To be honest, the last fiasco against the Nuggets nearly 40 points, this game against the jazz also has a tall, strong interior line, I really pinched a sweat for the Lakers. Fortunately, I won in the end.
I think winning the Jazz has at least two upsides for the Lakers:
First, in the face of strong teams, or teams with a winning rate of far more than 50%, the Lakers can also win, which will undoubtedly greatly promote the morale of Lakers players.
Second, somewhat similar to the past few games, the Lakers won 10+ in the third quarter by their opponents in a single quarter. Fortunately, in the fourth quarter, it was necessary to catch up and smooth out the point difference until it was pulled open, which more or less showed that the team began to have resilience. I still remember the championship season, when the Lakers were in the lead at the end of the third quarter, the overall record was only 58 wins and 1 loss.
Back to this game, in my opinion, there are three people on the Lakers side that are worthy of praise:
First of all, Munch. Maybe not like the crazy 20+ output of the previous games, Munch still maintains a very high scoring efficiency - 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting. I think Munch, who is fully capable of offense and continues to play, has replaced Anthony as the most powerful scorer on the Lakers bench.
Then there's Johnson. On the defensive end, whether it is Bogdanovic, Ingles or Gay, Johnson can limit the opponent's shooting very well; more importantly, the offense that is not good at it also has an efficient performance of 7 of 9 and 15 points.
Then there's Vogel. Unlike in the past, vogel was able to call a timeout in time when the team was behind; it was also able to make timely adjustments based on the Jazz's rotation. One of the more convincing points is that in today's game, the Lakers except James played more than 30 minutes, and the rest of the players did not exceed 30 minutes, which is not only the first time in the season, but also the first time since coaching the Lakers.
In summary, I think today's Lakers are double happiness - this not only refers to winning the strong opponent Jazz, but also refers to the recovery of substitute players and the change of coaching staff.
In addition, there is another point that has to be mentioned, that is, Wei Shao's playing time today is also less than 30 minutes, which is also the first time since joining the Lakers. This reveals two things in my opinion:
First, when Westbrook performed poorly, the coaching staff dared to compress his playing time and performance opportunities, which was a very big change;
Second, Wei Shao has been divided from the core ranks to the role players. I mean, it's the same as the average player;
From the above two points, I think the Lakers management has moved the idea of trading Wei Shao. At the very least, it is no longer as privileged as it was when it was underperforming.
From another perspective, Westbrook's trading may be on the verge of breaking out. I mean, just like today's game, in less than 30 minutes of Wei Shao's appearance, the Lakers can defeat strong opponents, which means that Wei Shao's importance on the team is not so great.
Finally, I would like to say that the Jazz are really a touchstone, at least to make the Lakers more clear about the importance of scoring Westbrook in the team.