The NBA is a make-or-miss league, and on some nights, teams will get beat simply because their opponent hit a big number of contested shots and seemingly couldn’t miss.
That was the story Monday night when the Los Angeles Lakers visited the Portland Trail Blazers.
After the Lakers took a 14-5 lead, Portland lit them up like a Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, as it poured in 3-pointer after 3-pointer.
No matter what L.A. tried to do defensively, the Blazers kept hitting from the outside, while the Purple and Gold couldn’t throw a pea in the ocean — at least not consistently.
The Lakers fell behind by 15 at the end of the first quarter and 19 at halftime, and they never caught up, falling 127-115. The game wasn’t nearly as close as that final score may suggest.
Anthony Davis: B-plus
Although this wasn’t a very efficient game by Davis’ standards, he did bounce back nicely after three straight subpar games, including a very poor offensive outing on Saturday against the Golden State Warriors.
He went 8-of-18 from the field and scored 19 points, while also grabbing an excellent 20 rebounds and blocking three shots. He still isn’t attacking the basket as much as he did before his right foot stress injury, and one can see that on the stat sheet in the form of his three free-throw attempts.
But Davis is a true superstar because he also impacts the game in areas other than scoring, as he’s an outstanding rebounder, shot-blocker and positional defender.
Rui Hachimura: C-plus
Hachimura had a quiet game with eight points on 3-of-8 shooting, seven rebounds, one assist and one block in 22 minutes. He had a couple of his shots near the rim blocked, and overall the Blazers had something of a block party with nine rejections.
Troy Brown Jr.: B-minus/B
Brown converted 5-of-9 shots from the field to score 13 points, but he was only 1-of-4 from 3-point range. Overall, the Lakers couldn’t buy a 3-pointer, while Portland went 23-of-47 from that distance.
Dennis Schroder: D
Schroder had a rough night, going 1-of-7 and scoring just two points. He did, on the other hand, help the Lakers’ cause with six assists against just two turnovers in 30 minutes.
Defensively, Schroder and his backcourt mates failed to slow down Damian Lillard. He had 30 points in the first half alone, and he finished with 40 points while going 8-of-14 from downtown.
Lillard always seems to go off against L.A., and Monday’s game was a prime example.
D'Angelo Russell: B-minus
Russell wasn’t bad in his second game back with the Lakers, but he also didn’t have a great game. His efficiency was off, as he finished 7-of-16 overall and 2-of-8 from beyond the arc, giving him 16 points plus three rebounds and four assists in 28 minutes.
The biggest key as far as whether Russell will indeed be a part of the Lakers’ roster beyond this season will be not only his shooting efficiency, but how consistently he shoots a good percentage from all three levels.
Jarred Vanderbilt: B
Vanderbilt again made an impact in his second game with L.A., finishing with six points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals in 22 minutes.
He flashed an ability to run the fast break after grabbing the defensive rebound, and he even scored a layup off a drive with his left hand.
However, it was also a somewhat rough game for Vanderbilt, as he lost the ball out of bounds a few times and got into some foul trouble in the third quarter.
But make no mistake — he will be a big X-factor for the Lakers moving forward.
Wenyen Gabriel: B-plus
Gabriel managed to scratch out seven rebounds and seven points in just 13 minutes. He spent some time in the frontcourt alongside Vanderbilt, and the two seem to have some chemistry; they spent a season together at the University of Kentucky.
Malik Beasley: A-minus
Beasley started slowly, but he finished with a very nice stat line of 22 points on 8-of-16 overall shooting and 6-of-12 from downtown, although a good amount of that production came in garbage time.
Still, Beasley finding and maintaining his outside shot would be a big boon for a Lakers team that desperately needs some offensive juice from the outside.
Austin Reaves: B
It wasn’t a bad night for Reaves, as the undrafted second-year man had 10 points, two rebounds and two assists while shooting 3-of-5 from the field and 3-of-4 from the free throw line.
The Lakers could use some more defense from him, especially with how badly Portland’s guards abused them.
Lonnie Walker IV: B-minus/B
Walker made a contribution by going 2-of-4 from 3-point land and scoring eight points with three rebounds in 15 minutes. It is starting to seem like head coach Darvin Ham may favor Beasley over Walker in his backcourt rotation, as the former is a more proven 3-point shooting threat.
Max Christie: B
Christie missed his only field-goal attempt and scored just two points on free throws in seven minutes. But his defensive effort and energy always stick out, and he makes a nice effort on the defensive boards.
He finished with two rebounds, one assist, one steal and one block.
Davon Reed: Incomplete
Reed, a 6-foot-5 guard the Lakers acquired in Thursday’s Thomas Bryant trade, got seven minutes in garbage time. He scored on a basket in the paint and added one rebound and one assist.
