Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - The Lakers are Giving Reasons to Believe: What's Different About This Hot Streak

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Lakers Hot Streak has some people believing and others not so much. Who's right? That's next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Lockedon Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Lockdown Lakers your first listen to every day. Monday through Friday, sometimes on weekends, even on holidays, and now more than once a day, no matter how or where you get your podcast, Spotify, Apple,

Starting point is 00:00:36 some other random podcasted emporium that I don't know about. However you do it, you are part of making the Lockdowne Podcast Network. Dark web. Don't do it that way. No. We don't recommend it around there. There are easier ways to help me. There are much more savory and frankly legal ways to get this podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:57 It's just not, you know, there are other ways to make the Locked On Sports Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network in this or any other known universe. Don't get you on a watch list. No. I mean, look, we still appreciate it from just saying. Downloads a download. But, come on. We value our audience and therefore we'd like to keep you all away from unsavory places.

Starting point is 00:01:25 Yeah, there's just a lot of negative stuff going on there in the old dark web. A lot of regular stuff going on on, the regular stuff going on, the regular. If you need darkness, you don't need to go that far, find it. Anywho, I'm Brian Kibbenatke. It's Andy Kavanaugh. I'm Brian Kippennazki. It's Andy Kempinax. For nearly 20 years with ESPN, the LA Times, and the athletic.

Starting point is 00:01:46 And we are excited, Andy. Lots to cover in this show. I'll talk a little bit more about what happened in Denver. We will talk about where the team stands right now as we enter a new week and a, you know, a critical bit of the stress. match run. Talk about who's believing in this team and who isn't. And either in this show or in the short show for Monday, we'll give you a little bit of a Rockets preview. But let's start with Denver. I mean, this seems to have been one of those games, Andy, that has the potential to at least

Starting point is 00:02:20 shift a little bit of the way that people think about the Lakers, if at least the non-Shack people, in the sense that it's another win against another good team in a sense of the sort of the way the Lakers went about winning LeBron diving on the floor, some seeming improvements in the chemistry between the big three and figuring out some of that stuff. It's just a lot going on for this team that is very different than the mood, say, a month ago.

Starting point is 00:02:51 Well, I would say more than any one singular thing that you're going to see on the court, even though all the different elements that we see on the court obviously matter, there's a belief right now that is exuding from this team over the last couple weeks in a very tangible outward and consistent way that just has not been there over the course of this entire season. I'm not going to say it's never been there at all, but I don't think it's ever been there with this level of sustainability attached to. as many quality wins. You know, we've talked about over the course of the season.

Starting point is 00:03:31 The Lakers have maintained throughout all of the ups and downs and injuries and a lot of the weaknesses inherit to this roster, they've maintained a really good record, and that's really important. But maintaining that really good record has often been at the expense of the bottom feeders around the league. And the Lakers record against top top. teams around the league. Like, teams above 500, they're currently still 17 and 20.

Starting point is 00:04:04 They're still well below. Right. They're still well below. But to put this in perspective, they're well below after, but still with wins against the wolves and against Denver and against the Knicks. Like the Lakers have had just more of these games of late that I think they have needed as much as Laker fans and whatever media have needed just to actually, I've talked about this a lot over the course of the season. You need proof of concept. Like there's only so many times you can say

Starting point is 00:04:39 we believe in the players we have in the locker room. We believe in our system. We believe in our coach. We think it's going to come together. And in the meantime, it's March. And you have not seen any form of consistent success against teams that matter. Over the last couple of weeks, there are a lot of different levels of belief that you just feel from this team in the way that they play and the way they talk after games. And the internal buy-in matters so much with everything else they're going to do. If they don't buy it, they're not going to put in the work, whether you're talking about pure effort or the discipline towards execution. And then none of this stuff really matters.

Starting point is 00:05:28 Yeah. And then to your point there, like, even if you do continue putting in the work and the effort and stuff, it's ultimately not going to mean as much because in the back of your mind, you have to believe in the athletes are famous for at this level, somewhat delusional thinking. And you have to believe that you can do things that other people believe that you can't. And so, you know, they are certainly getting to that.

Starting point is 00:06:00 I have a couple other things, you know, based on what you were saying that I think I want to follow up on. I do want to let people know first. Those days episodes brought to you by Fandul. Fandul is giving you a way to turn that energy into an even bigger potential wins with a college basketball parley profit boost. Head to fanduel.com to get started. That's fandul.com.

Starting point is 00:06:17 Fandu'll play your game. You know, I think there have been times when the vibes around the team felt quite positive. You know, the first, you know, 25 games of the season, I think, yeah, there were some, you know, they had some good victories and, yeah, some losses

Starting point is 00:06:33 in there or whatever, but I think they felt very good about themselves. There was all, but there was also this idea to LeBron missed so much of that time. Oh, wow, see what happens when he comes back. It's going to look. And there are always these little things that you could, even while the Lakers didn't fade out, like they, I, I 100% was thinking that, you know,

Starting point is 00:06:55 they were in much more danger, you know, by this point in the season of being close to Phoenix for that seven than they were with tiebreakers and holding the three. 100% admit that based on what they were playing, how they were playing, you know, a few weeks ago. But when you start to take away the, yeah, but the big three. suck when they play together. Yeah, but, but they haven't taken those, you know, played games against, you know, good games against the big three. Like you say, or even like the clutch, like their clutch record.

Starting point is 00:07:29 I'm sorry, good games and good teams. You're right. Right. I was going to say, like, as far as it didn't mean to interrupt, but just like another yeah, but like their clutch record for a lot of this season has been one of the best in the league, which in and of itself is something you can. hang your hat on because at the end of the day, like you can hang your hat on it to some degree. I guess maybe it's a question of how big of a hat and how solidly the hook is screwed into the wall or door in terms of your confidence and hanging that hat on it.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Because yes, you are closing out these games and getting these wins in clutch time, crunch time, whatever you want to call it when it actually matters. And that's great. Except a lot of the clutch time wins came against team. that I think rightly, a lot of fans, a lot of people covering the team, and even sometimes the players felt like we should not have been in clutch time against this team in the first place. So yeah, it's great that we have that record, but it doesn't feel as indicative of championship potential when you're getting into a dog fight and winning against a team that's against teams. below 500. You know what I mean? Like there's when all of these different contextual things present themselves that can feel very yeah,

Starting point is 00:08:54 but that's where a lot of this comes in. The last couple weeks, I think a big difference is there has not been a lot of yeah, but. Yeah, no, I agree with you. 100%. And even something like the clutch record, if you, these guys are not stupid. They've been around, like, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:11 if you play enough basketball games. Like, there is something to that. Like, how well do you execute? in the last five minutes of a game. Like some teams execute better, some teams execute worse, whatever. But like that record,

Starting point is 00:09:23 when you're undefeated, you're 12 and 0, 13, whatever that number got up to be. Like, you also know there's a lot of luck involved in that. Like you can do things correctly. You miss a shot.

Starting point is 00:09:33 You can do things correctly. The other team gets a lucky break. You know, they hit two or three threes that they shouldn't or, you know, well defended plays that a guy just makes, whatever it might be. That's not.

Starting point is 00:09:46 sustainable. Like you can't be a team that says, you know, yeah, but we got this problem. But like, do you get us in the five minutes game? We never lose. That's just that is, there's going to be a regression there. And you have to be able to find things that are more legitimate than that, that are more consistent than that, that are not built on sort of mathematical flukiness in ways that, you know, Shaq was sort of alluding to after the Denver game and comments we'll talk about here in a second

Starting point is 00:10:21 that are really, really disingenuous and stuff like that. Like you need something of substance. And we'll come back with some numbers and some other things to talk about like why it is reasonable to feel much more positive

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Starting point is 00:12:40 about Indeed on this show. Indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions apply need to hire. This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. So I want to level set here a little bit, Andy, because I think this is like makes a difference. Like when I, one of the things that I think is, is worth talking about. We're texting and stuff before the show. What are we going to talk about tonight? What are we going to talk about this week?

Starting point is 00:13:05 All this stuff. I think there are a few different questions. There's you can talk about Luca's MVP candidacy. You can talk sort of looking forward to next year about does this change any of the stuff coming up? The first one I think that it's most important is like where, what do you really think now about this team relative in the Western Conference? And I think for a long time, because of what we were talking about in the first segment, everyone could look at them and say, like, okay, the record is what the record is. But you have a negative point differential.

Starting point is 00:13:32 When you lose, you lose by 50. Like, you know, it's like, I mean, you can't. It's similar to which, which, uh, Chief Justice was it in talking about pornography said you'll know it when I see it or you'll know it when you see it. Like in terms of defining that sort of thing, like what? I think I want to say, I'm going to get it wrong. I think it was Felix Frankfurter, but I'm going to look it up and then I'll know. The Lakers, for a while, had not looked the part of a championship team or even a deep playoff run team,

Starting point is 00:14:05 regardless of what their record says. Like, I know there is the Bill Parcells. You are what your record says you are. Truth is, that's not always the case. Like, you are what your record says you are in terms of which justice. Potter Stewart. Ah, yeah, Potter's Stewart. but like you are what your record says you are in terms of where you are in the standings and I guess

Starting point is 00:14:29 how great you're doing or how much trouble you're in or whatever but your record can be deceiving and your record in and of itself does not tell the entire context of a season and that context by the way includes the Lakers have never been able to have a consistently healthy roster all season which will get in the way naturally of becoming the best version of yourself. Like that is valid. But part of that lack of belief that I'm starting to see, I think you're alluding to this, more Laker fans kind of getting their backs up against feeling that they're not getting enough national love. Some of that is just, to be honest, the Lakers had not looked the part. And we know this because we kept hearing from you all all season that the Lakers did not

Starting point is 00:15:13 look the part. And every time we would talk about, you know, a win over some bottom feeder team, you guys would say we're getting too excited over it. So you guys know exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, by the way, it is astonishing to me that Felix Frankfurter was a Supreme Court Justice as opposed to a Batman villain. But like, what an all-time ridiculous name that is? Or an actor in the type of art form that Potter Stewart was defining. Quite a Frankfurt.

Starting point is 00:15:48 Anywho. So yeah, you're right. And like, it is, at some point, you know, like the, the ancillary factors do matter. Like, you can keep winning and a little bit like, you know, you can sort of, you know, NFL, you can tell like, okay, that team's winning their division, but they're not good. Like, you just, you can sort of separate good from not good. And the Lakers couldn't play defense. And they, you know, they couldn't perform when their three best players were on the floor at the same time. Like, you know, they're just, there were these massive flaws that you could point out, like, teams with even moderate NBA athleticism seem to, you know, run them out of the gym no matter what they were doing.

Starting point is 00:16:29 And so I think it's fair. But like, now it is reasonable to level set because not only are we, we've reached mid-March, you know, like it is halfway through March. the Lakers for all of this are the third best team in the Western Conference. At some point, the fact that you are where you are matters, especially when you start to couple it with some big victories, some, you know, a good run of play,

Starting point is 00:17:05 and then some real numbers that kind of back up the idea that your play is real. And, you know, you just take the big three over the last 10 games. for the last 10 Laker games, eight of which the Lakers, those three have been able to play together. That group that was a real negative early

Starting point is 00:17:25 is now has a net rating of seven plus seven. Like that's good. And so, you know, you're changing that. Their defense and offensive ratings in the last, you know, 10, 15 games is near the top of the conference in both. And so,

Starting point is 00:17:45 I don't think the Lakers are better than Oklahoma City. I don't think they're better than San Antonio. But I do think it's fair to ask, like, okay, when can you put them in this, give them the same level of respect as a potential contender or a team that could win a couple playoff rounds, as Minnesota, as Denver, as the Rockets, like these teams that they are competing directly against.

Starting point is 00:18:12 I think it's fair to start asking the question. question, like why at least aren't the Lakers put on the same level as these teams? Because those teams have flaws, too. And the Lakers, I think, have earned the right to be as much of a contender as anybody who isn't Oklahoma City and San Antonio. I mean, again, I think the answer to your question is so much of the season passed with the Lakers not looking the part. Oh, sure. No, but I'm saying at this point, it is time to put them in that group. Whatever. I mean, look, in some respects, how the conversation plays out about these teams doesn't really matter. You play the games, the games play out, and that's ultimately what decides how we talk about these

Starting point is 00:18:49 teams. Like, you know, whether the national conversation has the Lakers properly rated, underrated, overrated, in some respects, again, it. Right. I just mean, like, I'm not talking about, like, I don't care where they are in the discourse. I mean, like, when you make honest evaluation. Okay, here's the answer. I think they're good enough to be, like, I now firmly believe that in any playoff series,

Starting point is 00:19:12 certainly in the opening around the Lakers can win. Okay, this is my, you know, my answer would be I want to see a more sustained run against good teams, which we are going to see. The Lakers have a stretch against good teams that I think will provide a lot of answers. I want to see how sustainable this formula is of Luka and LeBron, I mean, Luca and Austin with this higher usage, more scoring responsibilities on them.

Starting point is 00:19:41 LeBron the last couple of games really sliding pretty nicely into, I guess we would be considered like an elevated third guy role in terms of if nothing else, field goal attempts, usage, whatever, although there are certain intricacies within that formula in and of itself. Like the last few games, in particular against the Bulls and against Denver, you're seeing LeBron, his overall stat line will be, you know, 15 to 20 points. and I had something like that. But there will be one quarter where he goes off. He had a second quarter against Denver

Starting point is 00:20:19 where he had 11 of his 17 points. And I think that is an interesting formula in and of itself, because A, it's big contribution for that one quarter, but it theoretically also helps LeBron pace himself through a game and a season being able to contribute at a high level when needed in a certain pocket a game without burning himself out or over-exerting himself or being asked to do more than I think what he actually is physically capable of at this stage of his career over 30-ish minutes.

Starting point is 00:20:57 And I think this is also a big piece of the puzzle that doesn't get talked about as much because there's so much focus understandably on Luca, Austin, LeBron. the other guys smart, Aiton, Rui, Knaard, Jake to a lesser degree, those guys putting up enough counting stats themselves. I think this formula with LeBron and like, because LeBron has been, the balance between the three of them has been in a lot of ways a conversation about LeBron and what can be rightly expected from LeBron. how does he fit into that mix, especially of late when they were playing very well when LeBron was injured, like all of those different things. And this sweet spot of production that I think can be very impactful from LeBron, but also realistic without over-exerting him, it is really dependent on the other guys contributing enough

Starting point is 00:21:55 of, again, pure counting stats. So that will be enough. And LeBron, in some ways, filling in in other areas that you don't see in a stat sheet can become enough or him becoming more of a playmaker out of the post as a hub where maybe he ends up with a hockey assist as opposed to an actual assist. That type of setup can only work if the other guys contribute enough where you can keep LeBron in that sweet spot. I think sometimes the other guys don't get talked about enough. They're responsibility. Yeah, and I think, you know, Aitin, turning it around makes a big difference. And the other thing that is also really important for this conversation, we'll get to the break here in a second, is just that a lot of the bad lineups that just didn't work with the big three were a different lineup.

Starting point is 00:22:48 It was like, you know, we focus on the three people and, you know, Aiton's been the consistent starter all this season. But the the factor that is different is that Marcus Smart is starting instead of Rui Hachemura. And that recalibrates the entire sort of defensive alignment and what happens. And what did like you I do not think we were starting to see like, you know, this game Saturday was, you know, low key, a Marcus Smart showcase in terms of, of what he has really started to mean into this team. and just like it's been building and building and building it's been there all year but it's

Starting point is 00:23:28 really been building and he's starting to play so well um like that putting him in that group as opposed to ruy no disrespect to ruy the problems were what we've been pointing at all year long they were obvious and they weren't going away when you factor in smart it changes the it changes the the big three as well so um i never actually said what shack said i'll do we'll do that next and then um we'll get into a little bit of some of the fun stuff we learned Sunday about maybe what happened at the end of the Denver game. We'll do that next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Turbo Tax.

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Starting point is 00:25:09 I alluded to Shaq's comments. He said this after the game, on the ESPN now version of the Inside the NBA program. If you have to rely on that, he's meaning Austin Reeves, let's call it a miracle, a recovery of his own miss free throw, a play that like nobody has ever seen work.

Starting point is 00:25:28 Certainly not that well. It's difficult to pull. pull off. I'm not going to say impossible because we just saw it. And it occasionally works, but the success rate is very low. It's very low. And to work as neatly as it did in that, like every once while you'll see a player miss and like his team might get the offensive rebound or like, but it's like this was like it went straight to the place where Austin could get it and like had an open like all. It often teams will do this often just to get their own offensive rebound and then call it a night.

Starting point is 00:26:04 Like to actually get the offensive rebound and actually be able to put up a shot and make it on top of it, that is extremely rare. Right. That's what I'm saying for the for the whole thing to work. It's a desperation play. And the Lakers were in a desperate situation. So Shaq, talking about this, is if you have to rely on that, you're not going to win and you're not going to be a contender, O'Neill said.

Starting point is 00:26:25 I'm used to playing for coaches that wouldn't be happy with that game. You're up 15 at home. You have to beat them by 15. Granted, they were also down by seven at one point. So, you know, pick your, pick your thing to focus on. My point here is not to dwell on Shaq's analysis because it's bad analysis. It's to, the margins here are incredibly lean. When you talk about the difference between especially those, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:54 the second tier teams in the Western Conference, like every team has these games, every playoff series, every whatever, where you look at it and you're, God, man, if this had gone, like that one, remember that one play that if it'd gone like slightly differently, even the Lakers, like when they beat Orlando, there were a couple of plays throughout that series were like, geez, if that goes a little differently,

Starting point is 00:27:17 you know, it was like Dennis Scott, like smoked a layup or something. Like there were a couple like really, you know, plays that played the Lakers' favor. I think they win that series anyway, but they won it fairly easily. This happens to good. teams, bad teams, whatever. The margins between all of these teams are really narrow. And so, you know, this notion of like you get up by the only way you can be a contender is you get up by

Starting point is 00:27:42 15, you win by 50. It's like that's such old man back in my day nonsense as if the, you know, Lakers teams or other championships teams never blew leads. Everything is a tight margin. The Lakers did not play a perfect game on on on on on saturday but teams rarely play perfectly throughout 48 minutes there's good stuff there's bad stuff the margins are thin and the point to me is nobody's relying on them with getting miracle austin reeves plays everything it's not what they're relying on it's that's part of it's a well it's a straw man argument like the i shack is presenting this like it was a game plan Like the Lakers were just luring Denver to get them exactly where they wanted, which was Austin Reeves in a spot where he would have to intentionally miss a free throw, get the offensive rebound, sink a floater, then they go to overtime, and that's where they step on Denver's neck. Like, JJ pointed out after the game, as happy as he was that they won, he pointed out plenty of things that they did wrong.

Starting point is 00:28:52 He pointed out that in the second half, they got sloppy with the ball. Like he noted the negatives because he wouldn't be doing his job any other way. But nobody is saying that the Lakers discovered lightning in a bottle with this Austin Reeves free throw thing. Like the idea, that's what I'm saying. It's a great straw man nonsense because nobody is arguing that, frankly, nobody is necessarily even. arguing that this game showed the Lakers could be a contender in the first place. But damn sure nobody was saying because of the way that they won specifically, that is a formula.

Starting point is 00:29:35 I also would want to remind Shaq, like, during the three-peat years, which I watched every single one of those games. They got lucky at times, including one of the most famous moments in recent Lakers' history when Vladi Divatz tapped out that miss from Kobe. that happened to go directly to Robert Ory. Like if it had even- Not just directly to him as if it was, you know, sent out with a perfect bounce pass that-

Starting point is 00:30:03 It was if like Luca passed it to him. Like, yeah. Or like it was a perfect precision pass for Robert Ory to be able to pick the ball up in a shooting motion and sink a three, which even then, like as many big shots as Robert Ory hit in his Lakers' playoff career in his NBA playoff career.

Starting point is 00:30:23 He also missed ones too. There's always elements of luck and fortune to any of this. That's the way this works. And this is why players and teams focus so much on process. Because the Lakers, the one loss they have in their last eight games was that Denver game and where they got awful in the first three minutes. and after that did a lot of good things. You and I got on this show and we talked about like,

Starting point is 00:30:56 geez, it's a shame they bleeped the bed so early and played uphill the rest of the game. There's a lot of stuff you could look at from that and take as a positive. It's why this habit of what was the final score, obviously it matters, but it's not the only thing that you need to focus on. The Lakers got lucky.

Starting point is 00:31:18 We'll address it. The Lakers got lucky. in that the last two-minute report that came out. Yeah, explain. It was revealed that a call against Spencer Jones that sent Austin Reeves to the line should have been a clean strip, ball out of bounds, Lakers inbound. They would still have the ball, but they weren't getting the opportunity to send Austin to the line. This is with 9.2 seconds left.

Starting point is 00:31:45 Like, these were the free throws that, I believe, set up the next set of free throws that, that eventually led to the missed one and all that stuff. Like the Lakers benefited on that. There's no question. It doesn't mean they couldn't have won the game otherwise, but it's obviously much better to be shooting free throws than it is having to inbound and create a new play. That sucks for Denver?

Starting point is 00:32:06 Like I'll say that right now. That sucks for the Nuggets in a game that close. They're going to see that report, be mad about it, and I don't blame them at all. But I guarantee the Nuggets have been on the positive end of one of those sequences. And I know for sure the Lakers have been on plenty of bad ends of those last two-minute reports, too. Like, this is part of the way the game goes.

Starting point is 00:32:29 And I bring this up, A, just to acknowledge it, so it is acknowledged because we should do that. But also it just, it demonstrates these thin lines and thin margins, often between winning and losing, even with great teams. Like, great teams this happens. What do you think, but we'll quit here in a second again. We'll short show, we'll talk a little bit about this Houston back-to-back that they've got coming up, non-consecutive back-to-back. What do you think about last two-minute reports? They seem like people seem, you know, very divided on them.

Starting point is 00:33:06 They're very controversial. Well, I mean, everything's going to divide everyone. Like there's no such thing that everyone agrees on, I guess, other than like puppies. Like nobody, nobody can agree on anything that we all like. Red Panda. We all like Red Panda. That's about it. I understand why the league does it, and particularly in an era that is so connected to gambling, frankly, and the need for that sort of transparency, I get why they do it. It can be very frustrating, especially at a time when people feel rightly or wrong that NBA officiating is pretty bad as it is.

Starting point is 00:33:49 When you hear things like this and there's nothing you can do about it, I can appreciate the transparency, but I also think it is such cold comfort, particularly when it doesn't feel like the officiating is getting better with the continued releases of these last two-minute reports. There's only so many times you can hear the league say, our bad before I'm sure fans are like well what the hell are you going to do about it yeah I mean and there's the answer is there's nothing you can do I I I find them interesting and I know you know

Starting point is 00:34:23 but because I have this basically the same attitude that you have which is over the course of a season you're going to have as many times when you're like oh you know what like weren't they try like there are going to be moments like with that Jones file they're just really hard to see in real time and you know sometimes you get helped sometimes you don't the Lakers got hurt by a call in the overtime in that same two-minute report, which I guess becomes a seven-minute report when you get into overtime. Yeah. You know, so I just, I don't get worried.

Starting point is 00:34:56 Like, it's just these games, it's actually amazing that they're right as often as they are, is my attitude. I'm just curious. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 37,000 subscribers to the channel. We'll get you ready for the Houston series. Of course, be back after the game. game Monday night. Hope to see you all there. Everyone have a great Monday.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - The Lakers are Giving Reasons to Believe: What's Different About This Hot Streak

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