Lakers-Nuggets pre-season game 2 Oct 2 7:30 pm Spectrum Sports Net / TNT

[shakes0]

Lakers now 0-2 without Lonzo. Hopefully he's cleared for games soon.

[Mamba Mentality]

Beasley hurts us too much on defense to warrant playing just for his offense. On a 30 win eastern conference team it works, but the only way i see him being relevant here is if he plays small forward.

Yeh small ball with Beasley at the five isn't going to work. You need a high motor, high basketball iq kinda guy to make it happen, and Beasley just isn't that. We got absolutely demolished by Plumlee, that's not a good sign of things to come...

[Laker_Kid]

How did Zubac play in last two games? I see a lot of people **** on him on other forums but have not catch the game, only cachookaman's highlights and box score. Saw he was efficient last game.

Zubac's been trash, and that's coming from someone who's rooting for the kid - he looks lost on defense, and he's always out of position on offense. I mean, Plumlee's FG was 11 out of 11. that says it all.

[kblo247]

Beasley hurts us too much on defense to warrant playing just for his offense. On a 30 win eastern conference team it works, but the only way i see him being relevant here is if he plays small forward.

Yeh small ball with Beasley at the five isn't going to work. You need a high motor, high basketball iq kinda guy to make it happen, and Beasley just isn't that. We got absolutely demolished by Plumlee, that's not a good sign of things to come...

Beasley played the 4 the whole night. It’s hard to blame him as the 5 when Kuzma played the 5 in the first half when Javale sat and Zubac played it in the second half. Zubac scored but every breakdown was on him, not Beasley because ever pick and roll action they ran was at Zubacs slow footed ass who was always out of position compared to the rest of the team. He couldn’t switch, couldn’t rotate, couldn’t jump, and looked like a 50 year old big z.

No one who watched the game can call him out for not working as a small ball 5 in preseason game 2 or the quarter he played in game 1 since he hasn’t played the 5 yet

[kblo247]

Lance giving us what we lost with JC; his pre-season stats are pretty solid (NBA.com):

MPG: 21.5
FG%: 58.3%
3P%: 50%
FT%: 83.3
PPG: 10.0
RPG: 2.0
APG: 3.0
BPG: 0

[Mamba Mentality]

Beasley hurts us too much on defense to warrant playing just for his offense. On a 30 win eastern conference team it works, but the only way i see him being relevant here is if he plays small forward.

Yeh small ball with Beasley at the five isn't going to work. You need a high motor, high basketball iq kinda guy to make it happen, and Beasley just isn't that. We got absolutely demolished by Plumlee, that's not a good sign of things to come...

Beasley played the 4 the whole night. It’s hard to blame him as the 5 when Kuzma played the 5 in the first half when Javale sat and Zubac played it in the second half. Zubac scored but every breakdown was on him, not Beasley because ever pick and roll action they ran was at Zubacs slow footed ass who was always out of position compared to the rest of the team. He couldn’t switch, couldn’t rotate, couldn’t jump, and looked like a 50 year old big z.

No one who watched the game can call him out for not working as a small ball 5 in preseason game 2 or the quarter he played in game 1 since he hasn’t played the 5 yet

I only watched the first quarter and a half, and I could have sworn that he and Kuz played the five interchangeably. Maybe I'm wrong...in any case we've struggled defending opposing big men through two games. Part of it is the lack of chemistry and guys not knowing where they need to be, and part of it is not having the personnel. I still don't think small ball with Kuz and Beas playing the five is going to work, but the jury is still out. We have a lot of clean up before the start of the regular season.

[kblo247]

Yeh small ball with Beasley at the five isn't going to work. You need a high motor, high basketball iq kinda guy to make it happen, and Beasley just isn't that. We got absolutely demolished by Plumlee, that's not a good sign of things to come...

Beasley played the 4 the whole night. It’s hard to blame him as the 5 when Kuzma played the 5 in the first half when Javale sat and Zubac played it in the second half. Zubac scored but every breakdown was on him, not Beasley because ever pick and roll action they ran was at Zubacs slow footed ass who was always out of position compared to the rest of the team. He couldn’t switch, couldn’t rotate, couldn’t jump, and looked like a 50 year old big z.

No one who watched the game can call him out for not working as a small ball 5 in preseason game 2 or the quarter he played in game 1 since he hasn’t played the 5 yet

I only watched the first quarter and a half, and I could have sworn that he and Kuz played the five interchangeably. Maybe I'm wrong...in any case we've struggled defending opposing big men through two games. Part of it is the lack of chemistry and guys not knowing where they need to be, and part of it is not having the personnel. I still don't think small ball with Kuz and Beas playing the five is going to work, but the jury is still out. We have a lot of clean up before the start of the regular season.

To be fair they could stagger things better between them too. Javale is doing great but if you give him rest to line up with the tv timeouts I think you could bring one of Beas/Kuz in sooner. Kuz coming in sooner in the first and third for Javale for example can work when LeBron and Rono are both on the court because you don't lose the glass work. That way Javale can play some with Beasley.

I also think they did a disservice to Beasley last night by going to Zubac so much. The game with that group on the floor slowed down but it would have been better had they went to Beas iso to get him going and draw attention

To me it seems clear that Lance comes in for Ingram and Beasley comes in for LeBron. KCP and HArt split their spot and Kuzma and JAvale are sharing time.That means Rondo and Ball are splitting a spot.

[Ball so hard]

I thought McGee, LeBron, Rondo, Hart (other than a few missed open jumpers) were all really good, especially McGee.

KCP has to start playing better if he wants a starting spot. He'll probably get it automatically because of who his agency is, but if he's not knocking down open shots... Yeah.

Beasley also sucked.

I'm worried if McGee is ever injured. We have no other player even close to his style. LeBron's clearly giving about 30% effort right now (fine by me in the pre-season), so maybe that will change when LeBron is engaged and our small ball units are better. But boy, what an underrated pick-up. I didn't think he'd play anything more than 15 MPG possibly and be a DNP-CD in about half the games.

Yea if McGee goes down we're in big trouble. Forget about Zubac and Kuz playing backup center. I only hope these circus like lineups don't carry over into the season. lol at those who thought Zubac should be playing with Lebron. It would be hard to find center who's game fits worse with Lebron than Zubac's.

[JohnVancouver]

Miller says "the one thing Josh hart needs to do is hit the 3".

Nice one game observation mfer... check his stats as a rookie dumbass, this aint Dlo, this is almost 40% even from 3.

Reggie also talked about how bad the Lakers were defensively last season - when we made huge strides from bottom to 13th. SMH

I really believe a lot of these colour guys just read some stuff online and then parrot it as their own deeply-considered opinion

[JohnVancouver]

I hope we give Wear a shot at the 5 - he's bigger than Kuz, stronger (maybe), pretty agile and he's a fairly hard-nosed guy. And shoots threes. Worth a try anyway. I'm really disappointed in Zu but lots of good things in these first two games, IMO. Love the team play, the looking for open men, guys are moving off the ball. Rondo and Bron will kick some ass and improve the defense. Kuzma already getting better. This is going to be fun

[snaquille oatmeal]

Ya’ll forgetting about Mo Wag

[kblo247]

Ya’ll forgetting about Mo Wag

He couldn't finish summer league. He won't play all preseason because of a camp injury. Why would we assume or factor him in when hes been fragile?

[snaquille oatmeal]

Ya’ll forgetting about Mo Wag

He couldn't finish summer league. He won't play all preseason because of a camp injury. Why would we assume or factor him in when hes been fragile?

I'll keep it warm for you

[TKainZero]

Ya’ll forgetting about Mo Wag

He couldn't finish summer league. He won't play all preseason because of a camp injury. Why would we assume or factor him in when hes been fragile?

I'll keep it warm for you

I think he is out all preseason?

[kblo247]

Ya’ll forgetting about Mo Wag

He couldn't finish summer league. He won't play all preseason because of a camp injury. Why would we assume or factor him in when hes been fragile?

I'll keep it warm for you

We shall see. He screams D league and a need to do weight and body training with the team to me. He has already been ruled out the entire preseason because he got hurt early in camp.