Lakers fans should be most
excited about Lonzo and
Kuzma's poise, not their
stats
It's about a little over an hour
before tipoff, and the Lakers look
more like an AAU team than a
storied franchise about to take on
the defending world champs.
Loud music is blaring, causing the
constant conversation between the
young teammates to get louder and
louder. Lonzo Ball snacks on a
banana. As they watch video from
their last game against the
Warriors , Josh Hart calls out Larry
Nance Jr. for not getting him the
ball, "Damn Larry, make a pass
right there!"
They look and sound like a bunch of
kids ... because, well, they are a
bunch of kids.
So when this bunch of kids fell
behind by 23 points in the third
quarter in the most raucous home
arena in the NBA, most expected
them to cave, like so many teams
do, and chalk it up as a lesson to
take things more seriously before a
big game.
But then a funny thing happened.
They came back.
And it wasn't so much the fact that
they came back -- the NBA is a
league of runs, after all -- but it
was who was leading the charge
that was most impressive. Whoever
types up the play-by-play must
have grown weary of writing Kyle
Kuzma's name.
Kyle Kuzma turnaround hook
shot.
Kyle Kuzma layup.
Kyle Kuzma 26-foot 3-point
step back jump shot.
The 22-year-old rookie scored 12
of his 27 points in the third quarter
and continued his onslaught into the
fourth, when the Lakers eventually
took an 89-88 lead.
"It's something he wouldn't have
done earlier in the season," Lakers
coach Luke Walton said of Kuzma
after the game. "We're really
impressed with the way he is playing
and even more so with the
composure he has kept in these last
couple games. At times in each
game, he puts us on his back and
the rest of the team starts to get
confidence again."
And when the Warriors came
charging back, as they tend to do,
it was Ball who emerged as a
stabilizing presence. He scored nine
points on 4-of-5 shooting in the
final frame and didn't commit a
single turnover
"He did a good job of calming us
down, making sure the offense was
set up, making sure we got into our
plays," Kuzma said of Ball. "He
showed pretty good poise down the
stretch."
The Lakers would end up losing the
game, 113-106, but the fact that
the Kuzma and Ball were the ones
keeping things close even surprised
Walton.
"How quickly they're picking all this
up is really impressive," he said.
"They didn't get rattled at all
tonight. In fact I thought they
were two of our more mentally
tough guys out there. When it got
tough, I felt like the two of them
really kind of kept us in it until
everyone was ready to re-engage
and get back in the fight."
Just to reiterate, this is Walton
talking about a 22-year-old and a
20-year-old as the most mentally
tough players on the team. It's not
something you see very often from
two rookies, particularly a duo that
has had to face a murderer's row
of the NBA elite over the past
week.
The Lakers' last four opponents: The
Cavaliers in Cleveland, the Warriors
at home, the Rockets in Houston
and the Warriors in Oakland. No
team will face a tougher four-game
stretch this entire season, and both
Kuzma and Ball have turned in their
best four games of the season. Not
only that, but they snapped the
Rockets' 14-game winning streak
and were within striking distance in
all three losses down the stretch.
"It's a learning curve but we're
both rookies," Kuzma said of
himself and Lonzo. "We go through
the same stuff every single day.
It's always good to have multiple
rookies to go through it together."
The stats have been fantastic --
Kuzma joined Jerry West and Elgin
Baylor as the only Lakers rookies to
score 25 or more points in three
straight games, while Lonzo made a
career-high five 3-pointers on
Friday against the Warriors en
route to 24 points, the most he's
scored since the second game of his
career against the lowly Phoenix
Suns. But we all know there are
good stats and bad stats. What's so
impressive is that the two rookies
haven't padded their numbers
during garbage time. Instead
they've emerged as bona fide
leaders and shown supreme
composure in what was supposed to
be the most difficult series of
games in their careers.
Their youth can be an advantage in
that sense. Not only are they
physically capable of bouncing back
from one tough game to the next,
but they might also be more
equipped to forget the
circumstances and just play
basketball -- the certain bravado
and swagger that can only come
with unjaded youth. Also, while
Ball's reluctant to admit it, the
fact that he has been in the
national spotlight basically since he
was in high school does play a part
in how he's able to stay in control
when other 20-year-olds might
crumble.
"I think just playing in the league,
period, has helped me," Ball said
after the game. "The more I play, I
feel like the better I'm doing.
Obviously the spotlight's been on me
for a while, so, you know, I'm pretty
used to it. I'm just getting more
comfortable out there."
Both Kuzma and Ball have a long
way to go as players and as leaders,
and losses are losses, but it's hard
to have watched this Lakers team
over their four-game gauntlet and
not come away with way more than
just a glimmer of hope for the
future. The fact that they played
the Warriors twice during that
stretch was fitting, since they're
the team the Lakers try their best
to emulate.
"We want to model ourselves after
Golden State," Kuzma said. "It's no
secret, with Luke coming from
there, our personnel, our versatility.
We want to be like them. We're
going in the right direction, for
sure."
excited about Lonzo and
Kuzma's poise, not their
stats
It's about a little over an hour
before tipoff, and the Lakers look
more like an AAU team than a
storied franchise about to take on
the defending world champs.
Loud music is blaring, causing the
constant conversation between the
young teammates to get louder and
louder. Lonzo Ball snacks on a
banana. As they watch video from
their last game against the
Warriors , Josh Hart calls out Larry
Nance Jr. for not getting him the
ball, "Damn Larry, make a pass
right there!"
They look and sound like a bunch of
kids ... because, well, they are a
bunch of kids.
So when this bunch of kids fell
behind by 23 points in the third
quarter in the most raucous home
arena in the NBA, most expected
them to cave, like so many teams
do, and chalk it up as a lesson to
take things more seriously before a
big game.
But then a funny thing happened.
They came back.
And it wasn't so much the fact that
they came back -- the NBA is a
league of runs, after all -- but it
was who was leading the charge
that was most impressive. Whoever
types up the play-by-play must
have grown weary of writing Kyle
Kuzma's name.
Kyle Kuzma turnaround hook
shot.
Kyle Kuzma layup.
Kyle Kuzma 26-foot 3-point
step back jump shot.
The 22-year-old rookie scored 12
of his 27 points in the third quarter
and continued his onslaught into the
fourth, when the Lakers eventually
took an 89-88 lead.
"It's something he wouldn't have
done earlier in the season," Lakers
coach Luke Walton said of Kuzma
after the game. "We're really
impressed with the way he is playing
and even more so with the
composure he has kept in these last
couple games. At times in each
game, he puts us on his back and
the rest of the team starts to get
confidence again."
And when the Warriors came
charging back, as they tend to do,
it was Ball who emerged as a
stabilizing presence. He scored nine
points on 4-of-5 shooting in the
final frame and didn't commit a
single turnover
"He did a good job of calming us
down, making sure the offense was
set up, making sure we got into our
plays," Kuzma said of Ball. "He
showed pretty good poise down the
stretch."
The Lakers would end up losing the
game, 113-106, but the fact that
the Kuzma and Ball were the ones
keeping things close even surprised
Walton.
"How quickly they're picking all this
up is really impressive," he said.
"They didn't get rattled at all
tonight. In fact I thought they
were two of our more mentally
tough guys out there. When it got
tough, I felt like the two of them
really kind of kept us in it until
everyone was ready to re-engage
and get back in the fight."
Just to reiterate, this is Walton
talking about a 22-year-old and a
20-year-old as the most mentally
tough players on the team. It's not
something you see very often from
two rookies, particularly a duo that
has had to face a murderer's row
of the NBA elite over the past
week.
The Lakers' last four opponents: The
Cavaliers in Cleveland, the Warriors
at home, the Rockets in Houston
and the Warriors in Oakland. No
team will face a tougher four-game
stretch this entire season, and both
Kuzma and Ball have turned in their
best four games of the season. Not
only that, but they snapped the
Rockets' 14-game winning streak
and were within striking distance in
all three losses down the stretch.
"It's a learning curve but we're
both rookies," Kuzma said of
himself and Lonzo. "We go through
the same stuff every single day.
It's always good to have multiple
rookies to go through it together."
The stats have been fantastic --
Kuzma joined Jerry West and Elgin
Baylor as the only Lakers rookies to
score 25 or more points in three
straight games, while Lonzo made a
career-high five 3-pointers on
Friday against the Warriors en
route to 24 points, the most he's
scored since the second game of his
career against the lowly Phoenix
Suns. But we all know there are
good stats and bad stats. What's so
impressive is that the two rookies
haven't padded their numbers
during garbage time. Instead
they've emerged as bona fide
leaders and shown supreme
composure in what was supposed to
be the most difficult series of
games in their careers.
Their youth can be an advantage in
that sense. Not only are they
physically capable of bouncing back
from one tough game to the next,
but they might also be more
equipped to forget the
circumstances and just play
basketball -- the certain bravado
and swagger that can only come
with unjaded youth. Also, while
Ball's reluctant to admit it, the
fact that he has been in the
national spotlight basically since he
was in high school does play a part
in how he's able to stay in control
when other 20-year-olds might
crumble.
"I think just playing in the league,
period, has helped me," Ball said
after the game. "The more I play, I
feel like the better I'm doing.
Obviously the spotlight's been on me
for a while, so, you know, I'm pretty
used to it. I'm just getting more
comfortable out there."
Both Kuzma and Ball have a long
way to go as players and as leaders,
and losses are losses, but it's hard
to have watched this Lakers team
over their four-game gauntlet and
not come away with way more than
just a glimmer of hope for the
future. The fact that they played
the Warriors twice during that
stretch was fitting, since they're
the team the Lakers try their best
to emulate.
"We want to model ourselves after
Golden State," Kuzma said. "It's no
secret, with Luke coming from
there, our personnel, our versatility.
We want to be like them. We're
going in the right direction, for
sure."
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