October 20, 2022. This is the second game of the season for the Lakers. There are 80 left to play and yet an old smell is already emanating from Los Angeles. And if that’s not a transfer smell, we can say that someone let themselves go to the Staples bathroom because last night Russell Westbrook’s attacking performance turned heads, in a bad way. . 0/11 shooting for 2 points and a loss on arrival. What next ?
Far from us the desire to fall on Russell Westbrook and to only reproach him, but it must be admitted that it will be difficult to see the positive of his match against the Clippers last night. Anyway offensively. Because if the California native leader threw bricks on bricks all evening, he was still important defensively: 5 interceptions and important stops in the money time, especially on Kawhi Leonard. Here, we talked about the positive, we can sit down to eat. Without appetite, but when you have to go, you have to go.
When you see Russ West’s shot chart last night, it looks like you’re in middle school geography class in the chapter on the different areas where The Red Cross is based. You will have understood (or not) via this metaphor all slammed, Westbrook did not put a single shot. 0/6 from the parking lot and 0/5 inside the arch. No basket scored but he managed to “save” the stats sheet by scoring 2 free throws and thus avoiding the bubble. The last time he didn’t score? It was in 2016, but he was sent off in the second quarter. Nobody was expelled last night, except for his address, and the offensive performance of the leader makes you think about his place in this team and especially in the offensive system of the Lakers, which does not exist elsewhere. He is obviously not the only one to blame in this match in terms of concrete blocks, because his friends Patrick Beverley and Kendrick Nunn followed very closely in construction: 5 points at 1/7 and 0 points at 0/ 7 for the two backs who hide well behind the numbers of Westbrook who unfortunately takes all the lightning in the face.
Brodie’s shots weren’t particularly bad or forced, but fate stalked him, even on the lay-ups he’s been used to for years now, in transition and/or in contact. The Clippers defense was ready and even when it wasn’t necessarily the ball just wouldn’t go into the basket. Tyronn Lue had even made the choice to leave Westbrook free behind the arc, a rather wise choice obviously. When Russ was asked what he thought of his overall post-game performance, he simply said, “Solid. I played hard. That’s all they ask of me.” If we are talking about a material point of view, he is not wrong, the brick is a very solid object, but the purpose is not there and he therefore does not seem particularly ready to question himself in order to try to to advance. His demeanor in the locker room with reporters was colder than Kawhi Leonard in the freezer, and he gave the shortest possible answers to questions that needed more careful consideration.
Clearly, the mood stinks around Westbrook and given the Lakers’ start to the season — and that Russ West game — there are even more moves to consider, when it’s already been the case for the entire offseason. In the meantime, we sincerely hope that he will be able to raise the bar because what we saw yesterday was clearly cataclysmic and HAPPILY he made up for it on the other side of the field, even if once again it didn’t was not enough to ensure victory for the Lakers. The problem of outside address and lack of snipers that LeBron James was pinpointing is even more accentuated here and when you think about what a Buddy Hield could offer in this system… it makes you think for the rest of the season no ?
There’s the performance, there’s the attitude and there’s the lack of wins: Westbrook’s start to the season is frankly disastrous – osef of the game against the Warriors, the Lakers were slammed in general – and the cloud is already very big above the Staples Center. Courage to the fans for the rest of the season, and courage to Westbrook who clearly does not live well with the situation in his hometown. We will be watching the rest very, very closely.
