The Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Memphis Grizzlies, 127-119, on Sunday at Crypto.com Arena. LeBron James was brilliant again — 35 points, 14-of-19 shooting, nine rebounds, seven assists. Ja Morant's box score — 16 points, 4-of-10 FG, seven assists — paled in comparison to his highlights and impact.
The Grizzlies (27-14) are now 3-1 against the Lakers (21-20) this season, and lead the Lakers by 6.5 games in the Western Conference playoff picture.
Beyond those basic numbers, here are three significant and, frankly, hard-to-believe figures that explain Memphis' comfortable win in Los Angeles (until an admirable garbage time run.)
1) 8-of-39
Ja's supporting cast came to play. LeBron's didn't.
Jared Jackson Jr. (21 points, 12 rebounds, six blocks), Desmond Bane (23 points and a lot of sh*t-talking), Kyle Anderson (14 points), and more buoyed the Grizzlies' attack.
By contrast, the Lakers starters not named “LeBron” shot 8-of-39 from the field. On the night LeBron passed OG triple-double king Oscar Robertson on the NBA's all-time assists list, Russell Westbrook put up a triple-single: six points, seven rebounds, six assists. Malik Monk, who had averaged 21.9 points over his past seven games, never turned on his microwave (seven points, 3-of-13 FG).
“We were just a little out of sync,” Frank Vogel assessed postgame. “A number of guys having tough nights all at the same time.”
If not for an admirable push in the waning minutes, led by Wayne Ellington (16 points), Austin Reaves (16 points) and Talen Horton-Tucker (13 points), the Lakers may have finished the contest without a second player in double-figures.
The strong play of LeBron's entourage (LeBrontourage?) has been a defining characteristic of the four-game winning streak the Lakers brought into Sunday's game. Hopefully, for the Lakers, it's a one-game hiccup, rather than an all-out reversal of the recent trend.
2) 25-0
At one point in the second half, the Grizzlies had outscored the Lakers in fast-break points, 25-0. Think about that — it's almost unfathomable.
Yes, the Grizzlies rank 2nd in the NBA in fast-break points— 16.1 per game. However, the Lakers are right behind them in 3rd place (15.2) and consider it a staple of their game-plan. Los Angeles ranks 3rd in pace and first in possessions per game. Even in this contest, the Lakers took 10 more shots than the Grizzlies and were tied in the turnover battle (a respectable 12 apiece).
But the Lakers struggled to get stops early in the game, missed some shots at the rim, and, in Vogel's opinion, allowed defensive miscues to affect their offensive verve.
“Not having [Steven] Adams out there — obviously, he’s a big part of what they do — but they get a little faster and a little more spread out. A little more difficult to guard in some ways. We had trouble getting back from transition and I thought this was one of those games where we let a lot of misses of the basket affect our defensive focus. We weren’t scoring. We lost focus of what we were supposed to be doing on the defensive side. That can’t happen. Obviously, that was the big reason they built a big lead.”
The Lakers ended up scoring 10 transition points when the game was all-but-decided. Still, it wasn't exactly Showtime at The Crypto.
3) LeBron's plus/minus
Occasionally, plus/minus, even for one game, can provide insight into the value of an individual player. Sometimes, it's purely circumstantial. I would say LeBron James' team-worst -30 on Sunday falls into the latter category.
That quirky figure is due to a combination of two factors, neither of which has to do with Mr. James. No. 1, the aforementioned ineffectiveness of his supporting cast, which caused the Lakers to sink into a massive deficit by the end of the third quarter.
Then, in the final minutes, with a lineup of Ellington, Reaves, Horton-Tucker, and cast-offs Kent Bazemore and DeAndre Jordan on the floor, the Lakers fought back to within eight points thanks to the most improbable of 20-0 runs. It wasn't enough to force Vogel to put LeBron back in the game, but it ended things on a slightly less dour note for the Lakers.
“I really want to credit those five guys, cause that's a tough situation to be in,” Vogel said. “You've got veteran guys — aside from Austin — that are losing out on minutes … I've seen a lot of situations where guys don't handle that well. But those guys really played the right way down the stretch. They tried to make a game of it and tried to make it interesting. There was great competitive spirit and a purity to the way those guys played.”
Follow Us
Subscribe