Alright welcome in to the full recap of the Lakers road game vs. the New York Knicks where the Lakers wrap up their 7 game Grammy road trip falling short against Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks 103-110.
Like I said before, it's been an ongoing trend for this Lakers team on the road. They hang in there, keep games competitive, down to the wire, but at the end of the day, they fall short. It's been evident in their games against Chicago, Miami, and now against New York.
Let's go with the positives: yes Pau Gasol and Jodie Meeks have made critical turnovers down the stretch to give the game away, but it doesn't take away their all around performance this game. Gasol notched yet another double-double with 20 points and 13 rebounds. In the midst of the Lakers getting defeated almost every game, Gasol has been putting up numbers consistently for this team. This game, he was finding his shot in the paint, settling for less outside jumpers. He could've had more points, but credit where it's due, Tyson Chandler pretty much contained him in the paint and that's part of the reason why the Knicks won this game. For Jodie Meeks, he was the Lakers' bright spot at the 3 point shooting. He got hot in the 3rd quarter helping the Lakers around and he finished with 24 points on 8-13 shooting, his best shooting display on the road. Although he did make a couple boneheaded plays this game, he was a straight up ball hawk getting after it. Another positive: Manny Harris. Harris performed his best game as a Laker this season scoring 18 points on 6-9 shooting from the field. I said Mitch and the Laker organization have to give this guy another shot, and they spare him for another 10 days. Just seeing him on TV for the first time, he can find his shot and he can create shots for his teammates because the guy can penetrate and he showed me that this game and obviously he was going up against his former Michigan Wolverines teammate in Tim Hardaway Jr. Other than that, Harris, solid contribution off the bench, he's going to have to continue to play his tail off to earn a long-term contract and stay with the team for the rest of the season.
Onto the negatives, just terrible defensive rotation and critical turnovers down the stretch. Bad angles whenever Hardaway Jr. and J.R. Smith were penetrating on the paint. Like I said, we can live with Melo going off, but unless the other Knick players are bailing him out, we have to contain them. Raymond Felton, Smith, Hardaway Jr., and Iman Shumpert helped Melo out and stepped up to make the shots when it counted the most off our missed defensive assignments. Another negative, Nick Young, when is the slump going to end? I don't know. Young had only 13 points on 5-11 shooting, he didn't do much this game and he's gotta get back to putting up double digit numbers while shooting at an efficient percentage. Kendall Marshall, another negative, after constantly putting up double digit assists numbers, he didn't do much as well scoring just 12 points and dishing out 5 assists, he just wasn't himself this game, and he'll find a way to bounce back.
Overall, the good news is that this road trip is finally out of the way, the bad news, the Lakers with this loss are now second-to-last in the Western Conference. Down the stretch, highly unlikely the Lakers have a chance, so it's just all about playing for pride at this point on and try to get the highest draft pick possible. Not a big fan of tanking, but it's one of the viable options the Lakers have to take. So pretty much, a risk-reward type of thing. Well this wraps up today's game coverage. I will be back to give you guys my Super Bowl XLVIII preview between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos.
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