Beijing time on March 5, the Lakers will challenge the Warriors tomorrow away, for the Lakers, this is almost a game that can not be lost, at present they have suffered 4 consecutive losses, ahead of the 10th Pelicans in the West only 0.5 wins, ahead of the 11th Blazers in the West is only 2 wins, if you continue to lose, the next may soon fall out of the play-off area, even the qualification for play-offs is gone.
So after losing to the Clippers in the last game, James also said directly: "We need to win a win." Now I don't look at the record or the ranking. I'll focus on the next opponent and look back in the days between the two games on what we did well and what we didn't do well, and think about how we can move forward, win a win and get through it. That's my mindset. ”
And then facing the Warriors who have been in equally bad shape recently, this is indeed the Lakers' best chance to end the losing streak. At the same time, at this critical time, the Lakers also got a good news, according to today's Lakers' official injury list, their outside gate, Bradley is very promising to make a comeback against the Warriors.
Earlier, the Lakers officially released the injury report for tomorrow's game: Anthony Davis (right mid-foot sprain), Kendrick Nunn (right knee bone injury) missed the game; Tarren Horton Tucker (left ankle sprain), LeBron James (left knee sore/effusion) is in doubt; Avery Bradley (right knee effusion) has a high probability of playing. The most exciting thing about this is undoubtedly Bradley's injury update, from the previous inability to play to the high probability of playing, and based on past experience, this basically means that Bradley can play.
Bradley's importance to the Lakers is self-evident, especially his defensive tearing ability on the outside line is too precious for the Lakers at this stage, to put it bluntly, the Lakers now have as many as 10 players on the guard line, but the only one who can really defend and defend belongs to the elite level is Bradley, which is why the Lakers are willing to give him a starting guard place this season. And since Bradley's injury, the Lakers' defensive efficiency has simply fallen off a cliff, and after the last game, James and Vogel have bluntly said that defense is the most core problem of the team now.
Speaking about the decline in the team's defensive performance this season, James said: "Obviously, this season our defense is facing a huge challenge. We made too many defensive mistakes and lost many games because of defensive collapses. ”
Vogel said in an interview: "We don't use the tall lineup we used to have because of the outside shooting ability we had when we used AD (Anthony Davis) and an inside lineman. We don't have that kind of offensive space, so we're using a lot of small lineups, and we don't have the defensive speed and talent of the last two years. But our players are competing, learning the tactical systems they're all involved in, almost all of them are in the first year of execution, and we're honing those things. Of course, if you've gone through so many changes, you're going to have to adjust your tactics, so that's what we're doing. ”
In fact, James and Vogel are also very clear that the Lakers' current group of people can not be compared with the 2020 championship-winning lineup, and the defensive ability is not in a grade, which is why they need Bradley so much. The Lakers have to solve defensive problems if they still want to make a difference this season, and with Bradley's comeback, they're starting to really have a chance to do everything again.