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The Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday night, and when we dig into the numbers of this game, it's pretty easy to see a pattern.
The Lakers Reservists combined to score just 7 points in a 48-minute basketball game in which the team lost to the five-point Grizzlies. In this game, each Lakers runner had a positive net score and each runner, with the exception of JaVale McGee, played 34 minutes or more.
All Lakers bench players other than Lance Stephenson – who played just three minutes and change – had a negative net score.
And although the net scores for a match are far from being a perfect measure of success, the statistics here are so outlandish that, without even taking into account the visual check test – which also did not favor the bench Lakers – it's not hard to see where the game has become out of control.
Lakers head coach Luke Walton did not charge the bench for being defeated, but told Spectrum Sportsnet journalists he needed to be better, while providing additional context to explain how little they played:
"We need more, but I started limiting the minutes of some of the bench members. They do not get the same number of chances. "
Nevertheless, Walton reiterated that no matter how many minutes he would need more production from the reserves regardless of the minute they would get:
"We need more from this group that has been good for us."
Walton is right to say that the Lakers need more of their reserve unit, it just seems unlikely that they can get it at this point, or at least they continue to try to reduce production in the same way.
In the three games since the NBA star break, the top five Lakers net ranked players have been their starters, while the Lakers have been outclassed within minutes of every bench player during that match, according to the NBA. com.
Reducing the number of minutes on the reserves would therefore make sense in some respects, but it is not feasible either that LeBron James, 34, plays 39.5 minutes per game while he is the victim of the first serious injury. of his professional career (which exactly is happening right now).
Nothing will completely drop the game on the bench playing like a soggy trash in recent games, but one possible solution might be to shift even more James, Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram. All three have played well since the break, and separating them a little so that the bench played with a little more creators could help the production of reserves and the results of the Lakers.
Unfortunately for the Lakers, although such an event has taken place a little since the break of the star game, it did not happen much earlier. Walton played his starting unit together for 45 minutes since the break, while no other training has played more than seven minutes in total. Of the two formations for playing up to seven minutes, one included Ingram, James and Kuzma.
Again, Walton is right to try to drive his starters. It's just that with the defeat of the Lakers right now, it's becoming clear that it's time to change the way it does it. A coach will always (rightly) want to play his best formations as often as possible, but it can be argued that the Lakers would be well served by experimenting with some extra combinations, not to mention their top three once so that they could avoid the moments when none of the three is down.
We'll see how Walton tackles this challenge again when the Lakers host the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed. iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. All statistics by NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.
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