Lakers swing between excellence, mediocrity
TLOS ANGELES HE Lakers are steaming to the NBA Finals. The Lakers are spiraling to a play-in disaster. The Lakers are inspired. The Lakers are insipid.
The Lakers are majestic. The Lakers are mediocre.
The Lakers are… who knows what they are?
With 16 games left in the regular season, they are the NBA’S most confused team, on the brink of either glory or gory, it changes every day, sometimes every hour, sometimes every minute, witness a cuckoo Sunday night that could have won an Oscar for cinematography.
For three quarters at Crypto.com Arena, against a Minnesota Timberwolves team missing its two big men and four rotational players, the Lakers strikingly stunk.
They were trailing by a point. They had committed 18 turnovers. They had allowed nearly 50 percent shooting. They were a dozen scoreboard minutes from one of the worst losses of the season.
In less than half that time, they turned it into one of their best wins.
They began the quarter on a 16-2 run. Lebron James was scoring. Anthony Davis was fighting. Everyone was passing, smartly, beautifully, the run epitomized by a three-toss sequence from Davis to James to a trey-sinking Austin Reaves that was so picturesque, all three guys posed.
Shortly after the once-sweating stars were dismissed early, the Lakers closed out a 120-109 victory that moved them six games above .500 for the first time in nearly three years and coach Darvin Ham couldn’t help himself.
“Regardless of who we’re playing, being the best version of ourselves, that’s all we’ve been talking about … how great can we be?” Ham said. “When we’re going out and performing like we know we are capable of, we like our chances, to say the least.”
He was talking about the Good Lakers.
But now listen to Davis, who took advantage of the huge hole in Minnesota’s middle by racking up the NBA’S first 27-point, 25-rebound, seven-steal night since the league began keeping track of steals 40 years ago.
He chose to bring up the Bad Lakers.
“We know that we can line up against anybody and beat them if we play the right way,” he said. “If we don’t, then we can line up against anybody and lose.”
Such was the theme of the last eight days at Crypto, the most compelling stretch of the season, during which the Lakers went 3-2 in vastly different games against similarly gifted playoff teams.
Right way, win. Wrong way, lose. No way to predict which way will be next.
Check back Wednesday when they travel to Sacramento. Check back again Saturday here against Golden State. Keep checking back over the next couple of weeks to see if this sticks.
Cross your fingers that James can suffer through his bad ankle, and that Davis continues to recover from a sore shoulder injured against Milwaukee, and that D’angelo Russell keeps shooting and Austin Reaves keeps wowing and… well, cross everything and hope against hope and know that nobody will know anything until this ride finally ends.
“I just think we’re trending in the right direction, it’s a huge upswing in the way we’re playing, we’re playing for one another, bringing the effort, playing hard,” Ham said.
However…
“We’ve just got to keep trending in this direction,” he acknowledged. “Just take things one day at a time, one game at a time.”
It only figures that this colorful Lakers season is best described in a cliché. This team truly can only be judged one day at a time, one game at a time.
Good Lakers. Bad Lakers. Damn Lakers.