What a performance from Lonnie Walker IV! The Los Angeles Lakers are just one more win away from the team’s 42nd West Conference Final as they beat the Warriors 104-101 on the back of a Lonnie Walker IV takeover game.
Is the Warriors dynasty really about to get put down by a bench warmer that only played 50 minutes of playoff basketball before last night?
Despite starting the year 2-10, squeaking into the playoffs through the Play-In tournament, and overhauling pretty much the entire roster during the trade deadline, the Los Angeles Lakers now find themselves a single win away from yet another Western Conference Finals for this historic franchise as they beat Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors 104-101.
And this win didn’t come down to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, or even the play of any of the trade deadline acquisitions. It was exclusively down to Lonnie Walker IV!
Okay, maybe saying this win for the Lakers was exclusively down to Lonnie Walker IV is a bit of an over exaggeration as LeBron had a team-high 27 PTS, 9 REB, and 6 AST, Anthony Davis had a 23 PTS, a game-high 15 REB, and 2 AST, Austin Reaves went off for 21 PTS, 2 REB, 4 AST from his guard spot, and the Lakers as a team outscored the Warriors 20-13 off turnovers (which ended up being extremely important), but this game really should have been a Warriors victory.
Not only did the Warriors post better game stats in just about every meaningful category than the Lakers (except for the score, obviously), but also their stars and bench players had arguably (key word here) better games than the Lakers, respective, star and bench players.
Starting off with the stats, the Warriors shot 40-86 from the field for 46.5% shooting efficiency (the Lakers shot 39-86 for 45.3%), the Warriors shot 12-41 from the 3-point line for 29.3% shooting efficiency (the Lakers shot 6-25 for 24.0%), the Warriors had 29 assists to the Lakers 21, the Warriors had 9 steals (Lakers had 8), the Warriors had 17 fast-break points (Lakers had 14), the Warriors scored 52 points in the paint (the Lakers scored 46), and the Warriors owned a lead of 12 points at one point (the Lakers only had a 6-point lead at their highest).
And, in the stats the Warriors were beaten out by the Lakers, it was minimal at best. The Lakers (42) had two more rebounds than the Warriors (40) for the whole game, the Lakers had 34 defensive rebounds to the 31 the Warriors raked in, and the Lakers (14) only had two less turnovers than the Warriors (16).
Meanwhile, Steph Curry had another game with a 31 PTS, 10 REB, 14 AST triple double, Klay Thompson had 9 PTS, 5 REB, 2 AST, Andrew Wiggins scored 17 PTS, 4 REB, 1 AST, Gary Payton II had 15 PTS, 3 REB, 2 AST, and Draymond Green had a decent defensive game with 8 PTS, 10 REB, 7 AST, 1 STL, 1 BLK.
Sure, you could say that Thompson only scoring 9 points and Jordan Poole, Kevon Looney, and Donte DiVincenzo only scoring 14 collective points is a big reason why they lost, but I’d argue this production is too different than what we’ve seen from the Warriors thus far.
Yes, the names associated with the stats are usually mixed up on a nightly basis, but the rest isn’t too different as the Warriors are averaging 44.9% shooting from the field, 34.5% shooting form the 3-point line, 46.5 RPG, and 113.4 PPG. And they’ve played at least 3-4 more games than the rest of the league, so they wouldn’t be scoring much more than their 101 points last night if they played the average 8-9 games of the rest of the league.
Nonetheless, what won this game for the Lakers was how Lonnie Walker, who had very limited playoff experience prior to this game, completely took over in the 4th quarter. He scored all of his 15 points in the 4th quarter to not only lead all Lakers (including James and Davis) and Warriors (including Curry and Thompson), but he also became the go-to scorer when the Lakers found themselves trailing 99-98 late in the game to drive home a heroic 104-101 Lakers victory.
Oh, and his 15 points almost outscored the entire Warriors roster (17 collective points) in the 4th.
Along with the Lakers going perfect from the free throw line (20-20), one of the Lakers bench players stepping up and being the primary scorer was something the Warriors couldn’t have defended against. This Warriors team, despite having some of the best players of all time, just doesn’t have the depth anymore to contend with teams like LA.
And that’s why it seems likely a bench player has just ended one of the NBA’s greatest ever dynasties.
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