Alright, welcome in to the full recap of tonight's game between the Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs as both teams wrap up playing each other back-to-back and the Lakers put up a better effort against the Spurs at Staples, but it was still the same result as the Spurs beat the Lakers 125-109.
First 3 quarters, I was satisfied with the Lakers' efforts of putting up a better fight against this Spurs team and making this a game and then the 4th quarter, things just went out of control for the Lakers and the more experienced Spurs managed to take advantage of the mistakes of the Lakers' young guns and continued to show why despite their old nucleus in Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili, they still manage to rack up wins.
The Positives
Pau Gasol, 22 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists, 8-18 shooting. I cited Gasol as a negative (I had time to think about it because I was pleased with the Lakers' efforts), but I predicted he was going to get it going by the 2nd half and he did. He didn't have a solid shooting night, but Gasol always puts up efficient numbers to retain his title as the constant for this Laker team.
Xavier Henry (1st half), 19 points, 8-14 shooting. Refer to my halftime post on Xavier's first half performance. I thought he was getting more healthy as he's getting integrated back from the game. I thought his jumper was getting more polished and I gave credit to D'Antoni for keeping him in the game because he was the Lakers' offense in the first half and was doing everything right, till the 2nd half came along.
Robert Sacre, 7 points, 11 rebounds. Again refer to my halftime post. Sacre didn't finish good, but I thought he had a decent game tonight playing alone in the interior as the Lakers went small and playing alongside Gasol. Sacre played decent minutes
Kent Bazemore, 13 points, 5-11 shooting, 6 steals. Once again, I love Bazemore's attitude of playing hard until the final buzzer. He didn't have any time to show his skills in his stint with the Warriors, but Bazemore's activity was amazing this game. 6 steals, including pick pocketing Tony Parker for a breakaway dunk. Bazemore is definitely a guy in consideration to keep on this Laker team, he may be a bench cheerleader, but when you put him on the floor, he plays hard and brings the energy.
The Negatives
Xavier Henry (2nd half), 5 points, 1-8 shooting. What the hell happen X? I'm just assuming Henry started gassing out in the 2nd half because he got his explosiveness back to drive to the rim and I guess that same explosiveness drained him out. Another guess is that he built a lot of confidence that he was trying to hard to do too much and not rely on his teammates. There was one play in the game where he tried to knock down a floater in front of 4 defenders and personally I think a foul should've been called. It was a tale of two halves for Henry where in the 1st half he played amazing, then in the 2nd half, he started coming back down to earth.
Jodie Meeks 11 points, 4-10 shooting. He still has not recovered from his 42 point performance. That's the one knock that Meeks has is not following up, not being consistent. It's three straight games already since he hasn't dropped a 20+ point performance.
Transition Defense. What else can I say? The Spurs' ball movement killed the Lakers' transition defense at the end of the game. Guys like Marco Belinelli, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, and Ginobili were being wide open as a book to hit momentum-killing 3s. Lucky enough, the Spurs didn't hit as much 3s as last game (they still scored a lot of point this game though), but the transition defense has been a huge issue for the Lakers for a long time.
Conclusion
Well playing the two best teams back-to-back is over. The Lakers were lucky enough to snatch at least one week in that hectic sequence of the schedule. Nothing else to say, I'll see you guys for the game against the Knicks on Tuesday. Hopefully a Phil Jackson sighting is in effect. If he makes an appearance, you can bet us Laker fans will be chanting "We want Phil" from the top of our lungs. I'll see you guys later.
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