Lakers Dismantled by Bulls

Welcome in to the full recap of the Lakers' matchup vs. the Chicago Bulls where the Lakers add another game into the loss column this season in a 114-91 rout courtesy of the Bulls in Pau Gasol's return to LA.

As DJ Khaled would say: "another one." Young mistakes by this young Lakers squad doomed them at the start with a lethargic effort on both sides of the ball against the Bulls. With the up and down season, the Bulls have had, they wanted this game more. The Lakers played a nonchalant game all night long until they saw an old and broken down Kobe Bryant run full court defense on Jimmy Butler and received a little pep talk from Byron Scott on their heart and toughness. No surprises here, the losses continue to keep coming.

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Julius Randle, 14 points, 8 rebounds, 4-8 shooting. Evaluating Randle's game, he is clearly good on the fastbreak and when he's attacking the rim, but the one thing he needs to work on is his mid range jump shot. Aside from that, Randle almost chipped in another double-double if he got two more rebounds, but I liked his activity on defensive boards as all 8 of his rebounds came from the defensive end. Even though he attempted one mid range jump shot, he reverted back to where he's comfortable with, especially in the third quarter where he's attacking in open space or in the paint using his power and speed. Randle deserves "Top Performer" honors in this one.

Nick Young, 14 points, 5-10 shooting. Swaggy P has returned! Well not quite, but someone needed to take the place of Lou Williams this game and provide the scoring. The Lakers started to build up some momentum in their offense when Young came in as he hit his first three shots. He had a decent game. It's nothing special, but he did his job out there providing some much needed scoring off the bench.

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D'Angelo Russell, 3 points, 1-7 shooting. Even though Russell had a bad shooting night against the Mavs Tuesday night, he still managed to put up a decent stat line with 12 points off the bench. This game though, Russell checked out, physically and mentally. This is just another set of growing pains in having a young rookie. I keep track of Russell's stat line and he has recorded double-figure point totals for the majority of this month and once he has a string of solid performances, he's going to cool down at some point. Tonight was a primary example as he took some bad shots and of course, committing two inexplicable turnovers in the 1st quarter leading to 4 easy points for Jimmy Butler.

Points in the paint. I can't wait till the Lakers get a true rim protector since Hibbert checked out in his tenure with the Lakers. Most of the Bulls' shots in the paint came from Pau Gasol doing his thing in the post and giving players some opportunities with his brilliant passing and some offensive rebounding.  Butler and Rose attacked the rim at will this game also, which inflates the points in the paint stat line. The Lakers' interior defense just had no chance and the Bulls took full advantage of the team's weakness in the paint whether it was allowing Jimmy Butler or Derrick Rose to the rim or the Bulls feeding the ball inside to Gasol.

Conclusion

Overall, there's not much to conclude about this game. The Bulls thoroughly dominated this game with their offense and defense. The loss just piles up towards the Lakers' efforts in their tank job to get a top three pick. It was nice to see Kobe and Pau give one last embrace to each other before tip off. No matter what happens, Gasol earned his place in Laker history, contributing to three straight finals appearances and back-to-back titles. Those glory days will return, but it takes time and the Lakers just need to rebuild the team the right way by letting their young draft picks develop and build chemistry together. It's definitely a good test of endurance and fortitude. Next week, I will not cover the Lakers' game next Thursday against the Pelicans on TNT. I'll be focused squarely on setting up my coverage for Super Bowl 50. Just letting you guys know ahead of time. I'll see you guys later.