The Lakers are the team NOBODY wants to play, they are dangerous! - Greeny | Get Up

An unbelievable weekend in the NBA and that's not all. Take a look. Nick is up early with us. Tim Hasselbeck's ready to go. Wendy was watching Hoops this weekend and we were watching a performance last night unlike anything we have ever seen before. Monica, how about the performance of the night from Damian Lillard, spectacular against the Rockets. Right from the jump, second quarter, he's knocking down long threes. It was Dame time from the start of this game to the end, Greeny. I mean, this is a guy who's talked his talk over the course of all-star weekend. He was backing it up. He was knocking it down. Look at this. You've got to be feeling it when you're shooting it from there. It's insane. Logo Lillard is in the building. He had 41 in the first half. Blazers by 15. Third quarter, he's at 43 and he's not done yet. I mean, this is quintessential what it means to be in the zone. There were no misses for this guy. Fourth quarter, he's at 56 points and look at it with a poster and the foul. I mean, give it to you from the logo, give it to you in the paint, any way you want it, Dame was serving it up. He was at 59 and he wasn't done. Five minutes to go, he's at 61 points, knocking it down at 64 now. He's a couple of foul shots later, he's at 66 and he's going to use the screen. At this point, he's tapping his wrist. What's the record in this joint? That's his 13th three of the night. Next possession, here we go, looking for 70. 145 to play. Bump drives, runs it up. Yes! 71 for Damian Lillard. Dame is the eighth player in NBA history to score 70 or more. 71 is the total on the night for Dame Lillard, a career and franchise high, and he did it with as efficient a performance as has ever been in a point a total that high. Only players to score more points in a game are Will Chamberlain six times, Kobe Bryant and David Thompson six times. Will did it six times. At 32, Dame is now the oldest player in history with a 70-point game, taking that distinction away from David Robinson, the admiral. So that was the performance of the night. The game of the day also came in the Western Conference. It was the comeback of the day. Lakers and Mavericks, which means LeBron versus Kyrie. Mavericks were up as many as 27 in the first half as Kyrie had it going, Monica. And I'm not going lie, Greeny. At that point in the ballgame, I thought, oh, here go the Lakers with that important 20-game stretch. Kyrie, 21 points on the night. And then LeBron with a big block right before halftime and starting to give everyone a sense. Lakers weren't done despite the huge deficit. Actually cut it to 14 at the break. And then here we go to the third quarter, Anthony Davis taking over. This was as good a performance from Anthony Davis as we've seen this season. Willing to be physical, quick off the ground, big-time basket. He had 30 points and 15 rebounds. And then here's the scary moment. LeBron goes down. And if you can read the lips, and you can actually hear it on the broadcast, I heard a pop. That's a bad thing to hear. It is a terrible thing to hear. And I was certainly clutching my pearls at this moment. LeBron, you can't say you heard a pop and then come back in the game. The entire NBA was holding their breath. He never even left the game. He stayed right in and kept on going. And then here he comes. This is Dennis Schroeder. No good. There's Anthony Davis. Yes, the Lakers take the lead. This is the physicality. And Darvin Hammonds talked about when Anthony Davis has the opportunity to play without pain, he's tremendous. LeBron now posting up. He's got too much size. 26 for LeBron. Lakers up by three. 40 seconds left in the game. Mavericks down by three. Justin Holliday from the corner. No good. But Kyrie is there. It's a one-point game for the Lakers. When they need a bucket, where are you going to go? They're going to go to Anthony Davis. As they should. Yesterday was his day. He was poised. Elevates over Powell there. Just very, very confident. A terrific performance by AD. Lakers come all the way back, and they get the win. Meanwhile, LeBron, the injury. It's been better, that's for sure. But definitely wasn't going to go to the locker room and not finish the game on tonight. Just understood the importance of the game and then the momentum that we had. I felt like we could steal one after being down. But we'll monitor the next couple of days, see how it feels, and go from there. It's the Lakers' largest comeback since 2002. It matches the largest comeback by a LeBron James team in his career. LA now has two wins this season. When down 25 or more, the rest of the NBA has zero wins in games like those. So let's talk about it here. Wendy, we talked so much, you and I, leading into the trade deadline. What would the Lakers do? What wouldn't they do? Would they get Kyrie Irving? And when they didn't, it felt like it was something of a disappointment. However, you were saying on the call this morning, the players they did bring in, each of them has sort of had their moment to shine as they have turned their season around. Absolutely. And yesterday, it was Jared Vanderbilt. He didn't make the highlight. But boy, was he a driving force. He had 17 rebounds in this game. I believe he got credited for four steals, but he had his hands on the ball the entire second half. And he really forced Luka Doncic into, like, losing his mind at the end of regulation and caused a turnover that really sealed the game. The other day against Golden State, it was Malik Beasley who was drilling the ball from deep. Beasley didn't shoot well in this game, but the Lakers now have options. So when you give LeBron James and Anthony Davis, you have a pretty good feel that one of them, if not both, is going to deliver night in, night out. And you give them options, you give them a chance to have a margin for error. And to me, Greeny, the defining moment in this game was at the start of the second half. They were down 14 points, but you could see that LeBron James believed his team was going to win. He came out with energy and focus and really pressed the Mavericks. His teammates joined him. And that's the mentality that will open up the opportunity for the Lakers to still salvage this season. So look, the Lakers, they are sitting right now in 12th place in the Western Conference. And people will look at that number. It was 13th before this game yesterday. But the reality is, if the magic number is six, if you want to get in and out of the play-in tournament and not have to deal with that, they are currently only two and a half games behind the Mavericks who sit six right now. The Lakers are the team nobody wants to play. LeBron, A.D., this new look team that can actually shoot and they play some defense. I think the Lakers are a lot more dangerous than most people are giving them credit for. I will agree with you on that, Greeny. On the surface, I think we've heard Greg Popovich say it over the years, right? A respectable or healthy fear. I think you should have a healthy fear of the Lakers. Just talking about LeBron James and Anthony Davis, if he can duplicate the type of performance that we saw yesterday. However, my concern is that there are not teams in front of them that are willing, Utah maybe, in terms of falling in the standings. And so this is not a given. If they don't get to six, they've got to win two games just to get to a series. And so I'm concerned that overall, there's not enough in the tank. We were all, I heard a pop, away from this being an outright disaster for the Lakers in terms of a game that they needed to win. And with the terrific play from LeBron James and the terrific play from Anthony Davis and the 17 turnovers that turned into 20 points off of turnovers for the Lakers, it still was a two possession ball game down the stretch. I'll just say this. Utah, Minnesota, New Orleans, Portland, those are all teams that are sitting right in front of the Lakers and L.A. has them in their sights. Look, I'm not trying to take away anything from any of them. Dame Lillard just scored 71 points last night. But Wendy, I feel like it's possible. Stephen A and I, Stephen A will be in here a little bit later today. We talked about it all weekend long. I think the Lakers, as crazy as it sounds, I think the Lakers at the right time of the year are getting hot and I think they're going to be dangerous down this stretch. Yeah, they have a favorable schedule. It's doable with their schedule. I would just say that the story of this Lakers season when we're all said and done is that they really came in with a flawed roster. And if they'd come in and made the deal like this or something to bring players like this at the start of the season, we'd be talking about them right now fighting for home court in their first round. Because I think this roster is a top six roster in the West, but they have to carry around that millstone of those first 50 games. And so, ultimately, I think that will hold them back. I would be surprised if they make it to sixth, but I do think they're headed for the postseason at least in the play-in. I would agree with Wendy on that. I think sixth is a stretch. But the other part of this, y'all, we've talked about it all season. This team has to stay healthy, right? Like, if LeBron says this is the 23 most important games of his career, the physicality is going up. This may be junior level intensity in terms of the playoffs, but it's definitely more intense than the standard regular season, those 50 games that you talked about, Wendy. And so, they've got to remain durable through this stretch. And LeBron has been dealing with that foot injury all season. It's not a given. Look, the difference in the two conferences right now, the East is very top-heavy. We know that there are three big teams there. It would be stunning for anything else to happen in the East playoffs. The West feel wide open. Meanwhile, there's a lot to be said about the team they beat yesterday. We'll continue that. Monica's going to stay. Wendy will be with us all morning. I'm not the savior here. I'm not playing. I'm watching, just like you guys. And as a team, we've got to mature. And, you know, we've got a lot of new bodies coming back, and we have to grow up if we want to win a championship. I'm not the savior here. Well, isn't that fascinating? Because Luka Doncic certainly is, and then maybe to some degree, Kyrie Irving was brought in to be that. And so, what exactly is Jason Kidd, who knows what it's like to be a team's superstar? Wendy, what's Jason Kidd saying there? He's calling out Luka Doncic. You know, when he says we're immature and we have to grow up, the five starters yesterday, only one of them was in his 20s. The other four were in their 30s. He was talking about Luka. Specifically, I think, talking about how Luka got distracted in this game, complaining to the officials as the Lakers were making this big comeback. And the other thing that happened is, as it was going away, in the second and third quarters combined, Jason Kidd called one time out. I think because he kind of wanted the Mavericks to try to figure it out on their own, which is an old coach's tactic. Now, there are some schematic challenges with this team. He had Justin Holliday in there defending LeBron James. Yesterday, a complete size mismatch, where you see the lack of their wing defenders that they had to trade to get Kyrie Irving. But it's also basically a challenge to Luka Doncic. And after the game, he was asked, how do you feel about what coach said? And he said, it's probably true. So, there's only a few times per year that a coach can go after the superstar. It's probably a short list. But Jason Kidd had a purpose for what he wanted to do with this game and the fallout yesterday. And it was to challenge Luka Doncic. Look, I mean, we were here doing the games yesterday. Anyone who watched it, Luka argues after every play. And there's literally, there's not a single play in the game that he doesn't get a call that he isn't unhappy with either a call or a non-call. And I think that's what Jason Kidd is talking about. Are you good with it? I agree. I think that's a very keen observation on Wendy's part. I actually thought it was for the entire team, though. But obviously, Luka is the head of this snake. I think the other part of this is the Lakers understand the urgency of the moment. Right? And the Mavs cannot act as if they are secure in their spot in the standings. We just looked at the standings before we came into this segment. And so you have to understand what this backstretch is going to demand of you. There is little time to waste energy on things that are insignificant. You need to be figuring out how to win basketball games. But having covered Dallas a few times this season, the relationship between Kidd and those guys is terrific. I mean, I've talked to people over All-Star about the addition of Kyrie. And they're like, look, we're just gonna hoop. Like, you can't argue with somebody if you don't, someone can't argue with you if you don't argue back. We just want to hoop. And so I think that is just a call to what this stretch is going to require. Yeah, for sure. The other side of this, of course, is Kyrie, who has played well and has done the right things and said the right things since he got to Dallas, Wendy. But, you know, both you and Woj were making the point right after that trade. They gave up a lot to get him. They don't want, this certainly couldn't have been something they envisioned just being a rental. So how does that situation with Kyrie look as we keep going? Again, it's one and three. It's a very small sample size. But that's what they are in four games together. Yeah, I think that Mavericks have a really good looking future if they're able to get another transaction cycle or two. They have first round picks that they can trade. They have young players that can either develop or can be traded. But the problem is is that they don't have any transaction cycles before Kyrie's a free agent. And there's two things weighing on them right now. One is that Luca and Kyrie develop a chemistry which I would be betting on would happen. We have seen very little samples so far. But the second thing is the Lakers. And you've got LeBron James hugging Kyrie a week after praising him up and down at the All-Star game. And it's not so much that the Mavericks would be worried about losing Luca to the Lakers. It would be that the Mavericks would be under pressure to give Kyrie a contract that they don't really want to give him. You'd much rather have Kyrie feeling the pressure of having a short contract and sort of staying more with the team oriented aspect than having to overpay him in years because you've got the Lakers out there on the rise. And that is something that is definitely developing as we watch things play out. Absolutely. And then just very quickly for those who have just joined us here we opened the show with the Lakers today. And I'm just going to say it. I'm strengthening my position. The Lakers are going to be a force to be reckoned with. Assuming they're healthy by the time we get to the end. And I get it with Anthony Davis that's always a scary assumption to make. But the Lakers are a team that could beat anybody in the West if they get in there healthy. Yeah Greeney you're standing on a tree stump not a branch. That's not breaking news. The problem is we cannot bank on their health. And to me are they going to have enough left in the tank when they get through this now officially 20 game stretch. That's all. I agree with you. If they're healthy I don't want to see the Lakers. But I think honestly as we talk about this Western Conference team I mean Western Conference playoffs in these standings who do teams want to see. I mean you could say you want to see Sacramento but do you actually. Like this is a team that's playing with house money and has arrived early. Do you want to see Memphis. Well if Stephen Adams isn't healthy maybe like do you want to see Denver. I don't know. I don't think Denver is getting the respect they deserve. You're standing on a tree stump not a branch. That's not breaking news. Congratulations. That's an expression I've never heard. But I'm going to use it from now on.