Lakers Non-Pretty in Beating Warriors and Grizzlies

Lakers 97, Warriors 90

Once again, the Lakers played the kind of game that will win against the also-rans like the Warriors, or the Rockets a few days earlier, but not against the better teams like the Blazers or the Nuggets before them. In all four of those games—the last four the Lakers have played—Kobe has taken twice as many shots as Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum combined.

The Times headline tried to sound cheerful: “Lakers Finally Get It Going.” Actually, the Lakers had very little going. Playing at home, they should have buried a mediocre-at-best Warriors team that was without Stephen Curry and Andris Biedrins. Instead, they struggled while Kobe took 28 shots. Bynum took nine shots in 35 minutes!  The game was in doubt with less than a minute to play.

Pau had a nice game—17 points, 11 rebounds, and his 3 turnovers were offset by 3 assists, 3 steals and 3 blocked shots.

Matt Barnes had a breakout game with 16 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals.

Lakers 90, Memphis 82

I don’t think anyone can accuse the Lakers of not at least trying to give this one away. I’ll just say 27 turnovers and rest my case. But the Grizzlies weren’t up to it. They pulled to within four points with less than five minutes left but scrappiness will take you so far and then you have to put the ball in the basket. The loss of Zack Randolph to a knee injury is devastating. He’s their best player. They also recently lost their best bench player, Darrell Arthur, for the season. Memphis is toast.

Though it didn’t seem outrageous (22 shots doesn’t seem like a lot for a high-scorer), Kobe still managed to take about twice as many shots as Bynum (14) and Gasol (8) combined. And Pau played 40 minutes. Eight shots? And he hit five of them. (In fact Pau is the eighth best percentage shooter in the NBA.) Kobe has to make sure Pau is shooting more. Pau also had 15 rebounds, 4 assists, a steal, a blocked shot and only one turnover.

Matt Barnes became the team’s new starting small forward tonight. For the second game in a row he became a big factor in the outcome, scoring 15 points (2-3 on 3s) with 10 rebounds and 3 blocked shots in an unusually long stint–35 minutes.

Bynum was 5-14 from the field, missing a lot of easy shots. Of course he had nuthin’ on Marc Gasol who missed all nine of his shots, nearly all of them two- or three-footers.

After the first ten games the Lakers’ record stands at 6-4. They have played three good teams—the Bulls, the Blazers and the Nuggets (twice). They lost three of those four games. They also lost to the Kings. Their other five wins (all at home) were against the Jazz, the Knicks, the Rockets, the Warriors and the Grizzlies. The Warriors had just lost Stephen Curry for awhile and the Grizzlies had just lost Randolph for two months. Yet the Lakers struggled to beat them. They played only two road games (Denver and Portland) and lost both of them.

So far, their schedule has been good to them. Seven of their first ten games were at home. And most of the teams were either weak, or weakened by injury. They were even able to do their only back-to-back-to-back of the season on their first three games before the season started to wear them down.

The Lakers’ next three opponents are Phoenix, Utah and Cleveland. They should win all three games. Then the fun ends. Four straight games against elite teams—Clippers, Mavs, Heat and Magic—followed by Indiana and the Clippers again. That stretch will be their first big test. Mid-terms.