On January 3, Beijing time, the Lakers sat at home to meet the Timberwolves, and this card battle was of great significance to both teams, and may even affect the final playoff competition. Good news for the Lakers, the Timberwolves' Towns and Russell both triggered health agreements, missed the game, and finally after four quarters of hard fighting, the Lakers narrowly won 108-103 over the Timberwolves, and the win difference with the latter was 2.
However, although the Lakers won the game, they still exposed some problems. First of all, the Lakers rely too much on James, when James is on the floor, the Lakers net efficiency value is +10.8, and when James is not on the floor, the Lakers net efficiency value is -31, which is very exaggerated. Because of this, the 37-year-old James played 39 minutes and 13 seconds today, the highest in the whole game, the last quarter of the game, during a timeout, James supported his knees and gasped for breath for a long time, playing a remnant Timberwolves, all of which had to be so overdrawn to use James, it was inevitable to worry about whether James's body could support the playoffs.
Secondly, there is the problem of Wei Shao's mistakes, and in this game, Wei Shao once again sent 9 mistakes, the third time this season, the first in the league. Some of Wei Shao's outrageous mistakes really make people very speechless, and today there is a situation of empty basket disengagement, if this is at a critical moment, it will be very fatal.
In this regard, the explanation given by Wei Shao is that mistakes and iron strikes are part of the game, and he is allowed to make mistakes and play iron, which does not judge whether he plays well or badly, leaving people speechless.
Finally, there is the problem of coach Vogel's platooning, using a five-small lineup in the whole game, and in the case of his own backcourt rebounds being robbed by the opponent, Vogel is still not on Howard. The Lakers lost 28 rebounds in the whole game, including 4-20 Timberwolves rebounds in the frontcourt, which is a shocking comparison. Usually when you play such a stat, it is difficult to win the game, if it were not for the Timberwolves without Russell and Towns, the number of turnovers on the team was as high as 23 times, and the Lakers were fierce.
Speaking about rebounds after the game, James said: "It is unacceptable to be robbed of 20 offensive rebounds, but it is acceptable that we lose 1 point for almost every rebound we concede." ”
Vogel also talked about rebounding after the game, Vogel said: "I suppressed the urge to get back the big center, and even if we sent a bigger lineup, we would lose rebounds. I think the team adapts to this lineup to grab rebounds, and if we want to continue to explore the way the small lineup plays, we have to face the problem of rebounding. ”
Vogel is not wrong to want to test the five small lineups, because this is the trend of the times, each team needs to create their own set of five small lineups, the mobility and offensive ability of the five small lineups, in the key moments of the game, can play a miracle effect. But the Lakers' current record does not allow them to test five small regardless of the occasion, and the whole game plays five small lineups, which is also a huge consumption for the 37-year-old James!