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Mike Ehrmann / Associated press
If we’re being honest, the Portland Trail Blazers’ 100-93 win in Game 1 against the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night is what you want, the rare singular result that acts in the service of more than one round, both minor. . and major.
It’s about the Blazers taking late-game shots and how their record doesn’t reflect their threat level. Damian Lillard arms them with a legendary weapon from Crunch-Time, a superstar who is in range pretty much as soon as the ball is surrounded. They can win this series.
These are the Lakers, imperfect and vulnerable. Having two megastars in Anthony Davis and LeBron James doesn’t guarantee them anything. They have to worry about their guard rotation, their three-point shot, Davis’ penchant for taking long two junkies, and his own lack of reach beyond the arc. They could lose this series.
It’s about how the Blazers and Lakers ended a game, a single, lonely game on a line of maybe seven. It has little to do with what happens next, a prelude which counts for something and which means nothing. The Lakers haven’t played for nearly a week, after a hiatus of more than four months. The Blazers will witness Lillard’s disappearance at 35 feet or more.
This is Game 1 being middle ground, a reason for Los Angeles to reflect and Portland to rejoice, but not proof of anything deep or irreversible for either.
The Lakers aren’t gritty 5 of 32 from distance. They are not 20 of 31 from the foul line (64.5%) bad. Danny Green (2 of 8 of 3) will shoot better. Alex Caruso (1 of 6 in total) will shoot better. Kyle Kuzma – still competing on defense, by the way – showed he was going to hit more than three (1 in 5). Kentavious Caldwell-Pope won’t go 0 of 9 in every game, and even if he does, head coach Frank Vogel won’t always inexplicably replace him for Caruso down the home stretch.
The Blazers having a broken CJ McCollum and can only get away with putting Carmelo Anthony and Gary Trent Jr. on LeBron so many times, and it won’t be that often. Ditto for playing Jusuf Nurkic and Hassan Whiteside simultaneously. Nurkic has extended his reach behind the Rainbow, but that frontcourt sits at the awkward end of the spectrum, even when the Lakers play Davis in tandem with another big one.
It’s about LeBron wearing so many hats in another playoff game, without finding a one size fits all. For one thing, a 23-point, 17-rebound, 16-assist triple-double (career-high in the playoffs) is objectively obscene. On the flip side, his own efficiency – 9 out of 20 overall, 1 in 5 in depth, 4 out of 7 in charity – and pass-first mindset could be part of the problem. The Lakers need him to seek his own shot earlier and more often.
Again, if he’s not going to set the table, who will? (Also: focusing only on LeBron’s score is always an oversimplification.) The Lakers couldn’t systematically bury their lines with him to feed them. No one else will do better. Plus, Los Angeles really doesn’t have anyone to spell it out.
Rajon Rondo is cleared to play after recovering from a broken right thumb but has not spoken since March 10, more than five months ago. Davis is someone who dominates the flow of the offense, not someone who creates it. Caruso is overloaded with the role of initiator. Dusting Dion servers for more than 73 seconds is not the solution.
This is Game 1 being so many things to so many different people depending on the many lenses through which it could be seen. And by checking so many notions, preconceived or not, it is an absent consensus.
All we know for sure is, no, the Blazers and Lakers don’t work in a typical first-round series. It might say more about the circumstances than how they fit together. the NBA tight in a close to the regular season, but these teams are still sequestered 24/7 following an extended layoff, each of them being key players.
It’s different from rejecting game 1 altogether. Everything that has been discussed is fair game.
Without a doubt, the Blazers don’t feel like a normal No.8 seed, if only because Nurkic, their second-best player last season, hasn’t returned from compound left leg fractures. before Disney World reboots. And without question, the Lakers have a slimmer margin for error than your regular first-place team. They weren’t particularly deep at first, and their top point guard, Avery Bradley, opted out of the bubble.
Ultimately, what little we’ve seen from this series is more about these Lakers. Their struggles are an extension of what plagues them at Disney and, to some extent, year round.
They 21st as a three-point percentage during the regular season. Their exterior filming problems are not new. They placed 18th in efficiency on half court for the year and are second to last since entering the bubble. Their brutal execution in the first game is nothing new either.
Whether the Lakers can iron out those wrinkles before they really come back to haunt them is a no-brainer. They don’t have the staff to become sweet assassins and ready-made flamethrowers, but they’re not without options.
Ditching the whole Davis-at-the-4 masquerade might be a good place to start. The Lakers offense has held up all year with him at the power front, but the double-fat combinations didn’t work out so well on the restart. Los Angeles is a combined under-48 in the 97 minutes he’s played with JaVale McGee.
This movement alone does not change everything. But it is something. And the Lakers need to do something – not something drastic, but something that’s so painful, obviously more sensible than what they’re doing now.
Staying the course and hoping for better nights outside may not be an option. It might not matter against the Blazers. There will certainly be potential confrontations with the Houston rockets, Los Angeles Clippers or Denver Nuggets later in the playoffs.
And yes, that might also matter now, to escape this series too.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics provided by NBA.com, Basketball Reference or Cleaning the Glass. Salary and cap information via Basketball Insiders, Early Bird Rights and Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and listen to his Hardwood strikes podcast, co-hosted by Adam Fromal from B / R.
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