After losing the "must win" in a bizarre way, the Lakers took another step towards the abyss of perdition, and their advantage over the 11th-place Spurs in the West was already negligible, and they could fall out of the playoff zone at any time.
Anthony Davis, who sprained his right ankle, has not yet returned, and LeBron James has added a new injury to his left ankle. At this point in the season, coach Frank Vogel is still using words such as "cultivating habits" and "growing and improving" to describe the Lakers, which shows how miserable the situation of the team that aimed to compete for the championship at the beginning of the season was.
According to several core players of the Lakers, Vogel, the Lakers did not give up the possibility of entering the playoffs through the playoffs, even though the data model showed that their probability of entering the playoffs was only 3%.
The problem is that the Lakers' next journey is extremely dangerous. Other than that, the difficulty of the schedule alone, the Lakers are seriously behind in the competition with the Pelicans and Spurs. The Lakers have a hard time expecting competitors to drop the chain, and the only thing they can do is try to gnaw down every hard bone. And if you want to do this, the Lakers have to hope that the Combination of Zhan Mei is healthy, and Vogel and Wei Shao will come up with the standard they deserve.
Zhan Mei is healthy, the Lakers are on the line of life and death
In the early hours of this morning, the Lakers' injury report revealed two major signals of happiness and worry. James, who sprained his left ankle in the last game, missed training and had a swollen ankle and had to be treated. The next game to play the Lone Ranger, James is most likely absent.
Davis has played full training for the first time since the Jazz sprained his right ankle on Feb. 17, and although he is also missing tomorrow as a loner, Davis is getting closer and closer to a comeback, and he is likely to return in early April.
Now, james and Davis' ankle injuries recovery has become the lifeline of the Lakers. The Lakers have only 8 games left, and they don't have the luxury of giving James and Davis a few more breaks. Although Munch firmly believes that as long as James is there, they will always have a chance to win, but the problem is that James is now struggling to exert his full power because of knee pain and ankle swelling.
Kendrick Nunn will basically not come back, and all the Lakers can expect now is that James's injury recovery will be miraculous, not to be suspended for too long, and to continue to play excellent performances when playing. At the same time, the Lakers can only hope that Davis can quickly enter the best state after his comeback, playing at least 38 minutes per game to full strength, providing offensive firepower to the Lakers on the offensive end, helping the Lakers improve their poor defense on the defensive end, and driving the whole team to improve their defensive intensity.
Not long ago, ESPN also reported that the Lakers firmly believe that as long as they enter the playoffs, they can set off a storm, because in the past two seasons, when the Zhan Mei combination played at the same time, the Lakers recorded 18 wins and 7 losses. The Lakers can't be wrong with this belief, but the premise is that Zhan Mei is healthy and leads the Lakers into the playoffs first.
The pressure came to the ankle of the Zhan Mei combination and the Lakers medical team.
Wei Shao is strong and keeps going
At the beginning of the season, Wei Shao did not perform well, and the Lakers expected his performance to improve as the schedule deepened. In the middle of the season, Wei Shao's performance was still not good, and the Lakers once planned to send Wei Shao away, but unfortunately no one was willing to take over. After the trade deadline, Wei Shao's performance still did not improve, and the Lakers hoped that Wei Shao, who was accustomed to the outbreak after the All-Star game, could improve his performance after the All-Star game. Then it wasn't until mid-March that the Lakers' expectation of Wei Shao finally played the performance that Mr. Forty Million should have, and it was finally "late but late."
In the past 5 games, Wei Shao has not said that he has not been black, but the black dot is indeed much less, and he has averaged 21.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, 8.6 assists per game, shooting 52.4% from the field and 46.2% from three-point range. Whether it's an outside shot or an inside finish, Westbrook's performance has improved a lot. Wei Shao's Ren Dou Er vein seemed to be opened by Beverley's ridicule and provocation.
In the closing stages of the season, Westbrook tried to maintain his current outstanding performance, maintain the efficiency of the interior attack, reduce mistakes and focus more on defense.
An incomprehensible problem about Wei Shao is that wei Shao's state has improved a lot recently, and Vogel's trust in him has declined, starting from the Lakers' overtime victory over the Raptors, Wei Shao's playing time has gradually declined.
Playing the 76ers, Wei Shao only played for 33 minutes. Playing pelicans, Wei Shao only played for 32 minutes. When Wei Shao performed dismal and the outside world was advising Vogel to reduce Wei Shao's playing time, Vogel did not listen. Now that Wei Shao's performance has improved, Vogel is not willing to give Wei Shao more trust. Especially in the last game against the Pelicans, James was subject to an ankle sprain in the second half of the obvious absence, the Lakers' offensive efficiency plummeted, but Vogel did not give Westbrook more drama. As a result, the Lakers only scored a total of 39 points in the second half and were overturned by 23 points.
Platooning, Vogel is more reasonable
From the overall consideration of the whole season, Vogel's coaching is certainly not the fundamental reason why the Lakers have fallen into such a situation. But looking at the details, is Vogel's coaching really no problem? Not. Every coach has his own coaching philosophy, many times, obviously some lineups are ordinary fans who can use their fingers to check the data to know that it is not effective, but Vogel insists on using it, which is the stubbornness of every coach, although it will hurt the team.
First of all, to be clear, with the Lakers' current lineup, Vogel's main small lineup is no problem. Because of the Lakers' lineup configuration, the Lakers' defense has been rotten to the bone and cannot be saved, and improving the defense is not something that can be solved by shouting slogans. Judging from the Lakers' post-All-Star game, the Lakers won by basically relying on a hot offensive feel, and their lead relied on the offensive firepower generated by the small lineup. And once the Lakers and James can't maintain their offensive feel, they may collapse at any time due to continuous poor defense. So, it doesn't make sense to dwell on whether Dwight Howard should play more, and he can only play a little tool man role when the Lakers meet a team with a tall traditional center.
Under this prerequisite, Vogel's platoon should be more refined, and in the next life and death schedule, Vogel should discard the discarded, first eliminate the wrong answer, and then play the value of the correct answer.
Taren Horton Tucker is one of the wrong answers, and no matter how optimistic the Lakers management is about his future prospects, at least for now, Tucker Jr. will not help the Lakers to storm the playoff spot. Austin Reeves, who has better defensive ability, enters the starting lineup, and after Augustine, who has better projection and organization skills, enters the rotation, the Lakers should cut Tucker Jr.'s playing time.
Because in the Lakers rotation lineup, Westbrook, Reeves, Malik Munch, and Augustine share enough playing time in the backcourt. On the offensive end, the 4-man rotation is enough. In order to give Tucker 20+ minutes of playing time, cutting the playing time of Gabriel and Stanley Johnson really shouldn't be, these two are the energy forwards that the Lakers need the most.
Especially considering that Vogel is now using more small lineups, it is the most reasonable choice to use Gabriel and Johnson to maintain the height of the frontcourt. Before the Lakers could fight hard battles with the Raptors and Cavaliers, both of them played a major role.
Ruling out Tucker Jr.'s false answer also serves another purpose — throwing the suicide squad in the trash. Vogel tried the death three-backs of Westbrook, Augustine and Tucker Jr. in the rotation time, plus an old arm and leg Cameron Anthony, and the defense of this lineup was exploded into the norm.
Especially after Davis' comeback, the Lakers defense has a foundation, if Vogel can match him with Johnson, Gabriel, Reeves and other defensive sappers, the Lakers' defense will definitely improve than before.
epilogue
For the Lakers, each of the next games is a key battle that can affect their ultimate fate. As Vogel said, time is running out, the Lakers must first find a way to win some victories, and the next game they have to do everything they can to win.
After all, self-helpers are god-help.