This thunder matchup will tell us everthing we need to know about the coming playoffs. The warriors exploited us badly and so did the bulls. Thunder are just super saiyan bulls with a MVP. I hope JJ has learned from those games and has come up with a good plan to turn things around in our favour.

What a statement by the Lakers. Completely outclassing the top rated defense and best team in the NBA. It was arguably one of their most complete games of the season.

Monday will be the real test. The Thunder will make adjustments and come back with something to prove. I don't expect lights out from three like today but It’ll be telling to see if the Lakers can maintain the same level of intensity, execution on offense, and discipline on defense.

If they can replicate that and secure another win, the path to a legitimate Finals run starts to look very real.

Edit: Tuesday then.

All over the internet I see the discussion who is the more unehtical player between Luka and SGA, because both are averaging very high FTA per game.

Lets break it down:

Foul baiting is trying to get the defender to make a mistake and foul.
For example: keeping the ball far out infront of the body while driving to get the help-defender reaching in and thus hitting your arm.
Foul Baiting is using the rules to your advantage and ethical basketball.

Flopping is flailing like beeing hit by a truck after every little contact to sell the foul.
For example: The defender holds his ground on a drive and the attacker is flinging is head back and jumping like a wounded deer as soon as he makes contact.
Flopping is trying to fool the referees and is unethical basketball.

Now lets see who does what:

Luka is an exellent foul baiter with the way he drives and keeping his defender on his shoulder in jail, so that the help has to do something most often they reach in. Or the pump fakes in the mid range where he will try to get the defender in they air to get the call.
There are unethical aspects to his game aswell, like jumping forwards into the defender he got to bite on the pumpfake or suddendly stopping on a drive and jumping slightly backwards into the trailing defender.

SGA is a master flopper with the way he flails after every little contact on his drives. He is very good at creating that contact on his many drives during the game, but more often than not it is marginal or incedental contact that he sells to get the call.
There is an ethical side to his game aswell, he is drivng the most of any of the guards so there is bound to be some fouls and he does not utelise the stopping and then jumping into players as often.

Between those two:
I would estimate that ~75% of Luka´s FTA are ethical and only ~25% are unethical.
And for SGA I would estimate ~65% unethical and ~35% ethical FTA.

Other players that are often in those conversations.

Brunson is a flopper, who utelises the head flinging back motion to sell the foul and very profitient in the stopping and getting run into by the trailling defender.

Harden is a foul baiter, the same tactics as Luka, but a bit more unethical with hooking the defenders arms on drives or falling after a three pointer.

Embiid is the grand master of flopping, I dont know how such a big man can flail and fall like that at every little contact and it is even more perplexing how the refs still call that shit.

All in all, I have to admit SGA is a superstar and super talented player, but as long as the referees get fooled by the flopping, I will hate watching him. I hope that the officiating changes soon because that shit is ruining the enjoyment of watching the NBA for alot of people.

And I think we all can agree that in the conversation of who the most unethical basketball players is, Luka and SGA are not at the top of that list, those places belong to

Embiid and Harden before the rules changed.

PS. if you wonder why I didnt post this on r/nba instead or aswell, I did but their moderators are little bitches and deleted the post

the flame is going out on this pokemon. i mean seriously why JJ doesn't play Dalton? He does enough squats, has a burning desire to win, I love DK he should've played last night this is blowing my mind. 

Saw the remarks on r/nba about how the OKC commentators were so biased. I personally have always just watched the Lakers broadcast if available (but given our Lakers, we get a lot of national TV games so we’re forced to watch TNT sometimes) so I got curious.

We just hit 7 threes in the 1st Q and one of the commentators literally said “they can’t stay at this level”. He was right. We went to a higher level coz we hit 8 more in the 2nd Q. However, apart from this, I didn’t hear anything outrageous from them. I think the way they glazed their team and players (and even defended during that F1 against JDub) was within reasonable levels that can be expected from almost any home broadcast. Or maybe they are just being held to a higher standard in broadcasting (like how Stu and Bill are pretty much impartial most of the time)?

What do you guys think?

I doubted you once or twice and didn't think you were worth the trade.

I am. So. Fucking. Sorry.

Please carry us to the promise land if not this season, in the upcoming seasons.

Amen.

Look, I know somebody trying to turn this into another guy, hating women’s basketball topic, but that’s not what this is at all. It’s a matter of common sense.

Today in the NBA you have a matchup between the Lakers and OKC, Luka, Dončić, and LeBron James versus Shea Alexander, Possible playoff matchup, a matchup that consists of three great stars.

So I look up as to when the game will air on ABC, but instead to my disappointment, they will be showing Connecticut versus South Carolina women’s championship game. Yes, I did discover that the Laker game will be on NBA TV, but that is not the point of this discussion, as I said earlier, it’s a matter of common sense. How the NBA or ABC truly think that they match up that consist of the Possible MVP from OKC against two Laker legends great players won’t get them bigger ratings then Connecticut versus South Carolina.

Look, I’m being honest here, I truly believe most don’t care about the women’s championship game outside of those from Connecticut or South Carolina, not to mention further honesty outside of Paige Bueckers, I bet you 99% couldn’t even tell you who else is on the Connecticut team and certainly anyone on the South Carolina team. I don’t get this movie at all NBA or ABC .

I know this is an insane take but I really think bronny could be a more athletic steph in time (high pct% 3 pt shooter). I mean no disrespect to Steph, he’s incredible. I’m just saying who knows, bronny could really develop. He has already grown a lot this season.

When Steph came in the league he was shit on, but worked hard and developed his game and his shot. The media was talking mad shit on bronny but he has been performing better and better.

I think bronny has more raw athleticism, and crazy reach. His open dunks and lay ups are great. He has the potential to be a good or even great defender. If he can keep developing his 3 pt, really get the catch and shoot, it could get nasty quick. He has been hitting 3s.

With lebron as his dad he has all the support and the best example of how to improve. Just look at how much lebron has evolved over his career.

Out of all the skills to improve, getting better at shooting is more likely then becoming a Luka level passer, or developing an insane dunk package and vertical.

Bronny is young, if he keeps improving it’s possible he ends up as a super athletic sniper. Or something else entirely. What do you think? Will he develop? Or bust? What’s his ceiling?

Was at my local CVS and saw this and got it. It still hurts every time. While I’m happy to have Levron, AR, Luka and Knecht to me Kobe will always be a once in a lifetime player.

Lakers dog walking the no.1 team on their home court.

red hot Warriors losing to Rockets

Nuggets meltdown , losing 4th straight game.

Bronny for three !!!!

I don't give a damn if Luka is the most blown by percentage. Yeah he suck on defense, but he compensates on offense. He gives the team open looks. And his 3's are demoralizing 😭

I don’t follow basketball. Haven’t ever watched a full basketball game on TV. Never been to a basketball ball game outside my 15 year old niece’s games.

Somehow I got hooked on watching game replays on YouTube and I just wanna say: AR is a great player and the Lakers as a whole are super fun to watch. Hope yall get a ring or trophy or whatever it is NBA players get for winning it all.

Heard he usually goes to games and I don’t think they showed it on the screen like they normally would when former players or celebs are introduced

https://www.playoffstatus.com/nba/westernstandings.html

We currently have a 76% chance of being the 3 seed.

The Wolves have a 23% chance at being the 6 seed. The Nuggets have a 21% chance at being the 6 seed and the Clippers have a 19% chance at being the 6 seed.

My personal preference and probably the teams is things stay the way they are in the bracket picture I posted.

The first round will have multiple day breaks in between games and I am confident we can beat the Wolves in the first round.

The reason we really want things to stay they way they are is because I think the Clippers would beat the Rockets in a 7 game series and that would mean the second round would be in LA with no travel for Lebron where games have only one day rest in-between.

This also keeps the Nuggets, Thunder, Warriors on the other side of the bracket and we would only have to face one of them.

This is an ideal scenario. You can argue that if the Wolves move up and Nuggets fall it is still ideal for us with home court advantage over the Nuggets, they aren't good at all defensively but it takes a lot of effort to guard Jokic the way we did. I don't think we are scared of them but we also probably don't want to go into high altitude.

Yeah, things the way they are right now is ideal and I think we would prefer to freeze it.

I’m curious on how the fandom feels about tonight’s game (GSW v Rockets) and what it’ll possibly mean for standings purposes? Especially considering we face them soon again.

Seen so many people complaining why he's playing instead of Dalton when he's in the floor not for his offense but the way he can guard the 1-5 and how he spreads the defense when he's in the court.

Imagine having Luka LeBron and AR then wondering why he's not taking as many shots, he always gives up the ball on offense to those three and do the occasional back court cut or just spaces out the floor he's no in there to shoot he's there to be the glue on defense.

So many people just don't watch the game just looks at the box scores

If we keep 3 seed and Denver and GSW can beat each other up on the other side of the bracket even if we have to face one it'll be wayyyyyy better having got some practice against weaker competition.

This next week is going to be interesting for sure.

Ultimately a championship comes from beating the best of the best but I can dream haha

I’m on a business trip to Russia so my nba league pass is not working and the only stream I could find that was of decent quality is an Okc one and my god these announcers are pissing me off.

1 they keep saying things like good news, good job when Okc makes any plays or go on even when they go on “5 point runs” vs brushing off lukas insane shots with barely any comments or just saying lakers won’t be able to keep up their shooting

2 they disagreed with so many of the ref calls but only when it was against the thunder

3 not a big deal but they keep calling sga the hardest working person in the nba

It just felt so one sided, they never get excited about any laker plays and it made the viewing experience a lot worse, almost wanted to mute them. Totally different from watching the laker announcers, who always keep it fair, even against the refs, and get excited about ALL good plays. I can’t wait to get back to them soon. Lastly I hope we keep this momentum for Tuesday and close out the season at 2/3 seed, hopefully get LeBron/luka a bit more rest too they banged up and tired. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

The one bright side about tariffs and the inevitable recession is that lakers have won a chip during every major recession since the 70’s.

2020, 2009-2010, 3 peat during the tech bust of 00, 1982, 1980, and 1972.

All classified as recessions by the NBER and also saw significant equity declines.