The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 114-110 on Saturday night. Despite the win, every starter in the starting lineup for the Lakers was in the negatives in the +/- stats, while all of the reserves were a positive.
The +/- stats are always interesting to look at after a game, though they don't always mean too much when looking at them for individual games. But the fact that every starter for the Lakers was in the negatives says things were just not working out for that starting group in Portland.
LeBron James had the worse +/- out of the starters with a minus-22. What's crazy about that stat is James finished with 28 points, seven assists, five rebounds and two blocks.
The next highest in the negative section was Lonzo Ball. He finished with three points, three assists and two rebounds. He shot 16.7 percent from the field and 25 percent from 3-point range.
Let's look at the positives, though. Rajon Rondo had the highest positive at plus-28. He finished with 17 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and three steals. He shot 8-of-10 from the field in a terrific all-around performance.
Along with Rondo, four other Lakers bench players were at least plus-15 or more. Their reserve unit absolutely smashed the Blazers' bench players, and it helped provide the difference in the win.
While the Lakers' starters were poor in this game, for the season they have actually been okay together. Head coach Luke Walton has already done some tinkering with this lineups and may feel he needs to do more with rumblings of him being on the hot seat, but he shouldn't feel he has to do anything too drastic after a win.
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