The Lakers have not been as good as expected this season, and Westbrook has become the "culprit." It is precisely because of his incompatibility with the Lakers system and the heavy data on the court and the lack of defense that a team that should have competed for the championship fell out of the top eight in the West. But it's unscientific to put all the blame on Westbrook, who has become reasonable, at least from today's loss to the Warriors. In other words, Westbrook has a positive effect against some teams. The Lakers should find the right way to use Westbrook to make last year's spurned deal achieve a stop-loss effect. This is also a small piece of good news for Lakers fans to harvest the good news that James has become the all-time regular playoff total scoring champion.
Taking today's Lakers game against the Warriors as an example, Westbrook's performance is 7 of 13 contributing 19 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists, whether from the data or efficiency, it is above the average level of this season. The point is that when Wei Shao was present today, the Lakers took the initiative in the scene. Facing the warriors ranked second in the league, the Lakers played at a level that matched the strength of the paper. The overall performance of the defense is the best in recent times, and Wei Shao's defensive attention is also relatively concentrated, and there is no leakage of people to grab the board. The coordination between him and the thick-browed brother is good, and pushing the defensive counterattack makes the Warriors' small lineup very uncomfortable. Wei Shao's offensive and defensive conversion, coupled with the advantage of the thick eyebrow brother against the small lineup, makes it difficult for the Warriors to overwhelm. The problem is in the Lakers coaching staff, Ming Mingwei played very freely, the effect is also very good, the Lakers use him is still in accordance with the practice of the previous games. In the third quarter, when the fight was raging, it was replaced as usual, and the warriors took the opportunity to turn against the trend to take the initiative. In the fourth quarter, when Wei Shao took the bench and the Warriors played back and forth, and according to the conventions of the previous games, they went off early, replaced by James, and as a result, old Zhan was not in the state in the last quarter of today, and finally the Lakers lost the Warriors. So although this game was lost today, the Lakers at least gained a "reasonable turtle", in the follow-up game, we should learn the lesson of today's loss, and when Wei Shao holds the ball and pushes back, it should be resolutely delegated to him. After all, trading a star with an annual salary of more than 40 million yuan will have to be used when it should be used, and then withdraw when the effect is not good. Instead of playing badly and taking care of the face of the former MVP to stay on the court, and then pressing on the bench when playing well, this will only become more and more vicious.
In addition to missing the lesson of "reasonable turtles", the Lakers should also re-evaluate the use of davis. In the past two games, the presence of the thick eyebrow brother is very low, playing the Warriors today only scored 16 points in 13 shots, and the fourth quarter of the last two games has made a total of 3 shots and hit 1 goal. Thick-browed brother is one of the best big men in the active duty, especially against the Warriors' five-small lineup, with absolute height and alignment advantages, but it is used by the coaching staff as a blue-collar worker, which greatly weakens the value of its offensive and defensive all-round interior line. When the thick eyebrow brother exerted his full strength, the Lakers won the championship in 2020. When the thick-browed brother is injured or unable to exert his full strength, the Lakers can only stop in the first round, or simply make it difficult to enter the playoffs. Maybe the 37-year-old James is still one of the best players in the world, but sometimes he should also be moderately decentralized, especially when Oak is not in good shape today, should he let the "reasonable turtle" and the thick eyebrow brother play more? Losing is not terrible, but I am afraid that after losing, I will still follow the pattern when I lost. Hopefully, the Lakers can use this game to summarize the highlights and put them into practice for the rest of the schedule, so that they still have hope to get back on track.