The first day of the NBA playoffs was plaster. The second one? Yes, not that much. Milwaukee Bucks ‘# 1 seed started the day by losing to the Orlando Magic, and the Los Angeles Lakers’ # 1 seed ended the day by losing to # 8 Portland Trail Blazers. It is the first time since 2003 that both of the No. 1 have lost their opener, and in the case of the Lakers, it was a lack of depth. LeBron James scored 23 points, 17 rebounds and 15 assists while Anthony Davis shed 28 points, but the Lakers role players shot 4 of 22 from 3 points. They simply can’t score enough to win when that happens.
Portland’s roleplayers weren’t great either, but Damian Lillard’s 34 points were enough to drive them to victory. Now the Blazers will only have to win three out of six games to stun the number 1 seeded Western Conference. The Lakers will have to return to the drawing board if they are to avoid such humiliation. What happened tonight was completely and utterly unacceptable.
1. Time to correct the rotation
The Lakers were outscored by nine points in JaVale McGee’s 13 minutes on the floor. They lost the game by seven points. It is not a coincidence. The Lakers were outdone during McGee’s minutes in all seven of his bubble appearances. In Orlando, they were surpassed by 66 points in his 121 minutes on the track. They outdid their opponents by 26 points in the minutes they played without him.
This is not rocket science. The Lakers start each game down by several points because they start the wrong lineup. They are compounding the problem by sending the same formation out there early in the third quarter. The starting lineup version that included Avery Bradley outperformed opponents by 12.6 points per 100 possessions during the regular season. The Kentavious Caldwell-Pope version was surpassed by 1.2 points for every 100 possessions. The McGee-Caldwell-Pope-James-Davis-Danny Green five doesn’t work.
At a minimum, McGee must be completely excluded from the rotation. Whether that means playing Markieff Morris more in the middle or hoping Dwight Howard can avoid foul trouble is another matter, but there is no evidence to suggest that JaVale can contribute to the postseason win. There’s a reason it was a hand warmer for the Warriors. The Caldwell-Pope situation is more complicated. They have to play him, and his numbers, on balance, have been better as a starter. But tinkering with combinations is key. Alex Caruso deserves a look as the fifth owner. Kyle Kuzma’s place in the top five should be obvious.
This is no longer March. These games matter. Frank Vogel cannot afford to throw them away by playing with the wrong players. The Lakers are better than the Blazers. This should go without saying. They just have to use the right formations to prove it.
2. LeBron was great … but the wrong way
Difficult to argue with 23 points, 17 rebounds and 15 assists. Those numbers don’t even tell the whole story. LeBron was also very good in defense. Almost every decision he made, in a vacuum, was the right one.
But the Lakers have scored 93 points against a defense that has allowed an average of 123 points in their last six outings. Yes, the main reason he was shooting was the shot, and the Lakers will likely hit more than five of their 32 long balls in Game 2. But RPGs have bad shooting nights. It happens. When it does, the superstars should take charge of the score themselves.
Despite all the great things LeBron did in Game 1, he didn’t do what we’ve seen him do over and over in the playoffs: score. Despite drawing incredible fights in Carmelo Anthony and Gary Trent Jr., James was determined to play full-team basketball. What the Lakers need is something closer to the 2018 LeBron.
In the first game of that post-season run against the Indiana Pacers, James scored 24 points en route to a triple-double … but the Cavaliers lost. He went out and scored 46 in Game 2, a win, and finished with an average of 34.6 points per game through the rest of the Eastern Conference playoffs. If no other Laker will make hits, LeBron will have to do something like this for the Lakers to win the title. It’s a cliché, but it has to be more like Michael Jordan and less like Magic Johnson. His list requires it.
3. The Blazers got away with playing two hits
It could have happened by accident. Wenyen Gabriel started in power for the Blazers, but ended up in first trouble. So the Blazers did something few 2020 teams would ever consider: they played their two centers together. It was a look they pioneered a bit before the playoffs, but without much success. This was for good reason. Neither Hassan Whiteside nor Jusuf Nurkic are particularly strong shooters, nor can they defend the perimeter so well.
But they survived those minutes in Race 1 by crashing the boards and protecting the edge. The Lakers have missed the open shots the Blazers have created with their big two lineups, and while it may not be sustainable, Portland may not have much of a choice but to get back into those groups until Zach Collins is healthy enough to return. This is a slim team. Their training options are limited. The whole business falls apart if the Lakers start shooting, but until when do they? The Blazers may have found a way to move a few minutes away from the worst players on the bench to the best ones.
