With six consecutive losses in the preseason and two consecutive losses in the regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers are hard to win in the opening eight games of the new season. However, fortunately, preseason games do not count towards the regular season record, and the Lakers also ushered in a wave of sweet schedules after two consecutive losses, not only the opponent's strength has weakened, but most of the Lakers' games are still played at the staples center at home. After an easy 95-85 victory over the Houston Rockets, the Lakers have won four of their last five games, the only unfortunate one being the Thunder's 26-point comeback on the road. However, it must be admitted that the Lakers have gradually found a state.
Averaging 5+1 per game, but sitting on the Lakers' starting lineup! Eager to stay in the Purple and Gold Legion, you regain James' trust.
In fact, the Lakers need to run in, it is better to say that Russell Westbrook needs to find a state, the beginning of the season Westbrook is indeed unfamiliar with the new teammates, and the personal state also has a big problem, breakthrough can not score, shooting a no, passing errors. However, the recent Wei Shao is slowly regaining his state, the offensive and defensive conversion is pushed more, the dry pull jumper has also begun to hit, from the third game, he can shoot at least one three-pointer per game, and the recovery of Wei Shao's state directly led the Lakers' offense, and their offensive efficiency jumped from the middle and lower reaches of the league to the 7th in the league today.
After Wei Shao recovered, lakers began to experiment with different lineups. In the first 6 games of the season, the Lakers' starting five is unchanged, except for the two games in which James is suspended due to injury, the other 4 games The Lakers' starting lineup has been Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, LeBron James, DeAndre Jordan, Kent Bazemore five.
However, in the game against the Houston Rockets, Lakers coach Frank Vogel made some changes to the team's starting lineup, he removed Jordan Jr. from the starting lineup for the first time in the regular season, used Davis to play the No. 5 position, and sent a five-small lineup, and jordan Jr. was not replaced by Malik Munch, not Cameron Anthony, nor Austin Rivers, but the guard Avery Bradley, who was adopted by the Lakers in the final moments before the start of the regular season.
Against the Rockets, Bradley shot only 1 of 5 from the field, only 2 points and 3 rebounds, however, he had 3 steals and 1 block contribution on the defensive end, and after playing, Bradley had only one task, that is, to make the Rockets' leader Jaylen Green suffer.
Jaylen Green shot just 8 shots in the game, and only shot 2 of them, with 7 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists, and 4 turnovers, 8 shots, two of which were also risked. In the first three quarters of the game, Green only made 3 shots under Bradley's full-court pursuit, and he can already be said to be worthy of the name bradley locked.
Bradley averaged just 4.7 points and 1.3 rebounds per game, but was able to start in the small five lineups, proving that his performance on the defensive end was recognized by the Lakers coaching staff and two captains, LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Because in an interview at the beginning of the season, Vogel said that the team's starting point will be decided in consultation with the coaching staff, management and the captain of the team (James and Davis).
Although Bradley's average per game is very average, his offensive rhythm has been found, 47.8% shooting percentage and 42.9% three-point shooting rate are not bad, averaging 1.0 three-pointers per game, although not much, but enough. Considering that he only has 16.8 minutes of playing time, this translates to an average of 36 minutes to score more than two three-pointers per game.
Bradley has been left unobtrusive throughout the offseason since being abandoned by the Rockets (the Rockets refused to execute Bradley's $5 million team option in the offseason), and the Golden State Warriors gave Bradley a chance when he saw serious problems in his NBA career. In the Warriors, Bradley is still very strong on the defensive end, and he himself knows that the offensive feel may be good and bad, but the defense is what he eats.
However, the Warriors may be relatively more focused on offense, bradley's poor feel made the Warriors eventually abandon him, even though Stephen Curry and Draymond Green desperately wanted to keep Bradley, thinking he would play a role in the playoffs, but it still did not help.
After the Lakers claimed Bradley, the latter had some embarrassing emotions, after all, his refusal to resume the game made many fans very disgusted. In this regard, Bradley said that he would talk about it publicly with his old teammates, believing that they would understand him.
For Frank Vogel's system, Bradley could not be clearer, he was the Lakers' starting guard. Still starting from defense, in the Lakers, Bradley first got Vogel's trust. There is no way, the Lakers this summer's reinforcements are too biased towards offense and projection, the defense is a bit lagging behind, Vogel has some headaches, and Bradley just perfectly solved the problem. But he still has an unsecured contract, but fortunately, he has won the trust and continues to perform, believing that the Lakers will not give up on him in the short term.