The Lakers had one of their best nights of the season (it’s not difficult, really) last Monday. It had only been 48 hours, but it seemed like an eternity to a team that produces more news (and almost all negative) than it seems capable of assimilating, when Indiana Pacers arrived after, I insist, a joy that was clouded by a torrent of rumors: Frank Vogel’s seat very hot, Talen Horton-Tucker in the market, Russell Westbrook without anyone who loves him, attempts by many players (Myles Turner, Jerami Grant…) with very little to offer in return…
so it was a match important. To see if Vogel could get a tight grip on his seat again and if the Lakers were able to avoid doing what bad teams do: a good night followed by a lousy one, a good win mixed with a calamitous defeat. Even the rival accompanied: Indiana Pacers (now 16-26) had lost 10 of their last 11 games and is the worst team in the NBA in tied finals. It was, beyond everything external, an important game for the Lakers who, that is their reality, have to scratch everything they can, especially until Anthony Davis returns. Because the calendar is very complicated and they hardly have a margin of error: now 22-23, in an embarrassing negative and in the eighth position of a West that, luckily for them, neither squeezes nor drowns this year.
As well, the Lakers showed what their reality is in a resounding disaster (104-111). It could be Frank Vogel’s last game, NBA champion coach in October 2020 (?how much has it rained?). And it was proof that, with almost no pieces to trade, there’s not much these Lakers can do in the market to salvage a season in which it may already be too late when Anthony Davis returns. The Indiana Pacers had not won on the Los Angeles track since 2015, precisely with Vogel as their coach. Things. After his place was said to be at stake in the upcoming matches, this blow could have been the last nail in the coffin of a technician with his share of guilt but who was given an impossible mission with a roster aged and without defensive specialists: a team that don’t speak your language, to which he has not adapted either and in which there has been, to top it off, health or continuity. The nothing.
The Pacers did nothing but take advantage of gifts from the Lakers, who shot themselves in the foot every time they had the game downhill. They started very well, with the inertia of the win against the Jazz: 12-4 and 32-17 in the first quarter… closed 32-23. 47-33 in the second… and 56-50 at the break. From 59-52 to 66-67 in the third and from 85-81 to 87-95 in a last quarter in which Rick Carlisle’s men played at will: partial 24-35. the quintets little ones of the Lakers were late for all the assists and bled to death on the rebound. The Pacers linked easy points with just two or three passes while the energy of the Lakers melted as LeBron James melted, clearly from more to less. CAris LeVert scored a near-whistling 24 points of his 30 total in that final quarter. Domantas Sabonis finished with 20 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, unopposed in the zones. Between Brogdon and Holiday they did the rest for a Pacers that went from looking willing to show the white flag to walking. And that they were able to seal the fate of Frank Vogel. A coach, NBA stuff, very important in his own recent history.
The Lakers were good in a first half in which a couple of silly things left them without a wide advantage. Y they signed a calamitous second part. LeBron (30 + 12 + 5) failed when he had to secure the victory in a last quarter in which his team was completely disconnected, without concentration in defense and without ideas in attack. Y Russell Westbrook lived another horrendous night in what is being one of the worst basketball stretches of his entire career (32% shooting from the field so far in 2022). He started hitting triples, which is already news, but he finished with just 14 points, 2 rebounds and 3 assists. No presence, no weight. Sitting out in the last four minutes because Vogel said he put up “the quintet that could win.” wounded by the sideline and because of the rumors, Westbrook went to the locker room before the end of the game and left the pavilion without speaking to the press. This is how things are in the Lakers: the flames already visible everywhere, the earthquake perfectly perceptible. No makeup or bandages. A total crisis, one that is going to take Frank Vogel ahead, perhaps today, and to which there seems to be no solution. There are no miracles when a bad team is just that, without more narrative or asterisks: bad basketball team With more ego than will, with more past than present, with more names than real players.
