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Day one of the NBA playoffs was chalked up. The second? Yeah, not so much. The No.1 seed Milwaukee Bucks started the day with a loss to the Orlando Magic, and the No.1 seed Los Angeles Lakers ended the day with a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, No. 8 seed. This is the first time since 2003 that the two No. 1 seeds have lost their openers, and in the case of the Lakers, it comes down to a lack of depth. LeBron James scored 23 points, posted 17 rebounds and distributed 15 assists while Anthony Davis had 28 points, but the Lakers players shot 4 of 22 for 3 points. They just can’t score enough to win when this happens.
The Portland actors weren’t great either, but Damian Lillard’s 34 points were enough to lead them to victory. Now the Blazers will just have to win three of six games to stun the No.1 seed in the Western Conference. The Lakers will have to return to the drawing board if they are to avoid such humiliation. What happened tonight was completely and utterly unacceptable.
1. It’s time to fix the rotation
The Lakers were outscored by nine points within 13 minutes of JaVale McGee on the ground. They lost the game by seven points. It is not a coincidence. The Lakers were outclassed during McGee’s minutes in his seven bubble appearances. In Orlando, they have now been outscored by 66 points in his 121 minutes on the ground. They beat their opponents by 26 points in the minutes they played without him.
It is not rocket science. The Lakers start each game with several points as they start off the wrong line. They exacerbate the problem by sending this same training early in the third trimester. The version of the starting lineup that included Avery Bradley outscored opponents by 12.6 points per 100 possessions during the regular season. The version with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was outscored by 1.2 points per 100 possessions. The McGee-Caldwell-Pope-James-Davis-Danny Green quartet is not working.
At a minimum, McGee should be completely excised from the rotation. Whether that means playing more Markieff Morris at center or hoping Dwight Howard can stay out of trouble is another question, but there is simply no evidence to suggest JaVale could help win the playoffs. There’s a reason he was a bench driver for the Warriors. The Caldwell-Pope situation is more complicated. They need to play him, and his numbers, overall, have been better as a starter. But tinkering with the combinations is essential. Alex Caruso deserves a look as the fifth starter. Kyle Kuzma’s place in the top five should be obvious.
It’s not March anymore. These games matter. Frank Vogel cannot afford to waste them by playing the wrong players. The Lakers are better than the Blazers. It should be obvious. They just have to use the right queues to prove it.
2. LeBron was awesome … but in a bad way
It’s hard to argue with 23 points, 17 rebounds and 15 assists. These numbers don’t even tell the whole story. LeBron was also excellent in defense. Almost every decision he made, in a vacuum, was the right one.
But the Lakers have scored 93 points against a defense that has allowed an average of 123 points in its last six outings. Yes, shooting was the main reason, and the Lakers will likely hit more than five of their 32 long balls in Game 2. But RPGs have bad shooting nights. It happens. When this is the case, the superstars are supposed to shoulder the burden of the scores themselves.
Despite all the great things LeBron did in Game 1, he didn’t do what we’ve seen him do time and time again in the playoffs: score. Despite incredible clashes between Carmelo Anthony and Gary Trent Jr., James was determined to play total team basketball. What the Lakers need is something closer to the LeBron of 2018.
In Game 1 of this playoff series against the Indiana Pacers, James scored 24 points en route to a triple-double … but the Cavaliers lost. He came out and scored 46 points in Game 2, a win, and finished averaging 34.6 points per game during the remainder of the Eastern Conference playoffs. If no other Laker wants to create shots, LeBron is going to have to do something like this for the Lakers to win the title. It’s a cliché, but he has to be more like Michael Jordan and less like Magic Johnson. His list demands it.
3. The Blazers managed to play two crosses
It could have happened by accident. Wenyen Gabriel started power forward for the Blazers but had early foul issues. So the Blazers did something few teams in 2020 would ever consider: They played their two crosses together. It was a look they experimented with a bit before the playoffs, but without much success. It was for a good reason. Neither Hassan Whiteside nor Jusuf Nurkic are particularly strong shooters, nor can they defend the perimeter very well.
But they survived those minutes in Game 1 by crushing the boards and protecting the rim. The Lakers missed the open shots the Blazers created with their two big rosters, and while that may not be sustainable, Portland may not have much choice but to return to those groups until ‘Zach Collins was healthy enough to come back. It’s a thin team. Their range options are limited. The entire business crumbles if the Lakers start taking shots, but until they do? The Blazers might have found a way to move minutes away from the worst players off their bench to the best.
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