Los Angeles Lakers (18-37) @ Milwaukee Bucks (22-29) 7:00PM CST/5:00 PM PST

[LakersSoul]

Young guns looking good.. we are seeing flashes of what can be..

Love me the 20 assists. 4 each by Young and Clarkson!!

We have to keep our defensive intensity up and we should be fine. If we can withstand the first 5 minutes, then the Bucks will just give up on this game.

SMH...

20 assists in the first half and 5 in the second. Did you Lakers just give up in the 2nd half and in particular the 4th quarter? Luke better be pissed about letting the lowly Bucks back into the game in the 3rd and 4th quarter. We should have stomped on their necks in the 2nd half.

[Landsberger]

Reversion to the mean and a lack of defense nearly won....errrr... lost this one for us. Lights out shooting early covered up the usual defensive woes until we flat froze up at the end. Good thing the lead was big enough to hang on.

Zu had an easier matchup and it looks like they concentrated on working with him. Clarkson and he seem to have a little chemistry going.

The SF position gave us nearly nothing tonight. 2 for Ingram and zip from Deng.

[Crooked-I]

Pretty sure Coop gets drunk when he does the pre and post game shows. Dude is hilarious.

[Spanish_Laker]

Guys, the equation is pretty simple: if we want to win games, stick to this rotation. If we want to tank, heavy minutes for Mozsoft, the white PGs and Deng.

[LakersSoul]

Guys, the equation is pretty simple: if we want to win games, stick to this rotation. If we want to tank, heavy minutes for Mozsoft, the white PGs and Deng.

Tank or not, we play this rotation for growth and the future. Obviously, Huertas and Calderone will not be back next year. Moz and Deng will provide depth and support where necessary this year and in the future. I still see Deng adding value by talking with the youngsters, giving them pointers especially to Dlo.

[Landsberger]

We aren't going to win many games playing either lineup. We caught NY in free fall and Mil is in a really bad funk right now too. The youngsters need PT no doubt but we aren't putting up 47 points in the first quarter shooting 85% again anytime soon.

[Slava]

Love these videos. The difference between how Russell, a smarter player handles defensive pressure vs how the headless chickens Lou/Clarkson/Young do was pretty interesting and its probably time Luke pulls the plug on letting the second unit close down games unless the intention is to tank.

Watch on YouTube

[Slava]

Also special mentions to Tarik Black, if the front office knew how effective he'd be I doubt they'd have even entertained Mozgov seriously. His screening alone improves our ability to run our sets so damn much.

[lake_show]

Love these videos. The difference between how Russell, a smarter player handles defensive pressure vs how the headless chickens Lou/Clarkson/Young do was pretty interesting and its probably time Luke pulls the plug on letting the second unit close down games unless the intention is to tank.

Watch on YouTube

Was coming in here to post this.

At the end of the video he says he was pretty frustrated with Luke by the end of the game... And I agree.

I give Luke some credit because he's a young coach, and he's done really well in so many other areas with these guys, but his rotations this year have been poor at times.

It was clear Lou had to come out during that strecth when we were losing the lead. Nothing against Lou, he's done a lot of great things for us, but he just couldn't handle the trap. But, because Luke only knows how to sub out entire units he was reluctant to pull the trigger and he left those guys out there longer than they should've been out there.

I think this 1st unit, 2nd unit thing has gone way too far. You have scenarios where if 1 guy starts playing poorly the entire unit gets yanked. It's ridiculous. Or, you got scenarios like last night where Larry and Zu were ball'n but they got sat because it was that time in the quarter when the 1st unit usually plays. Also, I think at the beginning of the year we were catching some teams off guard with how good our 2nd unit was. That's just not the case right now. I feel like Luke still tries to go to that well way too often. Expecting it to always bear fruit, even though it's not as effective as it was. Some of the loss of that lead should fall on Luke's shoulders.

[LakersSoul]

Also special mentions to Tarik Black, if the front office knew how effective he'd be I doubt they'd have even entertained Mozgov seriously. His screening alone improves our ability to run our sets so damn much.

Tricky situation for the organization last summer. Black never got to show his talent because of Scott but the FO knew he was talented so they signed him to a decent contract. They picked up Zubac for his talent but who knew he would be this good so soon. Love Zubac's screens/pnr too!

[LakersSoul]

We aren't going to win many games playing either lineup. We caught NY in free fall and Mil is in a really bad funk right now too. The youngsters need PT no doubt but we aren't putting up 47 points in the first quarter shooting 85% again anytime soon.

Bucks up 10 over Pacers at halftime in Indie.

[stan francisco]

Peeps here are tripping over Luke's rotations being poor.

He was up front with it, he was going to use this year to teach these guys how to play NBA ball. Improving was the number one priority, not winning nor tanking. Improving. And he is targeting teaching them 2017 style ball, which means a 30 year developmental leap in one year, compared to what their previous coach preached. Some of them are barely 20.

Swap full units until they start playing right? I think Luke says so be it. And the first half looked good.

Lou should just get traded. I think he's been given free range until traded in a week, to show his stuff.

In Luke I trust.

[Landsberger]

We aren't going to win many games playing either lineup. We caught NY in free fall and Mil is in a really bad funk right now too. The youngsters need PT no doubt but we aren't putting up 47 points in the first quarter shooting 85% again anytime soon.

Bucks up 10 over Pacers at halftime in Indie.

PM me the next time we shoot 85% and score 47 in a quarter.

That first half was lightening in a bottle. It happens extremely rarely. If you are saying that it's something to expect because we sat Mozgov and Deng then we see it differently most definitely. We shot 38.5% the rest of the way in that game btw to end at 50%.... and that same group of youngsters nearly gave it away down the stretch as well.

It was encouraging to see some of the play but we're still a very poor team that needs leadership, a balanced group and a lot more experience.

[Landsberger]

Also special mentions to Tarik Black, if the front office knew how effective he'd be I doubt they'd have even entertained Mozgov seriously. His screening alone improves our ability to run our sets so damn much.

With Black, Nance and Randle it seems that we will need one of those guys to start being a consistent face up shooter to get defenders who are camping in the lane against them out so we can operate inside with Zubac and allow lanes for the guards to actually get to the hoop once in a while.

This seems to be the one part of our unit that needs changing. Those 3 are somewhat interchangeable in their total impact to a given game.

[Slava]

Also special mentions to Tarik Black, if the front office knew how effective he'd be I doubt they'd have even entertained Mozgov seriously. His screening alone improves our ability to run our sets so damn much.

With Black, Nance and Randle it seems that we will need one of those guys to start being a consistent face up shooter to get defenders who are camping in the lane against them out so we can operate inside with Zubac and allow lanes for the guards to actually get to the hoop once in a while.

This seems to be the one part of our unit that needs changing. Those 3 are somewhat interchangeable in their total impact to a given game.

Randle brings a different kind of spacing by himself. Most players who make jumpers are effective standing 15 ft and out, Randle can be equally effective facing up, driving hard and making plays against a collapsing defense.

Nance on the other hand sure needs a lot of confidence in taking open jumpers if he is to be a sustainable player on offense beyond screen setting. I yell at the screen atleast twice a game imploring him to shoot the open shot.

[Landsberger]

Also special mentions to Tarik Black, if the front office knew how effective he'd be I doubt they'd have even entertained Mozgov seriously. His screening alone improves our ability to run our sets so damn much.

With Black, Nance and Randle it seems that we will need one of those guys to start being a consistent face up shooter to get defenders who are camping in the lane against them out so we can operate inside with Zubac and allow lanes for the guards to actually get to the hoop once in a while.

This seems to be the one part of our unit that needs changing. Those 3 are somewhat interchangeable in their total impact to a given game.

Randle brings a different kind of spacing by himself. Most players who make jumpers are effective standing 15 ft and out, Randle can be equally effective facing up, driving hard and making plays against a collapsing defense.

Nance on the other hand sure needs a lot of confidence in taking open jumpers if he is to be a sustainable player on offense beyond screen setting. I yell at the screen atleast twice a game imploring him to shoot the open shot.

I don't disagree with what you said about Randle however that spacing isn't there when he's off the ball. if he's 18 ft away from the hoop ball opposite his man will be square in the middle of the paint. That makes it hard for us to get shots in the paint for either another big (Zubac) or for the guards to have lanes to penetrate. If he has the ball you have to respect his ability to drive but not his ability to shoot facing up.

Larger point is that if we were to trade him what is the drop off to a combo of Black and Nance overall? Does that trade fill another hole? I think it could. While I like Randle's game it's becoming less important that he can handle the ball and pass with Ingram on the floor with him.