On February 6, Beijing time, in an NBA regular season game that ended today, the Lakers defeated the Knicks 122-115 through overtime at home. This victory is of great significance to the Lakers who are currently in a difficult situation, and more importantly, the Lakers finally welcomed back their home star LeBron James in this game. And James has once again proved that he is the Lakers' needle, and just returned to lead the Lakers to complete a great morale-boosting reversal.
This game the Lakers once trailed by 21 points, but in the third quarter blasted a wave of 22-8 to complete the counterattack, during which James and Munch led the team to launch a charge horn, with James's command and pressure, the Lakers' spirit of the whole team is completely different, the whole game, James played 36 minutes, 24 shots 13, got 29 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists and 1 steal, cut the fourth triple-double of the season, there is no doubt that this is what the Lakers giant should look like, in contrast, The performance of Westbrook, another giant of the Lakers, is a bit hot-eyed.
In the whole game, Wei Shao played 29 minutes, only 5 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists in 10 shots, the performance on the offensive end was still a mess, the plus or minus of the whole game -15 was also the worst of the whole team, and the most unbearable thing for the fans was that Wei Shao obviously got 2 precious free throw opportunities at the last critical moment, as long as he scored 1 Lakers, he won steadily, but he actually missed two free throws! And his free throw performance of 3 of the 7 free throws in the game was also terrible.
Due to Westbrook's missed two free throws, the Knicks had a bit of a tie, and then Westbrook made consecutive mistakes on the defensive end, eventually allowing the Knicks to equalize the score before the end of regular time, dragging the game into overtime. Although the Lakers eventually won the overtime game, it must be admitted that if Westbrook is a little more powerful in this game, the Lakers do not need to play overtime, nor do they need to add additional pressure to James, who has just returned.
It is worth mentioning that in the overtime stage, the Lakers chose to change the lineup, so that Davis, James, Ariza, Tucker, munch played, that is to say, directly abandoned Westbrook. This is not the first time this season that the Lakers have abandoned Westbrook at a critical moment, but it is the first time that a minute of overtime is not given like this, which is enough to show that Westbrook's performance finally made Lakers head coach Vogel intolerable.
It should be noted that in the game, whenever Westbrook holds the ball on the outside line to prepare to shoot, the Knicks players basically ignore him, but turn around and run to the inside line to grab the rebound, and the Lakers players are ready to start retreating, which shows that both the Knicks and the Lakers do not believe that Westbrook can hit the shot stably, and even the Lakers home fans have begun to boo Wei Shao, and all people already know that the current Westbrook is very deadly for the Lakers.
If the Lakers finally make it into the playoffs, Westbrook's poor outside projection will definitely be targeted, and the Lakers will be forced to carry out a 4-on-5 situation at any time on the offensive end, and on the defensive end, Westbrook's poor defensive habits and completely unfocused defensive attention will allow the Lakers to plant a time bomb on the defensive end, and this season has proved many times that even if James and Davis work the defensive end, they cannot fill the gap in Westbrook.
Therefore, the Lakers' abandonment of Wei Shao this time may already be a signal, they are ready to refrigerate Wei Shao at any time in the playoffs, if Wei Shao can not get back to the state, he is completely more harmful to the Lakers than beneficial.