The Lakers are shipwrecked with a frustrating game | sports

The glow that the Lakers gave off during the start of the 2021-2022 season has dissipated in just a month and a half of competition. The problems follow one another and the atmosphere becomes more and more rare in the Los Angeles team, which started again among the top favorites this season. 80% of the sports directors of the 30 franchises voted him as a candidate to win the Western Conference ahead of Utah and Phoenix, although yes, only 17% gave him the winner in the final they predicted and in which 72% bet on Brooklyn Nets.

Frank Vogel, the coach with whom the Lakers won the title in 2020, begins to see his work discussed. Problems of all kinds have accumulated in the Californian team, which after falling 137-141 to Sacramento on Friday in a game that required three overtime periods, has more defeats, 11, than victories, 10, and is in seventh place in the Western Conference.

LeBron James, the star of the team, who turns 37 next month, has suffered injury problems that have prevented him from playing half of the games. In addition, he was suspended with a meeting for giving Isaiah Stewart a tremendous elbow during the game against the Detroit Pistons on November 21, in an action that caused an embarrassing incident. This Sunday the same teams faced each other again. It was LeBron’s second expulsion since he came to the NBA in the 2003-2004 season. The Lakers leader, in addition, has been fined $ 15,000 (13,200 euros) for making an obscene gesture in the game that his team beat Indiana on November 24, 116-124. The NBA considered unacceptable the gesture that the player made, putting his hand to his genitals and also “the inappropriate language” that he used in the subsequent statements of a game in which two spectators were expelled for seriously insulting him.

The many changes the Lakers made to their roster after finishing eighth in the West and being eliminated by Phoenix in the first round of the playoff last season, have had no improving effect. Only three players remain from last season’s squad, LeBron, Anthony Davis and Horton-Tucker. They bet on the incorporation of many veterans such as Carmelo Anthony (37 years old), Russell Westbrook (33) and DeAndre Jordan (33) and others who had already been in the team in previous years such as Dwight Howard (35), Rajon Rondo (35) , Kent Bazemore (32), Avery Bradley (31), Wayne Ellington (turns 34 this Monday) and Trevor Ariza (36). The beginning already made us fear the worst. They lost the first two games of the championship at home, something that had never happened before, and Oklahoma City came back from a game they were leading by 26 points. The adaptation of a player as important as Westbrook is creating a lot of problems.

The Lakers’ defensive problems are the most striking. They receive an average of 114.5 points. Only one team, Memphis, with 116.4 points, is worse in that section. In the season that they won the title, the Lakers were the fourth best team in defense of the championship with an average 107.6 points received.

Frank Vogel believes that injuries prevent gauging the real possibilities of his team. “We have not yet been able to count on the entire team,” he lamented. “We knew the start of the season was going to be bumpy. We are adapting a new mentality for the team ”.

The game against the Kings couldn’t have been more disappointing for him. “When you are 13 points ahead in the fourth quarter, you have to win. We had the opportunity to knock them out but we allowed them to keep their options, ”he said after the loss to a theoretically inferior opponent, second to last in the Western Conference and that a week ago he fired Luke Walton to put Alvin Gentry in the coaching position. The Kings also could not have two starters, Harrison Barnes and Richard Holmes, injured, while Maurice Harkless could only play eight minutes due to knee discomfort.

“We are very frustrated”, sentenced Anthony Davis “It is a game that we should have won. We had control in the fourth quarter and we let it slip away. We have to be better at home ”. The Lakers figures are not spared from the shipwreck. Anthony Davis himself missed the five triples he tried and finished with 23 points, but had to take 22 shots from the field. LeBron James’ hitting percentages were also bad. He added 11 assists and scored 33 points, but only hit two 3-pointers on 13 pitches and made 10 of the 25 field goals he accumulated. Westbrook improves his contribution and against the Kings he added a triple-double, with 29 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. But the defensive blunders and the constant errors translated into 19 turnovers returned to reproduce images that say it all, those of Davis, LeBron and Westbrook looking at each other often and shrugging their shoulders in frustration at their team’s play.

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