r/lakers • u/Gristle__McThornbody 80 • 2d ago
Flush it
Off night for the big man. Perhaps he's still dealing with conditioning issues, perhaps he stayed up a little too late the night prior, maybe he had jitters making his return to the team that drafted him, maybe the Jazz game planned to neutralize Kessler. I don't know, I wasn't there. But let it go and prepare for another big matchup against Clingan in Portland.
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u/mamba5469 2d ago
I wasn’t as disappointed in his offense. It’s his defense and rebounding I had an issue with. He’s gotta play aggressive on that end every night if this team has any chances at defending.
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u/Gristle__McThornbody 2d ago
I think the foul trouble played a role in how aggressive he played. Those refs were on something for this game.
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u/Staph_Untreated 2d ago
Or perhaps Jazz packed the paint to prevent high percentage shot and conceded the three point attempts
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u/brandon-thesis 2d ago
The Jazz is a tall ass team too. Watching today made it glaringly obvious how much we need a back up center because Looney was getting ran over.
Shit, watching it made me wish we still had Jaxson on our side. 🤣
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u/bryanBFLYin 2d ago
It's actually crazy how people don't notice the simplest shit in basketball. They literally had JJJ, Hayes, and Laurie all over Kessler. All game he was held/grabbed/ and pushed out by at least 2 players lol.
Mfer's barely watch highlights let alone full games and look at stats and think they actually understand what happened.
I knew by the 3rd quarter I'd see some dumb shit about Kessler here after the game lol smfh
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u/Aarondabs 2d ago
They definitely clogged the paint to prevent him from getting going. He’ll bounce right back, not worried about it
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u/cacastrojr12 2d ago
The Jazz denied any type of lob attempt or entry. It isn’t because he couldn’t, they just didn’t let him get to his spots.
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u/Open_Smile1330 2d ago
He had a good game in my eyes. Luka scored 50. AR scored a good bit on an efficient night shooting. We got a good chunk of points from free throws. There was just no room for Kessler’s 25+ and that’s OK. They absorbed Kessler’s 25+. What was irreplaceable were his screens, being a constant threat, his presence, and his role on defense. He had a great night from the game that I watched.
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u/_U_SuRE_AboUt_ThAt 2d ago
Luka and AR were in single coverage all game because the jazz were so concerned about the lob threat and dump offs.
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u/Life-Equivalent 2d ago
Luka had 11 turnovers last game but I am sure some people will be mentioning this game as to why the Lakers overpaid. I don’t care if he plays like this the rest the year if the wins keep stacking. No one really went after Draymond when the Warriors were winning.
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u/raggityazz 2d ago
Like others have said, they most definitely clogged the paint, leaving our big man with fewer touches. If teams want to copy that strategy, then all we have to do is hit our threes. They're going to have to defend our shooters, especially if we hot, which will open up the paint.
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u/goatnxtinline 2d ago
You know we doing alright when no one's freaking out that walk played that bad
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u/foozbinjex 2d ago
He's an elite rim running defensive big man, he's not going to have huge scoring game every time. This team needs to help him with rebounding though if they expect him to challenge everything at the rim (AD flashbacks with overloading his defensive duties).
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u/throwmeinthetrassssh 2d ago
There was really nothing he could do against that. His skillset is rim running, offensive rebounding, and rim defending. The Jazz made a conscious decision to take him out of the game by collapsing and packing the paint. Itt kind of paid off on the individual level but obviously not overall with us being 20-47 from 3
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u/shiroe-kun 2d ago
jazz gameplan was clearly to limit his touches.