Lakers (0-2) look to bounce back at home against Clippers (1-0)

After a opening night whooping at the hands of the defending champs the purple and gold look to set things right tonight @cryptocenter against their bigger little brothers @clippers. Will the twitter crows feast on Laker remains for the second night of this young season? Let's find out!

Even though the season is still very, very young tonight is a big night for the Los Angeles Lakers. In many ways the first 10 games of the year will determine what the teams main priorities will be. Will it be another year of Lebron padding his stats in his pursuit of the "cap" Kareem Abdul Jabbar 's scoring record of 38,387 career points, as the team continues to mount losses? Or can the Lakers be competitive early despite a seemingly poorly constructed roster around James.
After their loss to Golden State Tuesday night James was quoted as saying...

“I mean, to be completely honest, we're not a team that's constructed of great shooting,” James said during his postgame press conference in response to a question from the Los Angeles Times' Dan Woike.

With the Clippers coming in as a early western conference finals favorites and the Lakers still trying to figure out what this team is going to look like, the purple and gold will have their hands full tonight.

First Half

Kawhi and Wall are back!

 The Lakers opened up this game trying to right some wrongs from their previous game, with Lonnie Walker IV coming out and hitting a 3pointer followed by Lebron hitting from deep. Anthony Davis continued his first quarter tone setting  with 8 early points showing that his commitment to being the best Laker on the floor every night remains. With the "Hallway Rivalry" always brining the best out of both teams LeBron James brought a good amount energy on both ends of the floor highlighted early by an impressive block on newly acquired PG John Wall (view here). Speaking of John Wall he came out to silence the doubters early starting the game 3-3 and looking as quick as his Wizard days. You can tell he was missing the game we all love so dearly. Paul George lead the Clippers in scoring with 7 as the 1st quarter ended with the Clips leading 32-23.

The second quarter started with Lebron connecting from deep again trying to keep the game close as he is more aware than anybody if this game got away early it would be a long night. Lakers came out with rarely used center from Vanderbilt Damian Jones instead of Kenyan Gabriel who failed to impress in Tuesday nights loss. Jones did give the lakers some decent minuets providing some youth and athleticism.

Kawhi Leonard would enter the game at the six minute mark of the second. Leonard missed all last year as he recovered from a torn ACL and hasn't played since June 14th, 2021, which was Game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals vs. the Jazz. Kawhi wasted no time getting back into the swing of things. Grabbing a rebound on his first defensive possession and going to coast to coast pulling up from the left elbow to hit a perfect midrange jumper. He followed that with another middy over the out stretched hands of a Laker defender.

The clippers would go on a 7-0 run pushing the lead back up to 12. Lakers would respond with a run of their own lead by AD and Lonnie Walker cutting the lead to six. Lonnie Walker IV came out and played the way you would like to see Russell Westbrook play with this Laker squad. Finshing with a high level of athleticism at the rim and even scoring from 3. Lonnie finished the half with 12pts on 5-11FGA.

The lakers would eventually tie the score at 56-56 headed into the second half.

Second Half

The Lakers make it interesting

The Lakers started the second half with a bit of momentum on their side playing a pretty good brand of basketball. Los Angeles had assisted on 17 of 21 made baskets early into the 3rd. A good sign for a team who looked to be stagnate against the Warriors. 

Kawhi would start the second half after coming off the bench in the first. A unfortunate event took place when Leonard pump faked a defender and drove baseline where Anthony Davis bit on his first pump fake at the rim and took a nasty tumble over Leonard and landed on his already tender hip and lower back area. (view here).

Davis would spend some time of the ground per usual but got up and seemingly was ok. He would trot back on offense walking and grimacing into a 3 point make. As he looked to the Laker bench he would give a pitchers head nod "no" when asked if he needed a substitution. In my opinion this was a mistake because I was watching Davis closely and he did not look like he had his mobility after the fall at all. He would eventually come out of the game and head toward the tunnel area with a heating pad wrapped around his waist.

The clippers would go on a 13-0 run lead by a extremely efficient Kawhi Leonard who looked to be running at about half speed but still in so much control of the game. He would just run to his spots ask for the ball and make the right basketball play. HE'S NOT EVEN IN HIS FINAL FORM!!

Lebron would give the lakers a much needed boost in the form of one of his signature jams which seems league mandated at this point seeing no one even bothered to stop the drive. (view here). Westbrook would be a woeful 0-9 from the field at this point in the game and his backcourt companion Beverly faired no better who finished 1-7 from the field and 5 points on the night. (kermit "sheesh")

4th quarter

Clippers show the gap between the two teams 

 The fourth quarter would see John Wall continue to put pressure on the Laker defense as he tried his best to make everyone believe the year was 2010 by doing everything in his power besides hitting the Dougie. 

Although Patrick Beverly up until this point had made little impact on this laker team the 4th was definitely his best quarter of the season. He put a lot of pressure on Paul George when PG attempted to post Bev up. Beverly also forced a couple of Clipper turnovers that got the crowd really into the game. I will say from the second half until the final buzzer rang this was probably the best the lakers looked in a long time.

They would even battle all the back to take a 89-87 Laker lead on a sequence that saw LeBron James send Paul George's layup attempt back and into Laker possession where Austin reaves threw a beautiful ally-oop to Lonnie Walker IV. (view here). The play put the crowd into a frenzy and had Laker players Toscano Anderson and Russell Westbrook up and working the crowd. For a second  Laker Nation had hope...

Or so it seemed. After a Ty Lue time out the Clippers calmed things back down with a PG jumper and a Reggie Jackson 3 point shot taking the lead back 95-91. The final few mins of the game would see Russ enter and continue missing from the field eventually going 0-10 from the night scoring only 2 points from the line. He did show some effort on the defensive end stealing to back to back entry passes where the Clippers were trying to play the size advantage with Kawhi in the post. After he stole the ball the first time and called a time out to save possession you could see him chirp at the Clipper bench by saying "not over here, go somewhere else". To me it seemed like Westbrook trying to leave a fingerprint on the game anyway he could.

Eventually the Clippers would put the game away with Leonard hitting a designed elbow jumper out of a time out, and the Lakers continuing the miss timely three pointers. The purple and gold are now 19-84 from 3 in the last two games. Something the team will have to address either with a change of personal or a trade of some sort. Wether the team waits for the trade deadline where a veteran shooter becomes available or they go with the only offseason option they had of Indiana Pacer Guard Buddy Hield. Its clear the Lakers need some real threats from the outside to compete in the west.

The clippers win 103-97 @cryptoarena spoiling the Lakers home opener.

MY TAKEAWAYS

• Great to see Kawhi and Wall back in action. It's easy to forget how good these guys are with how much basketball they have missed.
  Leonard finished with 14pts and 7rebs in 21 mins of play. Wall finished with 15pts 4reb 3ast.
• The clippers are deep and to be honest the Lakers got pretty lucky tonight. This team is head and shoulders above the LAL.
• Ty Lue has continued to show why he's regarded as a top coach in the league. From managing Wall and Leonards mins tonight, to drawing up essentially the game winning POT (play out of timeout).

• The Lakers obviously need to make a move on Westbrook, it's clearly not working.
• I am a bit nervous about Anthony Davis and his health. He was listed as probable with lower back tightness and the fall he took tonight will make that worse.
• Lebron has clearly entered a new phase of his career. He more than ever picks and chooses his spots now. He is the least assertive I've seen him his entire career.

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