Lakers vs Pelicans! GORGEOUS Injury Report & Keys To Victory!

Hello, Lakers Nation. Welcome in the Lakers Nation.com podcast. My name is Trevor Lane and it's game day. Lakers, Pelicans tonight 7 30 PM Pacific time. We'll see the Lakers can make it three wins in a rub. Of course, I'll be live right here tonight on the Lakers Nation.com YouTube channel breaking down the game, doing a little play by play. Come hang out. It's like a party 7 30 PM Pacific time. We'll get things started. Lots of get into today. The injury report. Fortunately, a very brief injury.

We'll take a look at the standings plus the keys to victory. Let's dive right in. Starting with that injury update. Oh my gosh. It's a thing of beauty. Look at that. None to report. This is a rare and when do you ever see a Lakers injury report that says none on it. That is absolutely fantastic. No injuries tonight for the Lakers, which means everyone will be a gutter.

So LeBron James, Luke Adonchich, Austin Reeves, Ruiha Chamura, everybody, you name it. And they are available to play really exciting stuff there from the Lakers side. Now for the Pelicans side of things, there are a few names on their injury report. Frankly, though, the Pelicans, they are going to be 100% healthy because the three names on their injury report are trail Alexander Hunter Dickinson who are two way players. Anyway, we're not going to really consider them in the overall health of the of the team.

And then Zion Williamson is listed as questionable. He missed the Pell's last game, but in an interview with ESPN, he did share that he plans to return to play against the Lakers in tonight's game. So even though Zion Williamson is officially on the Pelicans injury report listed as questionable. He is, he has said he is going to play because of course against the Los Angeles Lakers. So this is a fully healthy Pelicans side as well. A full

fully healthy Lakers team against a fully healthy Pelicans team. Now one thing to keep in mind as I'm recording this, I just checked the Lakers are a nine and a half point favorite for this game. But do keep in mind that while the Pelicans are not expected to win this game, they are not a good team.

Remember that while the Lakers when they played the Kings last game, the Kings actually have incentive to tank in that they have their own traffic. The Pelicans do not.

They have zero incentive to take. So right now, taking all the rage around the NBA such that so much of the conversation, talking about as these teams are doing all they can to sink to the bottom. I mean, look at the jazz half use of Nurkish having surgery and that, you know,

Jared Jackson Jr. having surgery guys getting surgeries done now that normally they would put off until the summer.

In order to not fall under the leagues rules or fall a riot of the leagues rules that would get them in trouble for sitting players out of games. The bottom teams are doing everything they can to lose games when we talk about Sacramento, Indiana, Brooklyn,

Washington, no Trey young is going to play, apparently this week for the Washington Wizards, they got kicked out last night from the game for the Wizards game.

He got kicked out, he got ejected from the game, despite the fact that he was not playing just on the bench and had a few choice words and wound up getting ejected. But Trey young is going to play for the Wizards, but they're going to be very careful with how often they play him because all these teams have their picks.

Right now, if you look at tankathon, the New Orleans Pelicans, their pick is going to go to the Atlanta Hawks and right now the draft for the state chalk, it is the sixth overall pick.

And the reason why they are starting to separate from these other teams is because the Pell's they don't get their pick. So they might as well go out there and win basketball games.

The maps might even pass the Pelicans in the tank race here, the Grizzlies, maybe not their four games up right now in the win column, but the Pelicans have no incentive to lose games.

The Kings, the multiple players who were out organizationally, they're trying to lose the Pelicans have no reason to lose and we know the Pelicans would like to beat the Lakers.

The Lakers, in fact, I believe it was the last time the Lakers and Pelicans played herb Jones came back from injury to play the Lakers and then went right back out again.

Here's a here's a screenshot of herb Jones game log. Now he's he's back and playing right now, obviously, but here's a screenshot of herb Jones game log.

You saw you missed a bunch of games played, played 35 minutes against the Lakers and then went right back out again and missed a bunch of games.

I think the Pelicans may still hold a little ill will towards your Los Angeles Lakers after the whole Anthony Davis situation that took place years ago.

But nonetheless, the point is the Pelicans are a team that is probably a little bit better than most of these tanking teams in part just because well they don't have any incentive to tank.

So that's going to be part of the conversation with them, but also when they're fully healthy, part of the reason why they've lost so many games is because they've not been healthy.

When they're fully healthy, there's quality players on this team guys like the aforementioned herb Jones, Zion Williamson, Trayn Murphy III to Jonté Murray back from his Achilles injury put up 17 points against the Clippers.

Siddiq Bay, a guy we talked a lot about the Lakers maybe tried to trade for they still have even easy dare queen coming off the bench.

They've got some quality players. Jeremiah fears has been an impressive rookie.

So while the Lakers are a nine and a half point favorite and rightfully so this Pelicans team can't be lumped in with some of these other teams that are tanking because organizationally they have no reason to try to lose games.

So I do think the potential is here for this to wind up being a more of a struggle or more of a fight than what the Lakers saw in the last game against the Sacramento Kings.

Let's take a look at the standings here.

So what's on the line right now for the Lakers, by the way, the Utah Jazz were in a battle last night players tend to not tank players want to win games organizations tank.

The Jazz were in a battle with the Denver Nuggets last night and a terrible call on review.

The referees reviewed it and overturned and I mean an obvious who's a blatant obvious foul on Nicola Yokech.

George would have counted George would have gone to the free throw line to shoot two free throws to potentially give the Jazz the lead.

And the referees reviewed the call would have been the Yokech is six foul.

The Nuggets challenged and the referees despite it being an obvious and clear foul overturned it and let Yokech stay in the game took the free throws away from the Jazz and the Nuggets went on to win.

So that was unfortunate for the Lakers because that would have put them in position to leapfrog the Denver Nuggets for the five seed right now, but the Nuggets.

I've said it so many times that I don't want to spend a lot of time on this here when it wasn't a Lakers game, but you can't have NBA officials getting things wrong on review.

When you go back and you're watching it in slow motion and you can see obviously it's a foul.

You can't then go and overturn that say no, it's not like you can't make those kind of mistakes.

It was a blatant and clear mistake by the officials.

You cannot have that kind of thing happening.

I understand if it's happening during live action, but when you're watching it on review, you're seeing it in slow motion and to still get it wrong and to get it wrong by overturning the call.

It was absolutely absurd and actually hurts the Lakers because Denver very well could have lost that game.

We don't know for sure what would happen, but very well could have lost that game.

I've never nuggets picked up a win.

In part, thanks to that mistake, again, in my opinion, blatant mistake by the officials, but the Lakers right now sitting in the succeed 36 and 24.

They've won their last two. This is a chance to win three in a row.

The schedule gets much more difficult after this.

And this is where the Lakers can help themselves out a bit because they're going up against a bunch of their direct Western conference opponents.

Yes, they've gotten to Orleans, but then Denver, then second, I'd have a back to back on Friday.

It's Indiana Denver's Thursday.

Friday's Indiana, then New York, Minnesota, Chicago, Denver again, Houston, Houston.

Then Miami and Orlando Miami is second, I'd have a back to back then Detroit.

The next two weeks are very well.

I guess almost three weeks are very tough for the Lakers.

There's a lot of big time matchups here for the Lakers.

The point of that being you have to take care of business in the games where you are the heavy favorite because they can play their best basketball and still lose a game to Denver.

They can play their best basketball and still lose to New York, to Minnesota.

They've got Houston, right?

I'm not saying they will lose all those games and I hope we do see some of the statement wins that we've been looking for from the Lakers during this stretch.

This is an opportunity to pick up some statement wins, but control what you can control.

If you play well enough, you should pick up a win against the Pelicans.

You should pick up a win against the Pacers.

You have to make sure you lock down those wins because you're going to be in some real battles in some of these other games over the next couple of weeks.

And you never know for sure how those are going to turn out.

All right.

What are the Lakers going to need to do to get the job done against the Pelicans tonight?

We're going to get into the keys to victory.

We'll get to that in one minute.

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All right.

What's it going to take for the Lakers to get the win tonight against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Look, I know I know the Lakers went to and over the weekend and a back to back against the Warriors and the Kings is anybody giving the Lakers credit for that is anybody bumping the Lakers up in their power rankings.

No, of course not.

Those are especially Sacramento.

They literally the worst team in the NBA have the worst record in the league.

The Kings are the Warriors without Steph Curry depleted.

No Jimmy Butler depleted Warriors team.

Nonetheless, they've proven to be feisty on any of you.

They have a win over Denver recently, but the point is this is another game like that.

We're not the Lakers if they go out there and they blow the doors off of the Pelicans and hopefully they do.

Hopefully we get three stress free wins in a row.

That'd be nice.

But nobody's going to give the Lakers credit for this.

Nonetheless, wins all count the same.

So you got to go out there and get the job done.

And I think we have seen and I talked about this a little bit yesterday on the Lakers nation.com YouTube channel.

We have seen some trends for the Lakers that while we need to see them persist against against some higher quality opponents.

They are a little bit encouraging.

And one of the things that they've been doing is passing the basketball.

They've been moving the ball considerably more over the last few games.

And J.G. Retic has made a point to shout out players who are moving the basketball.

He gave a lot of credit to Luke Adonchitz just the other day for doing that.

So the Lakers in the last two games, the average 292 passes made.

So that's a big increase over the 269 passes per game that they were averaging on the season.

They're one of the lowest passing teams in the NBA.

Now passing inherently doesn't mean quality offense.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are the worst passing team or I should should say they throw the fewest passes of any team in the league.

And they're probably the best team in the NBA.

So it's not like there's a correlation between just passing the ball equals better offense a basketball.

But for this Lakers team, I do think there is a connection between the two.

I do think that the offensive stagnation that we've seen because they're not running a lot of dribble handoffs.

They're not running a lot of off ball activity.

That when they are not moving the basketball, they are not as effective of a team.

And frankly, for this team to get to be any kind of a threat, come playoff time.

I think they're going to have to be one of the top offenses in the NBA.

They have a much better chance of being a top offense in the league compared to being a top defense.

I don't think they have the personnel to be a top defense offensively.

I think they're just scratching the surface of their potential.

And we are seeing some improvements there.

And I think the ball is going to have to keep moving.

Particularly when you've got now the addition of Luke Kinnard, the way that he has opened some things up for them.

He is definitely a ball mover in addition to being a phenomenal shooter.

He's also somebody who is a quick decision maker.

He's a catch.

He either puts the ball on the floor and attacks the clothes out shoots or passes.

Boom, the ball keeps moving.

Kinnard keeps moving.

He has constant motion as well.

And we're starting to see that type of vibe permeate the rest of the Lakers roster.

We're seeing more off ball activity.

We're seeing more of the ball pinging around and finding open looks.

I think that can help the Lakers offense get to the next level.

So I want to see and why I put sharing is caring for the key to victory here.

I want to see the Lakers moving the basketball generating looks.

I'm not worried about which player scores.

It's that the team is scoring.

If Austin Reeves goes for 35 and Luca goes for 10 and the Lakers win.

That's great.

If Luca goes for 40 and LeBron James goes for 15.

Wonderful.

Whatever whoever is getting the open looks.

I think this team needs to show some trust in each other that they're going to be able to knock down those shots.

But especially when we're talking about guys like Luke Kinnard,

like Ruby Hutchamura, the better catch and shoot players that are on this squad.

So sharing is caring.

Like to see the ball continue to move.

Now, talked about the injuries.

This team is healthy, which has been a rarity this season for them to be healthy.

What I'd like to see is JJ Reddick now get to really settle into a rotation.

I think what we're starting to see JJ too is get a real flow to the way that he is running things

and how players are subbing in and out of games.

We're seeing him lean in in the middle portions of the games to a Austin Reeves and Luca Donchic led lineup

as well as to a LeBron James and the team's more energetic defensive players lineup.

So some exceptions to that, of course, but we're seeing a lot of LeBron with Marcus Smart, Jake Laravia out there on the floor.

Sometimes it's a Jackson Hayes out there with him. Sometimes it's Aiden.

But regardless, we're starting to see JJ Reddick settle into what the rotation is going to look like.

And the big three lineup that includes Austin Reeves, LeBron James, Luca Donchic,

that trio is now a net positive for the first time this season.

And that's an important step as well because you can't have the LeBron by himself lineup

and the Austin and Luca lineup be successful lineup, but the three of them together simply not work.

So this is important progress that we're seeing from the Lakers.

Now with everybody healthy, JJ can really fine tune things and settle into what the rotation looks like.

Right now he's been going with a 10 man rotation and the odd man out has been Jared Vanderbilt.

Maxi Cleba has now taken over and we saw it in last game against the Kings.

He has taken over the second shift from the Andreate and so we see DA play the first shift at the center position.

Jackson Hayes then comes in to close out the first quarter and then early in the second quarter,

it's Maxi coming back in before eventually giving way to DA again to close things out.

Sometimes it'll be Jackson Hayes in that situation getting that extra shift there, but that's something to keep an eye on here.

How does that rotation look?

Because it's been Vando that's been not getting those minutes at the start of the second instead.

Maxi providing his energy, his physicality is rebounding his defense.

It's been Maxi, Rui LaRavia, Jackson Hayes and Luke Canard coming off the bench for the Lakers

with Vando joining Brony, Kobe Bufkin, a Duthiro and Dalton connect as guys who only get into the game in garbage time.

So I'm curious to see if that becomes a permanent rotation of Jared Vanderbilt is once again the odd man out.

This is where we were at mid season where Jared Vanderbilt went through a stretch where he simply didn't play.

He was out of the rotation.

He did get opportunities, earned his way back in, but it does look like right now, Maxi may once again be ahead of him.

I do think this match up as well is going to be an important one for the Lakers to have some physicality out there on the floor.

Maxi ideally can bring some of that DeAndre Hayten who I'm going to talk about in just a minute needs to bring that as well as does Jackson Hayes.

Frankly, the whole team does.

The Lakers, one of their keys to victory, it is controlling the boards.

Yes, the rotations are going to start to bring more familiarity.

They're going to start to settle into their roles now that we're seeing more of a healthy Lakers team.

Yes, they need to keep passing the basketball.

The way that the Pelicans can become a threat.

Aside from just being healthy and when they're healthy, again, this team, this Pelicans team has better players than I think people would initially think because of their record,

because of just the perception of them as a team, but they've dealt with a lot of injuries this season as well.

And for much of the season, they have not had a fully healthy team.

They believe part of the reason why they traded their first drop pick this year is they looked at the roster and went, yeah, we can be, we can be a playoff team with this group.

We could be a fringe playoff team anyway.

It was still a mistake to trade their first round pick unprotected the way that they did.

And it looks like they'll probably wind up having to pay the price for that, giving up a high draft pick this year.

But nonetheless, the Pelicans are a better team when they've got all their guys healthy.

They have legitimate quality NBA players that I think a lot of people give them credit for.

But one of the areas that they can really present some problems.

And if the Pelicans are going to hang with the Lakers in this game, the way they're going to do it, it's the glass.

The offensive boards are where the Pelicans tend to be to do some damage.

And if we do look at post all star break, the pells in six games, they are number eight in the NBA in offensive rebound.

So when you've got players like Eve, me see particularly can be a challenge there on the offensive glass.

When you've got a guy like our old friend, Deandre Jordan, that's right.

Deandre Jordan in the mix starting at the center spot right now.

He's not getting the lion's share of the minutes like we see in the last Pelicans game against the Clippers.

It was Deandre Jordan starting at the center spot, but then Derek Queen played almost 30 minutes.

Eve, me see played 20 minutes.

So they're going to go to some of the younger guys off the bench.

But if you're giving up a bunch of offensive rebounds to this team, they had 14 the other night against the Clips.

Well, the Pelicans can get enough shot attempts to stick in a game.

So if the Lakers are going to take away what I think is the most threatening part of the Pelicans game.

And that is the ability to crash the offensive glass.

You're going to need guys like Maxi to be physical.

You're going to need the entire team to be locked in on the rebounding side of things and making sure that you don't give up too many second chance.

Opportunities and because of that.

Maybe I should not do this anymore, but my X factor is Deandre.

I still believe there's better basketball in DA than what we have seen recently.

And I'm still hoping that he can start turning in some some more quality performances.

Frankly, he's been getting outplayed by Jackson Hayes.

I've had some Lakers fans telling me that they would prefer Maxi on the floor over DA had a lot of fans talking about benching DA in favor of Jackson Hayes and putting him back in the starting lineup.

And you can make a case for all of those things.

I don't know how realistic it is.

My concern would be that if you were to make that kind of a change right now.

Are you just losing DA at that point?

Would he be like truly checked out if you were to remove him from the starting lineup?

Nonetheless, the Lakers have and including Maxi in the rotation allows even more flexibility for this.

The Lakers have other options that they can turn to.

They don't have to play Deandre.

But in a match up like this, where you really need somebody they can help you on the boards.

This is one of those games where you want to see DA, you know, bite down on the mouthpiece and start swinging.

Right. Get out there and not literally obviously, but get out there and fight.

Get out there and provide some physicality for this Lakers team.

Get out there and make a difference on the glass.

I don't want to see the DA that goes out there and is timid and is getting out worked and all those sorts of things.

He is due for a big game.

And I'm talking about a big game, not because like the Orlando Magic are switching guards on the room, which happened four games ago.

Orlando was switching guards on him suddenly eight and goes eight for 11 shooting for 21 points.

Last time he put up 20 points was back in January at 28 points against the Washington Wizards.

But those games seem to be few and far between.

I'm not that worried about the scoring.

The biggest thing.

I want to see double digit rebounding from DA.

He had 10 boards against Golden State in 20 minutes.

Fantastic.

He had 13 against Orlando played 32 minutes that game.

I'm not expecting 30 plus minutes out of him tonight.

But he had 10 boards against the thunder.

That's what I want to see.

I want to see double digit rebounding from DA if he's going to play anything more than 20 minutes.

And I want to see him in there fighting, protecting the paint, doing all of those things because that is certainly something that the Lakers especially in this matchup really need.

And right now, man, DA, he just he needs a big performance.

He needs a big performance and not because he's scoring over a guy half his size.

Like we saw in the Orlando game.

I want to see a fired up version of DeAndre Aiden.

Maybe it's foolish to me to continue to hope.

But come on, DA.

Prove me right and be the true X factor for the Lakers in this one.

And if not again, but one of the benefits of using Maxi in the rotation is that in addition to Hayes, that gives you another one more player.

That JJ can say, hey, he's not coming in cold off the bench.

He's been part of the rotation.

JJ can also always funnel more minutes to Jackson Hayes, a former Pelican, by the way, Jackson Hayes, or Maxi Cleba.

But I think DA is overdue for a really solid outing.

And I'm hoping that we do see that tonight.

And that can get him going because this is he needs a ramp up because Thursday, he's dealing with Yokech.

He's going to get one-on-one matchups with Yokech.

And he's not going to be expected to stop him by himself.

Not going to happen.

But I want to see DA on the upswing when we get into this more difficult part of the schedule.

When you've got Yokech, then they're going to deal with Cat and Mitch Robinson and the Knicks and then dealing with the giants in Houston.

And all of that that they're going to have to deal with.

And by the way, the Houston matchup against Clint Capella, ironically enough.

But my hope is the DA can be the X factor tonight for the Lakers.

All right, everybody, give me your thoughts in the comment section.

Don't forget to be live right here at Blakeersnation.com YouTube channel 730PM Civic Time.

Come hang out and we'll see if the Lakers can make it three wins in a row.

Till then, everybody.

See ya.

And stay safe.

Thank you.