Before the game against the Kings, the Lakers had just lost to the Grizzlies, who had been in hot form recently. And although their opponents in this game, the Kings, are only 11th in the West and have suffered a five-game losing streak before this game, the Lakers can't get any bargains against the Kings this season, so they have to do their best to avoid a losing streak.
In the first half of the game, the Lakers have been in very good shape, playing many small climaxes and once leading the opponent by double digits, and also leading by 6 points at the end of the half. After the Yibian replay, the game suddenly changed, and as the Kings played a 24-3 counterattack in the third quarter, they quickly completed the rebound and entered the fourth quarter with an 11-point lead. In the final quarter, the Lakers began to chase points under the leadership of James, chasing the point difference to only four points in the last minute or so. But in the end, they did not continue the momentum, and were reversed by their opponents at 116:125, suffering two consecutive defeats.
After losing this game, the Lakers suffered two consecutive losses, and this game is largely avoidable, after all, in the first half of the game they have maintained a lead, and once established a double-digit point difference, but in the end they were again reversed by the opponent. Throughout this game, the biggest reason for their loss in this game is that the performance of Westbrook, one of the team's big three, is too bad. First of all, Westbrook did not take on the responsibilities that the team giants should have, and he took the highest annual salary in the whole team, but he did the job that was not the top salary player.
Wei Shao played 37 minutes in this game, shooting only 2 of 14 of 14, including only 5 of 0 outside three-pointers, and only got 8 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists. In contrast, Munch, who had a base salary on the team, shot 7-of-13 from the field and hit six three-pointers to get the team's second-highest 22 points, and rookie Reeves, who came off the bench, shot 7-of-10 and hit 4 three-pointers to score 19 points. In addition to underscoring Wei Shao in scoring, the duo also helped the team set off a counter-attack climax in the late fourth quarter. And the annual salary of the two is less than one-eighth of Wei Shao's.
Secondly, Wei Shao's performance at a critical moment once again became an important reason for the team's eventual loss. In this game, Westbrook scored all eight points from the first half, and in the second half he did not score a point on 0-of-6 shooting, watching the team being overtaken by the opponent. In addition, with the final minute or so left in the fourth quarter, the Lakers are only four points behind and have the ball, as long as this round can be scored, then they will have a very big hope of completing the turnover.
But what many people did not expect was that in this precious offensive round, Wei Shao first dribbled the ball in place outside the three-point line, consuming a lot of offensive time. And the result of this long dribble was that Wei Shao directly chose to shoot a three-point shot through the retreat step, knowing that before that round, he had already shot 0 of 4 from outside the three-point line. The result was undoubtedly the ball smashing out of the basket, and after this iron, the Kings' Meitu hit a key three-pointer, widening the point difference to 7 points, directly announcing the outcome of the game. Judging from this round, Westbrook is heavily responsible for the Lakers' loss.
In any case, Westbrook's three-point shot in that round was extremely unreasonable. On the one hand, with more than a minute left in the game and the team only trailing by 4 points, Westbrook can choose to break through to the inside line, either to create a killing or better opportunity for his teammates by impacting the basket, after all, his three-point feel in this game is very bad. On the other hand, it is also unreasonable for Westbrook to choose to finish the finish by himself in this round, and in the fourth quarter of the game, the State of the Lakers such as James, Reeves and Munch is very hot, and Westbrook's hand is very cold, but he chose to believe in himself.
Looking at The Westbrook's performance since joining the Lakers this season, he has too many problems. Although he himself tried his best to make adjustments, he did not receive too good results. At the beginning of the season, Westbrook tried to establish a tacit understanding with his teammates and constantly sent out passes for his teammates. However, despite his own hard work, He has repeatedly made a lot of mistakes on the field, and for a long time at the beginning of the season, Wei Shao's average number of turnovers per game has been the first in the league, and even at present it is also in the second place in the league.
With so many turnovers in the team's main point guard, the Lakers' offense has been very difficult at many times, and Westbrook himself recognized such a problem and began to try to reduce his mistakes on the court. But his approach was astonishing. The main way for him to reduce the number of his mistakes is to reduce the number of his spins by making a large number of shots, hoping to achieve the goal of reducing the number of mistakes. In the last four games, Wei Shao's number of mistakes has indeed decreased, and the total number of mistakes has only been 4.
But at the same time, because Wei Shao himself is not a good shooting player, coupled with the speed and physical fitness of the basket and other factors weakened, Wei Shao's shooting rate is very unsatisfactory, in the last four games a total of 59 shots, but only hit 15 of them, shooting only 25% of the shooting rate, in the outside three-point shooting is only a miserable 7-of-0. Statistically, Wei Shao's number of turnovers has indeed decreased, but he is actually hurting the team in another way, and this game is the best proof.
In short, Wei Shao, who currently receives an annual salary of 40 million, is not even as good as the basic salary players in the team, and even becomes the culprit of the team's loss in many games. At present, a large number of fans are dissatisfied with Wei Shao, who has also been involved in a lot of trading rumors. Judging from the current trend, if the Lakers want to make a difference in the playoffs this season, then they must be able to play their due performance, at least no longer be a drag bottle for the team. If this is not possible, then I believe the Lakers will most likely choose to trade Westbrook.