Los Angeles Lakers: The highs and lows of Opening Night
The Los Angeles Lakers started off the season going against the Los Angeles Clippers. After all of the hype built up, the Lakers offered very little in the way of a convincing, hard-fought game. So, after a very disappointing start to the season, what can we take away from game one?
Let’s start with the Los Angeles Lakers‘ lows from game one. LeBron James and Anthony Davis were disappointing, to say the least. Both shot very poorly from the field—LeBron shot 7/19 for only 18 points and AD shot 8/21 with 25 points.
AD also managed to only hit 9/14 from the free-throw line. When the game mattered the most down the line, LeBron and AD were invisible. Both of the main stars were not effective in crunch time. Both of them were too passive and not in attack mode enough.
The bench was very weak. Avery Bradley, Troy Daniels and Quinn Cook did not shoot well. Bradley shot 3/7, Daniels shot 2/6, and Cook shot 2/7. Not at all an impressive game team-wise. JaVale McGee might have had one of the more (somehow) unimpressive disappointing nights on the team, only playing 17 minutes with little to no effectiveness.
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There seemed to be not enough movement on the court, the offense seemed stagnant. LeBron or AD would have the ball and one person would run to try to get an open shot. If that failed, then LeBron or AD would have to force a shot or a play.
The coaching seemed bad as well. Not rotating players the right way or playing players who had no impact on the game. KCP played a whole 27 minutes and got zero points. It looked as if the coaching staff were not able to draw up a play at all.
The defense was bad as well in pretty much every way. The team let the Clippers score way too easily and didn’t put up enough fight. LeBron was actually surprisingly good defensively in the opening game along with Dwight Howard and Danny Green.
The team overall was very lackluster and played almost with no hustle. Especially AD, it looked as if he was not effective offensively or defensively. The team needs to regroup and come ready to play next game.
If there was ever a bright spot, it was Danny Green. The man with the green light shot was lights out. He shot 10/14 from the field and a 7/9 from the three. He also played with intensity. Not to mention he led the team in scoring with 28 points.
Dwight Howard and Jared Dudley were the only bright spots off of the bench. Now, both may not look like they have done much stats wise. But, both hustled, especially Dwight Howard, who went after rebounds and was impressive defensively.
Dudley made all of his two shots for six points. He was also a good presence on defense, although he wasn’t the best defender by any means. But, Jared Dudley stood his ground and played his game. Which is all you can ask for from a bench player.
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There were very little bright spots in-game one. After such a disappointing game the Los Angeles Lakers need to get their heads in the game and get serious fast. Because, if they don’t, the season will go downhill even faster.