Game 50: Los Angeles Lakers (38-11) vs. Houston Rockets (32-18) - 10:30 PM ET

[TKainZero]

This was one of the most frustrating games of the season

The Lakers strength is their interior size. Rockets weakness is their interior size

So what does vogal do? He plays limited mins for McGee/Howard.


Vogal played away from the teams strength, and refused to attack the rockets weakness. It was painful to watch

[NippySudz]

Even though I might be one of the most positive posters here this season, I'm really worried/pissed about the team's lack of success vs the best teams in the league. In fact, I don't really know who to blame: coaching staff and their rotations and lack of offensive sets, LeBron and AD's passiveness or role players underperforming in those games. We will see what happens next few weeks when we will play the best teams in the NBA.

I'm not much of a Laker fan but I've been defending LeBron here on this board too. I'm a fan of his.

What I've noticed this season is that any team with a decent or above avg wing defender is giving him issues and he's not looking for ways out of it. He's bailing them out.

Against Trevor ariza, pj Tucker, kawhi, Covington, etc he's tried to shoot his way out of it. He's not attempting to be aggressive. There was a few rockets in foul trouble last night where drawing the foul on them could have changed the game.

As much overreaction there is on the internet the Lakers were in this game. The only reason why the rockets won this game in my opinion is that LeBron and AD didn't turn it on when it needed to be turned on. Pj Tucker has 4 fouls..dump it into ad and force him to foul out. Exploit the mismatch. No need for contested jumpers(some that he made). Force them to foul you. Put the pressure on the defense.

The positive take away is that they were up 108-105 with like 3 mins left they were in the game. Perhaps if it's the playoffs, Laker win this game.

I don't see LeBron settling for eight 3s for a game in the playoffs or settling for 3's for an entire series.

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[LAKESHOW]

If you watch vogel indiana. Or vogel orlando. Glaring similarities. At least shaw was helping in indy. But it became frustratingly similar.

[tamaraw08]

If you watch vogel indiana. Or vogel orlando. Glaring similarities. At least shaw was helping in indy. But it became frustratingly similar.

Not just helped by Shaw but was "assisted' by Nate McMillan, the current coach of the Pacers, the team that didn't exactly crumble when Vogel left. That's usually what I look for, the before and after situations of the team esp when coaches leave. What happened to the Lakers when Phil left? When Larry Brown left the Pistons, or Thibs leave the Bulls etc.
Orlando actually had the WORST record DURING Vogel's tenure both win/loss and DRTG and is now much better after he left.
Am I saying he is a bad coach?, not necessarily, I'm sure he has his strengths and no way he is stupid but to say, he is the best coach available for this is inaccurate.

[tamaraw08]

Even though I might be one of the most positive posters here this season, I'm really worried/pissed about the team's lack of success vs the best teams in the league. In fact, I don't really know who to blame: coaching staff and their rotations and lack of offensive sets, LeBron and AD's passiveness or role players underperforming in those games. We will see what happens next few weeks when we will play the best teams in the NBA.

I'm not much of a Laker fan but I've been defending LeBron here on this board too. I'm a fan of his.

What I've noticed this season is that any team with a decent or above avg wing defender is giving him issues and he's not looking for ways out of it. He's bailing them out.

Against Trevor ariza, pj Tucker, kawhi, Covington, etc he's tried to shoot his way out of it. He's not attempting to be aggressive. There was a few rockets in foul trouble last night where drawing the foul on them could have changed the game.

As much overreaction there is on the internet the Lakers were in this game. The only reason why the rockets won this game in my opinion is that LeBron and AD didn't turn it on when it needed to be turned on. Pj Tucker has 4 fouls..dump it into ad and force him to foul out. Exploit the mismatch. No need for contested jumpers(some that he made). Force them to foul you. Put the pressure on the defense.

The positive take away is that they were up 108-105 with like 3 mins left they were in the game. Perhaps if it's the playoffs, Laker win this game.

I don't see LeBron settling for eight 3s for a game in the playoffs or settling for 3's for an entire series.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk

A lot of fans including me and analysts think Lebron is one of the most cerebral players in the league and yet, he continues to settle on taking a low % 3pt attempts instead of going for a much better quality shot. I strongly feel now that UNUSUAL 3pt barrage vs the Spurs actually did more harm than good for Lebron and this team.
For the 11 losses he played in, he shot a FREAKING 18.6% from the 3pt area, taking 6.36 3's/game as compared to just shooting 55 fts for 5/game.
The question is why? is he feeling pain from his groin again? is it bad offensive schemes from Vogel and his staff? Can't he get screens then cut from the weakside for better positioning inside?

[Mamba Mentality]

I blame this game on the bench. KCP, Rondo, and Kuz were a combined -30. Rondo had one of his classic bad games where he contributes nothing, Kuz got abused by Westbrook on defense all night long, and KCP played arguably his worst game of the season (pretty sure he shot like 3 airballs). Combined that trio went 0-11 from three, that flat out isn't going to get it done. We need Collison in the worst way...everytime Lebron goes to the bench to catch a breather we leak points and have no rhythm offensively.

[tamaraw08]

-Benched Dwight
-Overplayed Rondo
-Ran no play for Kuzma other than end of quarter heaves

This one on the coach

To a point I understand benching centers who can't switch to the 3 pt shooters etc, the main reason why other centers like Zubac is also not playing heavy minutes (under 18mins/game) but not creating sets to help your 3rd best scorer is baffling for me.
Usually, us fans can easily attribute the loss to the supporting players failing to nail their jumpers but Green, Bradley and Caruso combined for 8/11 from the 3pt area. It would have been ok if one of the superstars didn't play but they did play, played hard for at least 37 mins and they lost badly at home against a team who just made some key changes to their lineup. So where do we go from here? What are the positives? At least it revealed something, playing your stars with heavy minutes at home is not enough? Rondo is not the answer and hopefully Collison would realize he is needed. Lebron must cut down on those 3pt shots and that VERY RARE night vs Spurs will not happen every game.

[NippySudz]

Even though I might be one of the most positive posters here this season, I'm really worried/pissed about the team's lack of success vs the best teams in the league. In fact, I don't really know who to blame: coaching staff and their rotations and lack of offensive sets, LeBron and AD's passiveness or role players underperforming in those games. We will see what happens next few weeks when we will play the best teams in the NBA.

I'm not much of a Laker fan but I've been defending LeBron here on this board too. I'm a fan of his.

What I've noticed this season is that any team with a decent or above avg wing defender is giving him issues and he's not looking for ways out of it. He's bailing them out.

Against Trevor ariza, pj Tucker, kawhi, Covington, etc he's tried to shoot his way out of it. He's not attempting to be aggressive. There was a few rockets in foul trouble last night where drawing the foul on them could have changed the game.

As much overreaction there is on the internet the Lakers were in this game. The only reason why the rockets won this game in my opinion is that LeBron and AD didn't turn it on when it needed to be turned on. Pj Tucker has 4 fouls..dump it into ad and force him to foul out. Exploit the mismatch. No need for contested jumpers(some that he made). Force them to foul you. Put the pressure on the defense.

The positive take away is that they were up 108-105 with like 3 mins left they were in the game. Perhaps if it's the playoffs, Laker win this game.

I don't see LeBron settling for eight 3s for a game in the playoffs or settling for 3's for an entire series.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk

A lot of fans including me and analysts think Lebron is one of the most cerebral players in the league and yet, he continues to settle on taking a low % 3pt attempts instead of going for a much better quality shot. I strongly feel now that UNUSUAL 3pt barrage vs the Spurs actually did more harm than good for Lebron and this team.
For the 11 losses he played in, he shot a FREAKING 18.6% from the 3pt area, taking 6.36 3's/game as compared to just shooting 55 fts for 5/game.
The question is why? is he feeling pain from his groin again? is it bad offensive schemes from Vogel and his staff? Can't he get screens then cut from the weakside for better positioning inside?

I have no idea why. There's a reason Larry bird wasn't a big fan of Vogel.

But even with the coaching decisions, the Lakers are up 108-105 with 3-4mins to go. LeBron knows this. AD knows this. if you look at ad's stats this yr, he's pretty much money around the basket in the post but his jumpers outside of the paint he's like around 35%. It's a win for opposing teams when ad takes long jumpers in the fourth instead of posting up

LeBron is shooting something similiar on jumpers

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

They had the game close. And didn't go inside to punish them..they really should have tried to post ad or LeBron. I don't think I saw that much of the 4th quarter.

I don't see lebron playing this haphazardly in the playoffs. He's going to get in the post and either create or score.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk

[tamaraw08]

I'm not much of a Laker fan but I've been defending LeBron here on this board too. I'm a fan of his.

What I've noticed this season is that any team with a decent or above avg wing defender is giving him issues and he's not looking for ways out of it. He's bailing them out.

Against Trevor ariza, pj Tucker, kawhi, Covington, etc he's tried to shoot his way out of it. He's not attempting to be aggressive. There was a few rockets in foul trouble last night where drawing the foul on them could have changed the game.

As much overreaction there is on the internet the Lakers were in this game. The only reason why the rockets won this game in my opinion is that LeBron and AD didn't turn it on when it needed to be turned on. Pj Tucker has 4 fouls..dump it into ad and force him to foul out. Exploit the mismatch. No need for contested jumpers(some that he made). Force them to foul you. Put the pressure on the defense.

The positive take away is that they were up 108-105 with like 3 mins left they were in the game. Perhaps if it's the playoffs, Laker win this game.

I don't see LeBron settling for eight 3s for a game in the playoffs or settling for 3's for an entire series.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk

A lot of fans including me and analysts think Lebron is one of the most cerebral players in the league and yet, he continues to settle on taking a low % 3pt attempts instead of going for a much better quality shot. I strongly feel now that UNUSUAL 3pt barrage vs the Spurs actually did more harm than good for Lebron and this team.
For the 11 losses he played in, he shot a FREAKING 18.6% from the 3pt area, taking 6.36 3's/game as compared to just shooting 55 fts for 5/game.
The question is why? is he feeling pain from his groin again? is it bad offensive schemes from Vogel and his staff? Can't he get screens then cut from the weakside for better positioning inside?

I have no idea why. There's a reason Larry bird wasn't a big fan of Vogel.

But even with the coaching decisions, the Lakers are up 108-105 with 3-4mins to go. LeBron knows this. AD knows this. if you look at ad's stats this yr, he's pretty much money around the basket in the post but his jumpers outside of the paint he's like around 35%. It's a win for opposing teams when ad takes long jumpers in the fourth instead of posting up

LeBron is shooting something similiar on jumpers

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

They had the game close. And didn't go inside to punish them..they really should have tried to post ad or LeBron. I don't think I saw that much of the 4th quarter.

I don't see lebron playing this haphazardly in the playoffs. He's going to get in the post and either create or score.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk

The game shouldn't be close at home when your superstars play hard for 37+ mins and your wing starters were 6 of 8 from the 3pt area. The opposing team made key changes losing their starting center and didn't have practice time with Covington and yet they allowed 121 pts at home.

[Kilroy]

Our defense hasn't been anything like it was to start the season... We switch too much and try to double too much on 3pt shooters, leaving guys open. Last night, if we had just played man D on Harden and Westbrook, and kept the bigs in and stuck to the other guys, Harden and Westbrook may have gotten theirs, but that would have meant their other 3pt shooters wouldn't have, and we would still have had lob city and rebounding going on.

It's what I've been seeing with Vogel being so defensive minded that he forgets we have a pretty damn good offense when we play right.

In a game where AD gets 32/13, we should be winning those games going away because we have LeBron too... But we played from behind the entire second half.

[NippySudz]

A lot of fans including me and analysts think Lebron is one of the most cerebral players in the league and yet, he continues to settle on taking a low % 3pt attempts instead of going for a much better quality shot. I strongly feel now that UNUSUAL 3pt barrage vs the Spurs actually did more harm than good for Lebron and this team.
For the 11 losses he played in, he shot a FREAKING 18.6% from the 3pt area, taking 6.36 3's/game as compared to just shooting 55 fts for 5/game.
The question is why? is he feeling pain from his groin again? is it bad offensive schemes from Vogel and his staff? Can't he get screens then cut from the weakside for better positioning inside?

I have no idea why. There's a reason Larry bird wasn't a big fan of Vogel.

But even with the coaching decisions, the Lakers are up 108-105 with 3-4mins to go. LeBron knows this. AD knows this. if you look at ad's stats this yr, he's pretty much money around the basket in the post but his jumpers outside of the paint he's like around 35%. It's a win for opposing teams when ad takes long jumpers in the fourth instead of posting up

LeBron is shooting something similiar on jumpers

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

They had the game close. And didn't go inside to punish them..they really should have tried to post ad or LeBron. I don't think I saw that much of the 4th quarter.

I don't see lebron playing this haphazardly in the playoffs. He's going to get in the post and either create or score.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk

The game shouldn't be close at home when your superstars play hard for 37+ mins and your wing starters were 6 of 8 from the 3pt area. The opposing team made key changes losing their starting center and didn't have practice time with Covington and yet they allowed 121 pts at home.

Agreed. I'm just giving silver lining. Lakers didn't play their best and still almost won. The rockets are not a team that pose a threat to them in the playoffs imo, a few people are already shouting that Houston small ball works based on the games won without capella.

But come po season, it might be a different story.

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[Hans1984]

Another pathetic defensive performance. They didn't exploit their big-men advantage nearly enough. Whatever Vogels gameplan was it didnt work.

[Beethoven]

weak game.