Welcome in to the full recap of the Lakers' matchup with the Golden State Warriors where the Lakers pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NBA history, defeating the Warriors 95-112.
This season has been a stinker, but forget it, I'm going to run a victory lap. Enjoy this 15 minutes of fame with me my fellow Lakers brethren. The Lakers were the worst team in the West coming into this game and the Warriors were the best team in the West and in the NBA overall. What team was I watching on TV? This is the same Lakers team minus a few players back that got annihilated at home against the Hawks Friday night and we were bracing for another one with the Warriors coming to town. But, the Lakers, they took it to the champs! Great, team effort offensively and defensively. To be honest, it was quite shocking that to see as an NBA fan that the Warriors were just ice cold from beyond the arc and committing a lot of turnovers. But, I would like to give a round of applause, the Lakers came out swinging and it awesome to see.
(+)
Jordan Clarkson, 25 points, 10-21 shooting. If Clarkson missed this game, I don't know if the Lakers would've displayed this kind of effort against the Warriors. There's not much you can say with Clarkson considering he's been the Lakers' constant since his rookie year. But, coming back from injury, he played one heck of a game, both offensively and defensively. It was mind boggling to see that he was keeping Curry in check all game long. Overall, solid performance from Clarkson.
D'Angelo Russell, 21 points, 6-14 shooting. How do you go from 7 points on 3-19 shooting to 21 points on 6-14 shooting against the best team in the NBA? Russell didn't explode like he did against the Nets, but his first three 3 pointers, those were huge and were pretty much one of the tone setters. I think when he hit those back-to-back three's in the 2nd quarter, it set the tone that these Lakers will not go down quietly and what happened? The Lakers' offense started clicking.
Marcelo Huertas, 10 points, 9 assists. Here's another tone setter to set up this big of an upset. If anything was going to sum up Huertas' rookie year, it was awful, but there's no denying he's a proven basketball player overseas. As I said in the halftime post, his presence on the floor this game made the jobs of other Laker players easy. It was because of Huertas' court vision, Larry Nance, Jr. benefited, Brandon Bass benefited, they were getting easy shots. When he looked to score, there were one or two plays he schooled Curry with that savvy Euro play for a shot. Huertas had a nice all-around game.
Nick Young, 13 points, 3-8 shooting. Swaggy P, when he's hot like he was in the 3rd-4th quarter, the Lakers have a chance of winning. The Lakers needed Swaggy P to get going because even though they had the lead, the Warriors were still hanging around. Nick Young, huge 3 point baskets to extend the lead and they were timely to help the Lakers seal the deal over the champs.
(-)
2nd half turnovers. A minor negative. The Lakers started to play out of control a little like they usually do throughout the season, but they managed to keep their heads in the game and regain control by playing their game instead of trying to get on the Warriors' level. Again, minor negative.
Conclusion
This is still surreal that the Lakers pulled off probably the upset of the season, beating the Warriors like that. If this was a few years back, this wouldn't have been a surprise beating the Warriors by this margin. With the state of atrocity that team is in and beating the NBA's poster team, that has gotta be embarrassing. And what's funny is that the Warriors had a chance to sweep the Lakers for only the 2nd time in all of their years since their inception. Well, no sweep for them and the Lakers still have leverage for all-time wins against the Warriors. But no doubt, the Warriors are still the best team in the NBA, they still have a chance to break the 95-96 Bulls' 72-win record, I have all the respect in the world for them. But, this is a shining moment in what is a season campaign to forget about. Hopefully, the future of the Lakers build off of this win into next season and bring back the winning pride that we're so accustomed to seeing before the late, great Dr. Jerry Buss passed away back in 2013 and they haven't been the same since. But, we'll pull through and we'll be back sooner or later. Until then, we'll take this win. No if's, and's, or but's, a win is a win. I'll see you guys later.
No comments:
Post a Comment