The Lakers lost to Philadelphia in an exciting finish Wednesday, a result that puts the team in second place in the Western Conference behind the Utah Jazz. Although the main event was the matchup between two MVP contenders, LeBron James and Joel Embiid, or even the all-NBA big matchup between Embiid and Anthony Davis, this week’s episode of “I Love Basketball” — a Silver Screen & Roll podcast — focuses on the undercard: Alex Caruso’s minutes.
This was a game that the Lakers probably did not deserve to win given their lackadaisical attitude towards transition defense and their poor free-throw shooting, among other issues, but they almost had a chance to sneak away with a victory when they put their best lineups on the floor, and those nearly always include Caruso.
Anthony Irwin and Sabreena Merchant discuss the various reasons why the Lakers are keeping Caruso glued to the bench for long stretches and break them down piece by piece to show that not playing Caruso is doing a disservice to this team. They also present cases for where Caruso’s minutes should be coming from and talk about the effects of minimizing Caruso on his upcoming free agency.
They also talk a bit about Davis’ general malaise on the offensive side of the ball, the spirited revenge game performance from three-time champion Danny Green against the player he was traded for, and what closing lineups they’d like to see Vogel experiment with (the player Anthony vouches for is a shocker).
You can listen to the full episode in the player embedded below, and to make sure you never miss a single show moving forward, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.
You can follow your hosts on Twitter at @AnthonyIrwinLA and @sabreenajm.