On January 13, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, the Lakers came to Sacramento to challenge the Kings who had played three times before, and the first game was won and lost after three overtimes, and the Lakers had the advantage of two wins and one loss. But Vogel's platoon arrangement in this game is still elusive, and he actually sent Ariza as a starter to play, so that the Lakers' already weak inner line guard and defense continue to worsen. Sure enough, in the absence of a big center, the Kings players broke through into the Lakers' interior line with ease. Especially when the star Fox, the breakthrough is very easy, the Lakers have no player can keep up with his footsteps, and sometimes when he breaks into the three-second zone, the person who guards the frame is actually James. But after all, the 37-year-old James still has to take charge of the offense and comb the team, how can he have more energy to invest in the defensive end? The urgent need for interior line but not to give Johnson, Howard and other excellent interior linemen enough playing time, this is Vogel's coaching policy this season.
I think many Lakers fans at this time miss Howard's existence, but the ghostly Vogel only gave Master Huo six minutes of playing time in the entire first half (three minutes in the first quarter, three minutes in the second quarter), and the Lakers simply could not have a sustained excellent defensive performance. And you know, the Kings have Lane, Bagley, Meitu this kind of high-quality interior line, offensive and defensive ends can cause a lot of trouble to the Lakers, without a large lineup can not stop the opponent again and again to attack the inside line. But Vogel insisted on using a small lineup to fight, although this small lineup had a slight advantage in offense, but the whole scene compared to his tall opponents, it was difficult to maintain a long-term stable output, and finally in the third quarter, the Lakers were played by the Kings with a 23-40 attack wave, the score was completely pulled, and Howard could only get playing time at the end of the third quarter, and was replaced at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
In the 2019-2020 championship season, Vogel at that time also liked to use Howard + thick eyebrows of the double tower lineup, on the one hand, the defensive talent was directly full, on the other hand, Howard who appeared in the center position could completely liberate Davis, let him play a better big forward, and the effect was immediate. If the Western Conference Finals did not have Howard's restrictions on Jokic, the Lakers simply could not win the series so easily, but at a time when internal resources are scarce now, Vogel has almost given up howard, and this huge change in employment methods is really incomprehensible.
In addition to the use of Howard is a mystery, Vogel's trust in Westbrook is also incomprehensible, this season Westbrook's starting position is unusually stable, no matter how bad he performs, he can have a lot of playing time guaranteed, and excessive trust in exchange for ruthless damage to the team, again and again to shoot, again and again to let the opponent play counter-attack. A more intuitive feeling came at the end of the third quarter, when the Lakers had expanded the score with two three-pointers by young General Rivers, but with The first time Westbrook was hit by an opponent with a three-point miss, the second time he used a passing mistake to give Hield a three-pointer, the score that had just been forced closer was pulled apart again, even if he still had a lot of playing time in the fourth quarter. Even if James scored 34 points, he wouldn't be able to save the team. Vogel has really challenged the bottom line of Lakers fans again and again!