Lakers sink in a 3-point hole to Clippers

The team misses on 36 of 45 attempts from behind the arc in the second loss of the season 

LOS ANGELES (Story appears courtesy of the Compton Bulletin) – There were spurts where the Los Angeles Lakers played great against the Los Angeles Clippers. There were moments when they played not so great. That inconsistency is what cost them the ballgame in their home opener against their city and current Crypto.com Arena rivals.

The Clippers beat the Lakers, 103-97. The Lakers have now started the season losing their first two games. This was the Clippers’ first game of the regular season, and they won the contest by having Kawhi Leonard and John Wall coming off the bench.

The Clippers looked like they were to make the game a runaway after outscoring the Lakers 35-23 in the first quarter. But the Lakers answered the bell and dropped 33 points in the second period while limiting the Clippers to 21 to get back in the ballgame. The Lakers did not allow the Clippers to have another 30-point quarter for the rest of the game.

“We played the way we wanted to play. We defended at a high level. We shared the ball offensively,” James said. “You can’t control when the ball goes in and when it doesn’t go in. So, I think we made another forward in our development to continue to get better and better as a ballclub.”

In the end, the Lakers could not make enough plays to make up that deficit from the first quarter.

The good for the Lakers is their loss to the Clippers is that it is just one of 82 games they have to play during the regular season. The bad news is that they have to play 82 games during the regular season. On the floor, there is strong room for a pause on the expectations from this Lakers team.

Sure, the Clippers probably have the deepest team in the NBA, but concern arises from several observations. The obvious is the shooting or the lack of shooting from Russell Westbrook. In 27 minutes of action, the Lakers star guard scored a total of two points. Westbrook went 0-11 on his field goal attempts on the night.

That’s not a good sign. At all.

So, one of your top three players drew a blank in the team’s home opener. That is hard to swallow, especially coming from a player of Westbrook’s caliber. As a team, the Lakers are in trouble if Westbrook is not able to deliver a single basket from the floor. It doesn’t matter what anyone says. We know what we saw from Westbrook. And it was not a good look for him or the Lakers.   

And no one wants to say it because Westbrook has been such a marvelous player all of his career, that it is simply incredulous to think that Westbrook does not have it anymore. But the truth is the truth. Not being able to score two points from the floor in just your team’s second game of the season with another 80 to go, is not a blip on the radar screen.

You simply cannot ignore or sugarcoat reality.

That was a shell of the Russell Westbrook out there on the floor against the Clippers that we all have come to admire. It was also difficult seeing Willie Mays going through the death throes of his Hall of Fame Major League Baseball career, too.   

Am I overreacting? Maybe, but I doubt it. When you’re drawing the kind of salary that Westbrook is ($44 million for 2022-23), you are not going to be allowed to have too many of those blank scoring from the floor nights.

LeBron James talk to the media after Clippers defeated the Lakers.#NBATwitterLive #Lakers pic.twitter.com/JCGIjSSoM1

— Dennis J. Freeman (@DennisJFreeman) October 21, 2022

It wasn’t just Westbrook. As a team, nobody on the Lakers shot well at all from the floor, except Lonnie Walker IV, who led the team in scoring with 26 points. The Lakers shot just 35 percent from the field, converting only 33 of 94 field goals. They shot worse from behind the arc, going 9 of 45 from 3-point shooting.

The difference between the Lakers and Clippers this early is that Tyronn Lue’s team has a lot more depth. The Lakers had three players score in double figures. The Clippers received double-digit contributions from six players and played with Leonard only getting 21 minutes of playing time. Leonard made 50 percent of his shots from the field to score 14 points in the Clippers’ first win of the season. 

Leonard emphatically talked about what his role was in the team’s first game.

“Being great in my minutes,” Leonard said. “That’s it. Whatever minutes I get make sure it’s winning basketball and like I said try to be great in them.” 

Featured Image: Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James nearly recorded a triple-double against the Los Angeles Clippers during a Christmas Day game played at Staples Center in 2019. James scored 23 points, dished off 10 assists and grabbed nine rebounds in the Lakers’ 111-106 defeat to the Clippers. File Photo/News4usonline