On January 20, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, and the Lakers lost to the Pacers 104-111. In the last 3 minutes and 52 seconds of the game, Vogel replaced Westbrook with Munch and never let him play again, and the Lakers eventually lost the game. After the game, Vogel's decision to employ people was also questioned by many people, and Wei Shao himself did not participate in the post-match press conference and left the stadium directly.
In his post-match press conference, Vogel talked about why he didn't miss Westbrook at the last minute, saying, "I sent a squad that I thought I could win. It was definitely a disappointing loss, the Pacers were brilliant, we're now winning at less than 50% and we feel we should win this game. ”
Frankly speaking, although the Lakers lost, Vogel did not choose wester in the last moment, and there was nothing wrong with it. Because Westbrook's form in this game was really bad, he played a total of 26 minutes and 36 seconds, 14 points and 3 assists on 5-of-17 shooting, and when he was on the floor, the Lakers also lost as many as 18 points against their opponents.
When Westbrook is in poor shape, he should indeed be replaced, but Vogel's problem is that he replaced Westbrook at the same time, but did not use Howard, which is a bit confusing.
After all, when howard was present, the Lakers' defense was significantly better, and he played only 13 minutes in this campaign, delivering 5 points, 7 rebounds (including 4 frontcourt rebounds) and 2 blocks, which also reflected his advantage on the inside. At the same time, in this game, the Pacers have a big center like Sabonis Jr., who is 2 meters 11 tall, which is also suitable for Howard to target him.
If in the past, when Westbrook played, out of the consideration of opening up space on the offensive end, Vogel did not use Howard, it was quite understandable. But now that Westbrook is resting, Vogel still doesn't need Howard, so it's a bit overwhelming.
At the end of the press conference, Vogel said that "we must coach better, and the players must play better", and from the current situation, Vogel obviously needs to improve in the on-the-spot response to help the Lakers out of the predicament.