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Lakers TSR roundup: Russell Westbrook turns to Bestbrook, his recent turnaround keeping LeBron James and co’s title hopes alive

Lakers Superfan
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Lakers TSR roundup: Russell Westbrook turns to Bestbrook, his recent turnaround keeping LeBron James and co's title hopes alive

Just under one-third through the 2021-22 season, the Lakers are still agonisingly close to the .500 mark. Their 13-12 record is their worst 25-game start since LeBron James signed with the franchise in 2018.

Having said that, James has only played in 13 of those games and that’s a huge reason behind the team’s inconsistency early on. In fact, owing to the injury (abdomen) he’s nursing, the suspension, and the league’s health and safety protocols – something he cleared quickly courtesy of consecutive negative COVID-19 tests following a false positive test – he hasn’t even played four consecutive games so far.

With no serious injury concern, James will likely play more games going forward. That would provide us with more instances of him carrying the team as he did just prior to the Thanksgiving break against the Indiana Pacers.

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Everyone, especially LeBron fans, would love to see more of this. However, the Lakers aren’t going to win a championship relying heavily on a soon-to-be 37-year-old who is playing in his 19th year in the league.

They need the other two-thirds of their Big 3 in Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook to step up. It’s a small sample size but recently, Westbrook’s play seems to be turning the corner with more room for improvement.

That along with the team’s improving play on both ends, especially on the defensive end of the floor, is giving their fans a ray of hope.

Is Russell Westbrook getting comfortable?

The Lakers are the 2016-17 league MVP’s fourth team in as many years. Over the past couple of seasons, with new franchises in Houston and Washington D.C, Westbrook has shown himself to be a slow starter.

But in each of those situations, about mid-way through the year, he seemed to have found a way to not only improve his individual numbers but also his impact on the team.

Now with his hometown franchise, he seems to be doing the same but only sooner.

He averaged 18.9 points, 8.6 assists, 8.2 rebounds, 5.0 turnovers and a plus-minus of -4.2 on shooting splits of 42.6/29.7/66.7 through the first 17 games of the season.

Over these last eight games, the turnover average is down to 3.6 and a total plus-minus of +39 gives him an average of 4.9.

Through the first 17 games with him on the floor, the Lakers had a net rating of -6.5 but over the past eight games, that number has flipped to +4.9.

Like I mentioned earlier, it’s a small sample size.

So, this is either a sign of a turnaround or could just be a product of Westbrook building some much-needed on-court chemistry with his teammates while the team has played a few non-contending teams in the Pistons and Kings (twice), the Pacers, the Knicks and the Clippers.

Depending on his play over the rest of December, we’ll know soon which one it is.

Improved health helping Lakers

As of Dec. 9 (IST), the Lakers only have two players who are still ruled out due to injury – Kendrick Nunn and Trevor Ariza. That’s very different from their situation through November.

Talen Horton-Tucker’s return from injury really seems to have stabilized the Lakers. Unlike the other veteran guards on the team, who can be liabilities on one end of the floor, THT plays a huge role with his two-way potential.

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Along with him, the team’s overall health seems to have turned for the good and that’s showing in their play.

Over the first 17 games, the team’s 108.5 defensive rating was 18th best in the league. As the season has started getting into its dog days, the Lakers seemed to be holding their own on that end with their defensive rating of 108.1 over the past eight games being good for ninth-best.

The same can be said of the team’s offence, credit to which must be given to Westbrook’s improvement. Through the first 17 games, their offensive rating of 104.7 was 24th best but over the past eight games, that’s increased to 112.8 which is seventh-best.

In their most recent game, the Lakers put the beat-down on their arch-rivals. They defeated the Celtics 117-102 by virtue of their Big 3 playing one of their best games together.

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“We got a lot of good moments tonight and we want to continue to build off of that,” James said of the win to TNT’s Allie LaForce postgame. “There’s some things we can clean up but tonight was one of the best 48-minute games we’ve had so far.”

Road ahead

If the Lakers can keep up their recent standard of play, there are plenty of wins on offer on their upcoming slate of games.

Purely on their talent level, the team should win a majority of their games until early January.

During this stretch, they play against rebuilding teams like the Magic, the Rockets, the Thunder and the Spurs. There are a couple of slumping teams in the Mavericks and Trail Blazers. They have a few high-seeded teams on the calendar too but each could possibly be missing an All-Star caliber player – Suns (Devin Booker), Bulls (DeMar DeRozan) and Nets (Kyrie Irving).

Can the Lakers really begin turning things around by putting together some wins on the trot?

Only time will because so far this season, inconsistency has ruled with the Lakers not recording a winning or losing streak of more than three.

All stats and records mentioned are following the NBA games on Dec. 9 (IST). 

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