The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 5)

[homecourtloss]

Lakers actually played really well defensively other than the first quarter. They had so many chances to wrest control of that game in the fourth after coming back from trailing the entire game.

8-32, 9-32 type of three point shooting gets it done, but after watching them this bubble, I’m not sure they can even expect to hit that many. It’s shocking that LeBron had that many assists seeing as how KCP and Green and AD and Caruso couldn’t hit anything.

[Jurassic_Park]

lakers will still win this series... probably in 6... but this is concerning if they play like this vs. houston or the clippers

[Basileus777]

People acting as if they got outplayed and didnt just have a bad shooting night lol

Bron looked fine, ahoulda had like 22 assists, if they arent making threes and you have whiteside allowed to camp in the paint hes notngonna shoot 90% lol

Davis didnt look good

Are we going to act like the shooting on this team hasn't been its achilles heel the entire LeBron Laker era? This was always the fear with the way this roster was constructed, it didn't come out of nowhere.

[therealbig3]

I mean, it is true, LeBron needs to offer something more as a scorer when he can't just get a layup every time down. He doesn't trust his jumper at all, which isn't good.

[JLei]

What do you expect exactly? For him to just drive it into Whiteside and 2 guys stunting over? This drop scheme is pretty easily defeated if you make any shots.

Dude, he clearly doesn't possess the ability anymore to put consistent pressure on the defense. This is not the first time LeBron's faced a packed paint in his career. But it's the first time he's 35, slow and can't jump.

How exactly did he get 15 assists?

He's putting tons of pressure on the defense, if he couldn't score anymore they wouldn't be double teaming him and packing the paint. They just have to make shots. I agree with you he can't just bend the defense by just attacking straight into it like he could when he was young. But tbh besides the beginning of the game (which I missed) I thought Lebron played fine to good.

The shot quality the Lakers were getting out of his creation was quite good IMO (the shooters on the other hand). They make any of those paint gets unpacked, Whiteside probably gets benched and he scores more easily.

[yoyoboy]

I understand the team shooting was terrible

He looked like he only wanted to score the ball if it was the absolute last resort. If that’s the case against Portland how he is going to score against LAC, Toronto, or Milwaukee?

I think you answered your own question. If the team shooting is terrible they won't win against those teams. The times he did drive he got swatted by Whiteside repeatedly, which is likely why he wasn't looking to score. The shooters just have to do a better job knocking down the open looks that are given up by packing the paint. And they have to be more willing to go small to punish Portland for playing Whiteside.

Spacing wasn’t the reason LeBron missed 2 free throws late in the game, launched a near half court shot on a night when he can’t buy anything from outside, missed a good look from three around a minute left, blew a gimme reverse layup, turned it over trying to dump it off to Kuz on that fast break with Whiteside contesting, and actually got pinned by Whiteside a couple more times.

LeBron needs to get used to being a more below the rim finisher. I’d like to see him try to replicate what Doncic and Harden do by using his body and footwork more on these drives.

[RCM88x]

I think they'll be fine.

If they continue to shoot this poorly from three it'll be more impressive than a title tho IMO.

Honestly the shooting is what worries me the most because it's baked into the makeup of this team. Even at their best, they're still not where you'd expect a contender to be in 2020, and to make it worse they're persisting with a bunch of two-big lineups.

They have to improve atleast a little bit. Fwiw if they shot 25% (8/32) in this game they win. If they can get to around 30% they'll be absolutely fine.

They shot 35% in the regular season/seeding games.

One offensive adjust I'd make is tell AD to not shoot outside of 10ft though. Dude absolutely drives me nuts with his shot selection, he's an incredible athlete but might be one of the dumbest stars in the league currently.

[Greyhound]

People acting as if they got outplayed and didnt just have a bad shooting night lol

Bron looked fine, ahoulda had like 22 assists, if they arent making threes and you have whiteside allowed to camp in the paint hes notngonna shoot 90% lol

Davis didnt look good

This bad shooting night has been every night in the bubble lol.

[dreamshake]

I mean, it is true, LeBron needs to offer something more as a scorer when he can't just get a layup every time down. He doesn't trust his jumper at all, which isn't good.

Yeah, I think most of this panic about LeBron's scoring ability is overblown and a result of lineup choices and a generally poor-shooting team that had an exceptionally poor shooting night even for them. But LeBron's jumper going MIA is the one part that I agree with - that's been an issue in the past. He's certainly not the complete package when the jumper isn't at least good enough to keep his primary defender honest.

[RCM88x]

I understand the team shooting was terrible

He looked like he only wanted to score the ball if it was the absolute last resort. If that’s the case against Portland how he is going to score against LAC, Toronto, or Milwaukee?

I think you answered your own question. If the team shooting is terrible they won't win against those teams. The times he did drive he got swatted by Whiteside repeatedly, which is likely why he wasn't looking to score. The shooters just have to do a better job knocking down the open looks that are given up by packing the paint. And they have to be more willing to go small to punish Portland for playing Whiteside.

Spacing wasn’t the reason LeBron missed 2 free throws late in the game, launched a near half court shot on a night when he can’t buy anything from outside, missed a good look from three around a minute left, blew a gimme reverse layup, turned it over trying to dump it off to Kuz on that fast break with Whiteside contesting, and actually got pinned by Whiteside a couple more times.

LeBron needs to get used to being a more below the rim finisher. I’d like to see him try to replicate what Doncic and Harden do by using his body and footwork more on these drives.

He needs to improve his head jerking to draw more calls first if he wants to be a below the rim guy.

[Arman_tanzarian]

Lebron will figure the shooting issues out. But seriously who put this roster of no shooter around two paint players together? Insert any random 4th best shooter on any team on the Lakers and they would be their best. This was such a poor job at constructing a roster for 2020.

[Greyhound]

Bron doesn't often lose trust in his shooters but if he's not passing to DG in this situation, it's looking rough.

Read on Twitter

?s=19

That struck me when it happened. Green was wide open in the corner and LeBron flat out looked him off to find anyone else.

That is how bad Green has been in the bubble.

[homecourtloss]

What do you expect exactly? For him to just drive it into Whiteside and 2 guys stunting over? This drop scheme is pretty easily defeated if you make any shots.

Dude, he clearly doesn't possess the ability anymore to put consistent pressure on the defense. This is not the first time LeBron's faced a packed paint in his career. But it's the first time he's 35, slow and can't jump.

How exactly did he get 15 assists?

He's putting tons of pressure on the defense, if he couldn't score anymore they wouldn't be double teaming him and packing the paint. They just have to make shots. I agree with you he can't just bend the defense by just attacking straight into it like he could when he was young. But tbh besides the beginning of the game (which I missed) I thought Lebron played fine to good.

The shot quality the Lakers were getting out of his creation was quite good IMO (the shooters on the other hand). They make any of those paint gets unpacked, Whiteside probably gets benched and he scores more easily.

Yeah, LeBron creating his own shot probably don’t have the Expected Value on open and wide open threes he created. They lost due to an all time bad type of shooting performance from decent shooters (KCP, Green). The problem is that they’ve shot like that in most of their bubble games, so I’m not sure there’s a way around this.

If you have 18 more FGAs than the opposition and 7 fewer turnovers, you’re almost sure to win a game and it takes soemthing crazy to lose it.

[Basileus777]

Read on Twitter

So yeah, that's not going to cut it regardless of how the team is doing from 3.

[Fadeaway_J]

I think they'll be fine.

If they continue to shoot this poorly from three it'll be more impressive than a title tho IMO.

Honestly the shooting is what worries me the most because it's baked into the makeup of this team. Even at their best, they're still not where you'd expect a contender to be in 2020, and to make it worse they're persisting with a bunch of two-big lineups.

They have to improve atleast a little bit. Fwiw if they shot 25% (8/32) in this game they win. If they can get to around 30% they'll be absolutely fine.

They shot 35% in the regular season/seeding games.

One offensive adjust I'd make is tell AD to not shoot outside of 10ft though. Dude absolutely drives me nuts with his shot selection, he's an incredible athlete but might be one of the dumbest stars in the league currently.

Oh I expect them to improve, but I also expect them to lose the three-point battle most nights. That's a tough way to win a title in today's NBA.

Completely agree on AD's shot selection. He's just not that good of an outside shooter, but he makes enough difficult ones to think he's **** Dirk and it's infuriating. Of course it doesn't help when play calls have him set up to space the floor instead of being the one benefitting from the spacing...

[MyUniBroDavis]

Im sure lillard will out three the lakers nvm

[nzahir]

Ya I am not going to waste my time watching these games besides the 4th Q for this round

5/32 from 3

Why should I waste my life watching this disgrace?

[Arman_tanzarian]

What do you expect exactly? For him to just drive it into Whiteside and 2 guys stunting over? This drop scheme is pretty easily defeated if you make any shots.

Dude, he clearly doesn't possess the ability anymore to put consistent pressure on the defense. This is not the first time LeBron's faced a packed paint in his career. But it's the first time he's 35, slow and can't jump.

Yup. Even more worrisome that they put no shooting around this team. This ain't 2018 Bron.

[Arman_tanzarian]

Ya I am not going to waste my time watching these games besides the 4th Q for this round

5/32 from 3

Why should I waste my life watching this disgrace?

Bet365. Bet on Portland. Win hella money if they lose and if somehow the Lakers win..you lose money but your guy's team wins. Win-win. You don't even have to bet much as the payout on Portland is high.

[tone wone]

As unimpressive as LeBron has looked, he’s not their main problem. This team is shooting under 20% from three. Vogel is spotting the other team points at the beginning of each half with a clearly bad lineup. And let’s be honest - Dame is hitting half court threes. The whole thing is is a recipe for disaster.

3 point shooting is certainly a major problem, but 23 points on 20 shots from your best player is simply not going to cut it in the playoffs. If LeBron was still a 30+ scorer with superstar ability to create consistent offense (ala top players on other contenders), Lakers would've won this game.

What do you expect exactly? For him to just drive it into Whiteside and 2 guys stunting over? This drop scheme is pretty easily defeated if you make any shots.

He had 15 assists and they couldn't make a shot.

Now if they can just double and triple team him and build a wall at the rim and no one makes a shot. Yah they lose.

Ehh, the Blazers are a bad defensive team though. It shouldn't be this hard to dictate the game against.

But really it just highlights how fragile LA's offensive setup is. Having a 35 year old be your only capable perimeter creator with middle shooting is a dangerous approach. This is why I feel calls for him the be more aggressive kinda misses the point. What would that even look like? Him launching more 3's?