
But if Swider is just going to continue to shoot lights out, he’s going to see some minutes.įor more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. And it came largely during a third quarter and second half when the Lakers could not get a defensive stop if their life depended on it. Sure, it came largely against bench players. On Monday, he shot 3-of-7 overall and 2-of-4 from the 3-point line while also being fouled on another 3-point attempt. First it was in draft workouts, then it was in Summer League and now it’s in the preseason. Cole Swider really might shoot his way into rotation minutesĪll Cole Swider keeps doing is making threes each time he’s asked. Role players like Patrick Beverley, Thomas Bryant, Juan Toscano-Anderson and Wenyen Gabriel all are going to give it 100% each night and hopefully that rubs off on their Big Three to up the level of effort overall each game. The Lakers got younger for a number of reasons this offseason and one of the benefits is having a roster that will play hard night in and night out. Effort was a major issue for the Lakers last year with their old veteran roster. FanDuel Daily Fantasy Basketball Helper: Thursday 4/28/22 April 28th, 2022. Maybe the biggest difference between last year’s team and Monday’s game is how hard this Lakers team played. Covering the Spread: Donovan Mitchell Trade Fallout and MLB Betting for Friday 9/2/22 September 2nd, 2022. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, this is a nice blueprint of how things could and should look moving forward. And look at how many shots came right at the rim.Īll that came despite LeBron shooting 0-for-7 from the field and being responsible for four of those missed shots, including the two mid-range shots on the right side of the court. Only three shots came from the mid-range and the three points came from the wings and corners.

Here’s a look at the first quarter shot chart, courtesy of NBA.com. There was spacing that led to shots coming either in the paint or around the arc. As he points out, the numbers have pretty much dropped off a cliff since 2019.

It’s wild we’re in Year 2 that this is a takeaway, but Year 1 was so bad that it’s noteworthy the trio of LeBron, AD and Russ looked like a grouping that could play together. Taylor then further broke down the drop off in Donovan Mitchell’s passes to Gobert year by year. In lieu of a detailed recap of a preseason game, here’s a look at three notable takeaways from the contest. Without AD, LeBron, Russ or Nunn, the Lakers struggled mightily in the second half as the Kings outscored the purple and gold by over 30 points in the second half. The hosts trailed briefly to open the first quarter before carrying a lead the remainder of the opening two periods and into the locker room at halftime. That trio, Kendrick Nunn and Damian Jones shot the Lakers out to a fast 12-3 lead to open the game. The Big Three of LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook each played under 16 minutes with all of those coming in the first half. After a strong start in the first half saw the Lakers lead heading into the locker room, a third quarter Kings run paved the way for their 88-69 victory. as he ended the night with 1 point on 0 of 7 shooting in 17 minutes.The Darvin Ham era unofficially kicked off on Monday night as he took the sideline for his first preseason game.

Garland contributed 12 points and 4 assists on 4 of 7 shooting with 4 helpers. Mitchell led the Cavs in scoring with 16 points on 6 of 9 shooting with 5 assists in just under 19 minutes. Neither are flashy or memorable plays, but they are things the Cavs weren’t able to easily do last season given the lack of ballhandlers and dynamic scorers on the roster. That flows into Mitchell coming off P&R, opens up a 3 for Wade. He has nothing, pick the picker on the weakside with Mitchell coming off. Garland comes off a stagger and gets a dribble handoff.
