It’s hard to win when you get down by twenty points and it’s even harder to get rebounds when your center is standing five feet beyond the three-point line. After Anthony Davis hit the game winning shot in game 2 I told everyone that I was not going to complain about AD standing out by the three and I still am not going to. AD is a center who wants to be a shooting guard and the majority of the time this season, even I have to admit, it has worked. The Lakers have won and are now playing in the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets, primarily because the Lakers have the greatest athlete of all time on their team in LeBron James. However, the Lakers got exploited last night by the Nuggets, they were outrebounded by Denver 25 to 44. The Lakers big men Dwight Howard and Anthony Davis look like Tarzan but they played like Jane in paint and on the glass. They had three rebounds between the two of them. Laker Nation is beginning to see glimpses of why the New Orleans Pelicans didn’t do anything when Anthony Davis was there, AD is not a banger, he cannot get big in the paint, in fact every time he tries to post up he gets pushed to the three point line.
Big men who do not play big are not going to win Championships.
LeBron James had another triple double and it seems he had a bad game. That was LBJ’s 26th playoff triple double. He is now only four behind Magic Johnson. LeBron sat down to take his normal break at the end of the third quarter and Laker Nation saw the truth and that is that the Lakers are complete garbage when LeBron James is not in the game. You take LBJ off this team and the Lakers do not even make the playoffs. The Nuggets quickly built a twenty point lead by the start of the fourth quarter and the Lakers ran out of gas trying to tie the game and cut into the Nuggets big lead. It’s hard to come back and win in the fourth quarter once you get down by twenty and the Lakers almost did.
Rajon Rondo was the only player for the Lakers who played Championship winning defense last night for the Lakers. If it were not for Rondo and his swarming double team help defense the Lakers would have gotten blown out. LeBron ran out of gas having to play hard defense in the paint. LeBron is having to be the Lakers true center because AD and Nikola Jokic are hanging out be the three point line. With LeBron having to play so hard on both ends of the floor it’s no wonder he ran out of gas. Any normal human would have been throwing up into a Gatorade cooler, having to transition sprint up and down the court like LBJ was having to do to cut into that lead.
When LeBron runs out of gas, the Lakers run out of gas.
Why? Because the Lakers suck without LeBron and he was so tired in the fourth he could not drive into the paint anymore, I thought he was going to throw up out there on the court. When the Lakers needed Anthony Davis to get big and become a traditional big man and get a bucket in the paint, he could not do it.
AD has no post game.