Why Lakers LOST to Thunder: Luka Doncic & Austin Reaves must be better | NBA Reaction

On the Lakers front, there’s going to be a tendency over the next couple of days to focus on the roster and its limitations. And I don’t want to pretend those limitations don’t exist. Lakers did look unathletic last night. DeAndre Aton really seemed to struggle with just the level of intensity and physicality underneath the basket. You know, if Ruie wasn’t getting a wide open three, he seemed to be struggling to score. He put the ball on the floor in the mid-range a little bit and was struggling to get off there. like there’s there’s certain things where they looked a little athletically overmatched last night, but I always start with the stars. Everything for me trickles down from that idea of exactly what I said about uh Stephen Curry in the Tuesday night game. If you guys remember, Steph couldn’t break down Oklahoma City’s defense last night. Luca Donuch couldn’t break down Oklahoma City’s defense and neither could Austin. Luca was drawing two to the ball, but he wasn’t beating the blitz with the right pass. He had a couple of buckets that he got out of it, but there were a lot of turnovers and there were several sequences where he made like the wrong read. Like, oh, the guy’s wide open in the corner and he’s actually guarded on the wing, but I’m going to throw it to the wing where now it’s got to be a second pass to the corner. And so now Shay can make the rotation to Jake Laravia. He’s no longer open. the blitz worked or a deflection or a pass that didn’t quite get into the right spot. And it’s not 100% Luca’s fault. There were some plays where guys were there were several sequences where I thought instead of short rolling, guys were rolling too hard to the rim. And now all of a sudden, you’re just making for some really difficult passing angles. I don’t want to pretend like it was all Luca’s fault, but the bottom line is when Luca was in single coverage or drop coverage situations, he was unable to score. When he got two to the ball, he was unable to compromise the defense with the right read. going to Austin, same exact concept. Unable to score when he had scoring opportunities, unable to consistently generate quality advantage opportunities when he would pass the ball. From there, I don’t expect anybody in the league to just thrive in any sort of matchup against an elite basketball team if you can’t set them up with advantages. In other words, I don’t care if that was Herb Jones at the three, Aaron Gordon at the four, and Jared Allen at the five. just three excellent above average starters as role players, two-way guys at that pos at those positions next to Austin and Luca. They’re still getting their ass kicked last night. If Austin and Luca can’t compromise Oklahoma City’s defense, I think it’s important to separate those issues. Yes. Do the Lakers have an athleticism shortcoming? Absolutely. Is is LeBron going to be able to help? Yeah, to some extent. Is it going to be enough? Probably not. They’re probably still going to need some sort of assistance in athleticism in two-way play at some point down closer to the trade deadline through the flipping of contracts like Maxi Kleba and Gabe Vincent and things along those lines. Like, yeah, that that’s a conversation we can have, but it they’re dead on arrival. If Austin and Luca can’t generate quality shots, if LeBron can’t help them generate quality shots against the Thunder. We talk about this all the time. It’s about advantage creation. If you establish easy opportunities for your role players because of how good your stars are, they’re probably going to thrive. If you don’t generate quality opportunities for them because you’re not setting them up with great advantages, they’re probably going to look limited. And that’s what it came down to for me last night. Austin and Luca weren’t breaking the Thunder defense at the point of attack, which was shortening all those windows, all those driving lanes, all those closeouts. Every little opportunity was just tight and congested. And so, of course, they really struggled against an elite defense when they weren’t being gift wrapped advantages, which is the job of Austin and Luca. So, I just think it’s I think you’re going to see a lot of talk about the Lakers roster over the course of the last over the course of the next couple of days before they play again. I think that’s kind of missing the point of what happened last night. If Austin and Luca go in there and they drop 60 on 65% true shooting and they don’t turn the basketball over and OKC starts reacting to them and they make the kick out passes and the reads that get guys quality opportunities, I think Ruie has a better game. I think Eightton has a better game. I think Jakeia has a better game. I think all of them have better games. I think those things are connected. And I just think I I think last night was mostly about OKC just destroying the Laker offensive initiators. One last note on the Lakers before we move on. Luca Donic in his last five games has taken 88 jump shots and he’s gotten just 64 points, just 0.73 points per shot. It’s been something that kind of started to show in that Miami Heat game and it’s been pretty consistent down the line over the course of the last week and a half. If Luca is not making jump shots, it kind of takes him down from that like I’m in the conversation with the very best player in the world like Jokic to I’m just another guy in that top tier. And that that to me is kind of like a a differentiator between the levels that Luca can reach. And he just hasn’t been shooting the jump shot super well as of late. Obviously small sample size. It was a small sample size when he was shooting amazing to start the year. It’s a small sample size when he’s shooting terribly right now. Ultimately, what level this team can get to is going to have a lot to do with what does Luca’s large sample jump shooting look like. Is he going to be able to consistently knock down those short jump shots, especially when they get into big playoff moments? Just something to keep an eye on as we get further into the season.

Jason reacts to the Los Angeles Lakers’ loss to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder and explains that while the roster does have flaws, the loss to OKC was simply because Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves were not good enough with LeBron James still sidelined.

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32 comments

  2. The lakers blew OKC out last year and still went home in round 1 so I’m not gonna put much stock into this loss either. But one thing is for sure, the idea that the lakers are gonna win anything this season without LeBron James is comical and last night 100% confirmed it.

  4. The Thunder are just in another stratosphere compared to everyone else. Everyone saying “we need LeBron back” don’t understand having LeBron James isn’t gonna make us even close to as good as this Thunder team. It’s gonna take a complete rebuild of our team after this season to build around Luka with athletic lengthy wing players and athletic big centers just like they did in Dallas. Even then it’s gonna be hard to beat this Thunder team in a 7 game series. This season was always about trying to win as much as possible and evaluating the roster and who could fit into our long term plans with Luka. Hopefully we can get a top 5 seed and possibly even make the WCF if we catch some breaks. But I don’t see anyone beating the Thunder at all. There’s no reason to put too much stock into this game other than OKC is just that good

  5. I told my Lakers fans that there’s a lot of IQ & skill on this Laker team which is why they’re really really good. However, they currently have ZERO athletes to compete with OKC! All 10-12 guys that are going to play vs the Lakers have an athletic advantage AND they’ve got just as much skill & IQ. Therefore, especially when turnovers happen, the Lakers will have ZERO chance to even be competitive with the Thunder.

    Btw, I’m a Dubs fan, and I feel like my squad is too old/slow/small to compete with them on most nights either! They beat Wemby and the Spurs in San Antonio but, Steph had to go for +40 for it to happen and we cannot expect that to be the formula to win in the West.

    All that being said, OKC is easily the best team out there and I’d be shocked if they didn’t repeat. ❤ 💙 💛

  6. This is definitely a testament to OKC’s defense. Them boys are flying crazy out there. If Luka can’t break them down with his playmaking then honestly I dont expect anyone to. Maybe Trae young but we already know the hawks aren’t contenders so that’s irrelevant

  7. It’s okay guys don’t worry austin reaves and luka are gonna blow out some bottom feeder team in the east and will suddenly be favs to win the west again 😂😂😂😂

  11. What do you think of Zion joining forces with Luka? His value is all time-low. Can be a salvage high potential value.Will get the penetration alongside Lebron.

  12. This team is basically brand new, the Thunder have been cultivating a system for years. It wasn’t just Luka and Austin it was the whole team, only Marcus smart played decent. Ayton was terrible, it was a good test and learning experience, lakers needed that. They can come back stronger.

  13. NBA media tried to make Lakers look good by glazing them all the time. They’re not good!!! The league just sucks and a lot of teams get beat up every night. This game was a joke.

  14. The better question is, why aren’t YOU better, bozo?🙄 The Lakers are a playoff team. They’re NOT a championship contender and frankly it doesn’t matter that they’re not a championship contender. The only reason why you’re propagating this constant bull💩 is because you’re trying so hard to protect LeBron James’ legacy when it’s already a failed legacy. Dude got swept in the NBA playoffs 3X, regardless of how great the talent was around him, he’s now 2 and 12 in the last three playoff series and that’s with a prime Anthony Davis and then a young prime Luka Doncic. The best LeBron James could do in any playoff stretch was go to four straight NBA Finals while coming out of a weak ass Eastern Conference while going 2 and 2 in those 4 NBA Finals while playing with TWO other Top 75 Players in Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. If LeBron was so fu%king great, why didn’t he win 3 out of 4 NBA Finals if not all 4 NBA Finals while he was in Miami?🤔 Let me guess. LeBron didn’t have enough ‘help’?🙄🤡🤡

  16. alex caruso did austin reaves dirty last night ..😂😂😂but hes better then bron right 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

  24. 3:04 I think you’re wrong Jason we weren’t out athletic… we were out hustled… at every position on defense the thunder try.. it wasn’t even about our offense we were getting out worked in demoralized as the game went along

  29. agreed…even at his age,Lebron would still be a net positive in breaking teams down,so we need him back and maybe one trade or a lot more energy from the roster

  30. Luka is the real ft merchant. Just look at how OKC guarded him. Arms down when he tried to put up a midrange shot and he’d brick it. Whereas Shai opponents keep their arms up to contest his shot

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