenting as a defense is this is the best opportunity for you. You know, clear, go ahead, clear out aside or, you know, set up LeBron one-on-one, whatever. and you're encouraging that. And then maybe if a guy can get into the lane, it collapses, you can make the kick out and whatever. But again, that leads to one pass. You've got maybe one pass in a jumper, two passes the most, whatever it might be.

Starting point is 00:08:28 And, you know, if you're Minnesota, you look at what Luca did, 37 points. Oh, wow, you really got loose. 12 of 22, 8 of 9 free throws, you know, 5 of 10 from 3 point range. And, you know, you look at the box score and you think just points, you know, oh my, Luke is doing what he did,

Starting point is 00:08:45 last year to the wolves, except he only had one assist. And the Lakers as a team only had 15. And so, okay, a little better shot making after the first quarter, maybe those numbers move a little bit, the defensive job. Like, got to make some shots. The Lakers missed all of their sort of open got to have a three's. Minnesota made all of them. Like, they made a lot of their don't even need a made.

Starting point is 00:09:11 They made their, just screwing. They made their got-a-habs and they're nice-to-haves. Yeah. They made their gauche threes. Yeah. And so, you know, you look at that and that to me, it's the one assist where you can look at it and say Minnesota did what they knew. Like, you know, with the Lakers, Anthony Edwards himself was not dominant from a point scoring

Starting point is 00:09:38 standpoint. He was eight of 20, took him 22 shots, I believe, to get, yeah, 22 shots. Yeah, 22 shots to get 22 points, but he had nine assists. And like you say, when he got into the paint, paint collapses. Minnesota is able to make those plays around the perimeter. You know, I, so I just, I look at what the Lakers did. You use sort of freelance. There just wasn't nearly enough action in what they were running in this game.

Starting point is 00:10:08 And they cannot repeat that on Tuesday or get a similar result. No, LeBron, like I said, he mentioned control and the controllables, and I think that is one of those controllables. He also, so did JJ Reddick, I think so did Austin Reeves. They talked about a lack of physicality from the Lakers and like the wolves playing at a more intense overall vibe. And just like their presence was more intense in this game. You could see it in the way that I don't know the amount. know the amount of loose balls that Minnesota tracked down exactly versus the Lakers tracked down exactly, but I can promise you they won that battle. Minnesota won that battle.

Starting point is 00:10:53 Which one? I'm sorry? The loose balls. Oh, right. Yeah. Tracking down 50, 50 balls, getting, you know, they, we talked about heading into this game that Minnesota is not an elite offensive rebounding team or an elite rebounding team, period, despite them being a pretty big team. but they're super opportunistic with the offensive rebounds that they get. And that played out tonight. Well, the first quarter of the Lakers, it was the Lakers who actually, the Lakers offense was not good in the first quarter. What it was was opportunistic to use your word.

Starting point is 00:11:28 They won the second chance points battle. And they, by half the, you know, third of their points in the first quarter, I think, came on second chance points. That flipped completely after the end of the first quarter. And the Lakers, you know, five offensive rebounds last two minutes of the game, from that point on, from the end of the first quarter through to garbage time, the Lakers lost the battle on their defensive glass and the battle for second chance points. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:00 And that, I think, gets back to the issue of physicality, the issue of intensity. the Lakers did not seem prepared. You know, JJ said that he thought mentally they were prepared for this game, but physically it didn't seem like they were there. And I think that lacking physicality, like not matching what Minnesota was putting out there from a physicality or sometimes it can feel like in cliched terms, won it more.

Starting point is 00:12:32 Like, I got to be honest, this felt like a game that Minnesota wanted more than the Lakers. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying they did. I know. I know. Right. It's one of those things where the Lakers have struggled with, you know, athletic teams that get up into them physically.

Starting point is 00:12:52 And I don't know. I mean, they almost seemed like surprised with the aggressiveness, particularly again, after the end of that first quarter, once the Lakers stop slowing Minnesota down with the ability to get to the glass and get these second chance points, particularly in the top of that second quarter, they were just very aggressive with Reeves. They were very aggressive with LeBron.

Starting point is 00:13:15 Neither one of them responded particularly well. I mean, Reeves' box score looks, doesn't look good, but it looks better than his game actually was. That is true. He got a little better as the game went along. Third quarter, you know, started, you know, he hit a couple shots, and he started to sort of figure out what they were doing with him

Starting point is 00:13:34 and all that kind of stuff, but it still wasn't good. And LeBron, I think was he scoreless in the first quarter? Yeah, he didn't score. LeBron did not score. I'll say that I don't think he had gotten in the line in the first quarter. I know that he did not score a basket until at least three or four minutes into the first quarter. I mean, into the second quarter.

Starting point is 00:13:56 Second quarter. And I think it took, you know, it took, you know, I don't know how he's feeling physically with the, you know, the groin that was hurt, you know, at the end of last week and all that stuff. But good enough to jump up and down celebrating with Austin Reeves. I mean, I'm just saying, I mean, before it cooled down. No, I will say it's now always different the next day. But Leo, I mean, his response to how are you feeling was, you know, to for game one is I'm available for game one, which is not I feel good. That means I'm available for game one.

Starting point is 00:14:26 I guess. The entire team had been downplaying this a lot. I'm not, I'm just saying, I don't know how he, all I said was. I don't know how he's feeling physically. But he wasn't, you know, he got a little, again, a little better as the game went along. But it took a minute to even find a place where it seemed like he, you know, was loose and moving well. Let's take a break and then kind of break down a little bit more of what we saw in game one, what we're looking forward to in game two.

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Starting point is 00:17:50 well, I kind of prove my point. Like, if you can do that, we're not, you know, it is, it is, it's one of these things where like I can get into Dorian Finney Smith scoring three points in 33 minutes. I can get into Gabe Vincent. and Jared Banderbilt and, you know, very lightly used Jackson Hayes, only played eight minutes in this game, which I was hoping would be a good sign if you didn't play a lot, it turned out not to be, but, or at the very least, a neutral. I, it starts, the whole thing is predicated on Luca being Luca, and he was from a scoring standpoint, certainly not necessarily from a ball distribution,

Starting point is 00:18:36 standpoint. It starts with LeBron being playoff LeBron, and he definitely was not in this one. And it starts with Austin Rebes being something close to what he has been over the last six weeks, and he definitely wasn't. So yes, would it be, have been nice if DFS put up

Starting point is 00:18:53 15? Yeah, they could have used it. Or, you know, 22 from Rui? 100%. But those three guys need to be better if the Lakers are going to win. And the offense needs to run better if those guys are going to win. And then you can start turning to questions of, you know, is Jaden McDaniels going to go 11 of 13 again? And all this other stuff.

Starting point is 00:19:14 Just first and foremost, the Lakers best players were not good enough in total to win game one. Yeah, they did not perform individually or I think most importantly, collectively well enough. Like the three of them, you know, they're all three very good players. In the case of LeBron and Luca, you're talking about guys who are considered top. top five, top 10 in the league at worst, and two of the best facilitators and scores and quarterbacks, you know, on-court quarterbacks in the entire league. But what makes the Lakers offense potentially most deadly is when the three of them are working in concert. And that was not happening tonight at all. It felt like three guys playing three very individual

Starting point is 00:20:00 games. Right. Well, they can't work in concert. You can't have that synergy if nobody's moving. If the ball isn't moving and if the players aren't moving and you don't have the action to get guys incorporated in different ways so you have a two-man game with LeBron and Luca, you know, AR. If nobody's moving around, if it becomes a one-on-one game, what you're talking about is functionally impossible. Yeah. And look, there's a responsibility on Rui and DFS and Gabe, Vando,

Starting point is 00:20:26 all these guys to be moving on their own. But I do think a lot of this begins with LeBron, Luca, and Austin, because if these other guys, I think, start sensing, this is going to be one of those nights where the ball gets sticky, they're naturally going to fall into standing around and watching because they honestly have nothing else to do. So on some level, again, they have their own responsibilities, but that's where the beginning of these possessions all start.

Starting point is 00:20:59 I mean, that that's where it all begins. and that's that's something that again, Austin and LeBron and Lucan need to be more mindful of. It's interesting too. I was talking about the physicality that was lacking from the Lakers in this game. And Matt in the comments section had asked about Jordan Goodwin only playing three minutes in this game. And I can understand it in the sense of the Lakers,

Starting point is 00:21:28 once they fell behind, as much as there were defensive issues, they needed scoring and Jordan Goodwin's not a reliable score. Rotations can sometimes shrink anyway, and if that happens, Jordan Goodwin of the guy still in the rotation is the most likely to have his minutes get lopped off anyway. But it may not be a total coincidence that on a night where physicality and intensity were not there, Jordan Goodwin barely played, because he is somebody that provides a lot of that.

Starting point is 00:21:57 And I don't even mean to bring this up in the sense of this means Jordan Goodwin should be playing 15 to 20 minutes, you know, depending on how well he's playing, great, if not whatever. But they have to be mindful of if Goodwin isn't there, somebody else needs to be replicating the things that put Jordan Goodwin in the rotation in the first place. And I think it's kind of emblematic that he was not playing on a night where a lot of what he provides wasn't there. Jordan Goodwin wasn't going to make the difference in that. I'm not going to answer the question.

Starting point is 00:22:40 Vanderbilt brought something a little bit in terms of energy, whatever. We saw some of his limitations in terms of finishing and stuff like that. I mean, there was one sequence early in the game where the Lakers actually benefited Vando couldn't finish at the rim. He did, though, get the offensive rebound, kicked it out, I think DeRuey for a three. They didn't, they, the criticism from Redick that the physicality and, you know, wasn't there early, especially, and then consistently certainly wasn't there at the top of the second quarter when Minnesota started to really break them down. I think it's 100% fair because you could see what it did look like when the Lakers did ramp it up and did ramp it up and did

Starting point is 00:23:27 ramp up that physicality. Bando was a guy in the middle of all of that. Yeah, he was. And, you know, he only played 14 minutes, but, you know, a lot of times it felt impactful when he did. And so you could, you can literally see it, like just what it looked like and that it was different, you know, it mattered to some degree because it helped eat into Minnesota's lead.

Starting point is 00:23:46 They got it down to 12 at one point where you start to, you know, you squint a little bit. Maybe the Lakers can get into this of Minnesota panics a little bit, but they didn't. And, you know, the lead goes from, you know, you need to get it from 12 to 9 pretty quick, you know, 12 to 8 pretty quick. And instead it went from 12 to 16 really quick. And that was basically your ball game. I, it's the thing that one of the things that does worry, you talk about stuff that's sustainable versus not sustainable,

Starting point is 00:24:18 correctable versus not correctable. If the Lakers can't get much out of Hayes, and this is not a series where Hayes is going to be able to play 15 to 20 minutes a night. And that may be what this series is. We talked about going in. I wasn't sure if he's going to be able to play more than 10 to 15. He only got eight. If that's going to be the case,

Starting point is 00:24:42 and you might only be playing Vando for 15 minutes a night, he only got 14 in game one. Minnesota, the Lakers essentially played like a seven and a half man rotation. Minnesota's got an extra player or two in their rotation, you know, in 20 minutes or more, to where I do worry a little bit about their depth having an impact over the course of what I think is going to be a long series. And so that's something that worries me a little bit. Like if the Lakers aren't, are not only going to play a short bench, but get three points

Starting point is 00:25:18 out of each of those guys, it could be problematic. That is something I look at and say that needs to change. And I am a little worried about the correctability of it only because we've been talking about the weakness of the Lakers bench from a production standpoint all season long. Yeah. I think DFS and Gabe can be more prolific than what we saw in this game. Sure. We've seen them be better than this. Like I don't expect them to both put up 20 like they had in that game where they beat the Rockets on a night where Reeves and Luca and LeBron.

Starting point is 00:25:55 all collectively scuffled and those two basically save the Lakers. I don't expect it to be that prolific necessarily, certainly not regularly, but they definitely need to do more. And look, there's some elements we were talking about what's repeatable, what isn't, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:12 if Jaden McDaniel average, if Jane McDaniels averages 25 in this series, on 85% shooting. Yeah, I mean, then, you know, hats off.

Starting point is 00:26:21 And yeah, the Lakers aren't going to win because apparently Jaden McDaniels is a rising all-N-B-A caliber player and just he was hiding in plain sight and nobody saw it. So, you know, there are elements that may not be repeatable on Minnesota's side as well, but the flip side is this was a game where, you know, Ant did some good distributing and he had eight rebounds, but it took him a while, frankly, to feel comfortable either. And Julius Randall, I know he hit four threes in this game. And while they needed to do a better job contesting those three.

Starting point is 00:26:56 Like Julius is a good enough outside shooter that if you give him wide open looks. And for what it's worth, came into the playoffs shooting pretty well over the last month. Right. But for the most part, over the course of, you know, his career and certainly in the playoffs, he's not been reliable from outside at all. But, you know, he had four threes, but he also had five turnovers. I mean, Julius, the wolf's best and second best players in this game struggled to find rhythm for a lot of it.

Starting point is 00:27:26 And it was the role players in a lot of ways that really took over this game that combined with, I think, bad decisions by the Lakers on both sides of the ball. Now, by the way, this is a let you finish your point. If, you know, Ben on Locked on Wolves is talking about that as a reason to be encouraged for game two. Yeah. The, you know, the Lakers held Edwards in check as a score, if nothing else. and Randall, you know, with the turnovers and all that kind of stuff, you know, overall,

Starting point is 00:27:58 I think he played a pretty strong game, but seven turnovers in total, you know, and in 16 points isn't exactly like going nuclear. So, you know, seven, I thought he had five. You know, seven. They're looking at, they're looking at that as a reason to be encouraged for game two, whereas the Lakers would say, you do something similar to Ant and Randall in game one, and Nasree doesn't go six of nine from three point range. It's a different game.

Starting point is 00:28:23 Yeah. There are a lot of different ways that you can look at this, whether you are a Wolves fan, whether you're a Lakers fan, both either team. But the Lakers have to first and foremost. And again, I think this is why LeBron repeated the phrase, control the controllables, a couple times. Yeah. There's a lot that there's a lot that is in their power to do better.

Starting point is 00:28:47 and they need to dedicate themselves to doing it. Otherwise, this is going to be a shorter series than they anticipated for all the wrong reasons. Yep. All right. So plenty to get into tomorrow for Monday. Again, the Lakers don't play until Tuesday, but game one was certainly a clunker for them.

Starting point is 00:29:06 And the Lakers go into game two down zero to one. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with a nearly 35,000 subscribers to show. Make sure you're signing up to get the newsletter, locked on daily.com, click on Lockedon, Laikers. Register to win yourself some prizes. We'll see everybody on Monday.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers Lose Game 1, 117-95. Offense Struggles Despite 37 Points from Luka Dončić

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