Game 9 DIRKIE: LUUUUUKAAAA

[SleepingHero]

[MrGoat]

"Oh, nice to see you're hot tonight, Kyrie. Guess what, I'm even hotter."

-Luka

[Razzmatazz_Hopskidillydoo]

Hard to ignore Luka on this one. Kyrie would have won this if Luka wasn't shooting the lights off.
Besides the two stars -- I'd go for DJJ.

[The Jom]

1 turnover, zero missed free throws, zero tantrums. Luka by a mile.

[omahen]

Line-up with Exum at the end of the first quarter and start of second really worked great and turned the flow of the game.

[ballsrchr]

I like offensive rebounds...then total rebounds. DJJ was 4/10 on rebounds. 3 assists, 3 steals, 11 points. Not a bad night at all. But no Dirkie for DJJ.

Lively? Well...the old eye test tells me he is a lot more important to the total game than his box score indicates. No Dirkie.

Kyrie was 3/3 on rebounds. 3 assists, 2 steals, and...27 points. A very important man on the court, but also no Dirkie.

THJ did THJ stuff. Not enough stuff to earn a Dirkie.

Josh Green, well, uh, hmm, Josh Green--needs to do more stuff. He has the stuff! Let it out Tiger!

Jaden Hardy--has the stuff as well. But he needs some quality coaching on how and when to let the stuff out.

Dante Exum is Damn sure a great 3rd point guard. And that's where he'll stay with Luka and Kyrie in front of him. I would like to see him play more to take some of the work load off Luka. Will he ever earn a Dirkie? I think...so.

And finally. Luka with 44 points and great efficiency. Yes. He has earned my Dirkie.

Oh...not to forget. We had an Omax sighting. I like it! He needs some quality playing time. Otherwise he'll become a bench knot, get painted over...and languish.

[ThisIStheYear]

Of course, Luka. That’s an all time game even scoring on a curve. I’m most excited about DJJ. He always had this statistical profile of a super underrated player. I knew he’d be pretty good if given a chance in the right situation. He’s an excellent role player fit with Luka and Kyrie.

[Mavs2021]

I give it to the whole team and Jason Kidd. This was basically the perfect example of what I have been preaching for years. If you can´t find regular season minutes to develop your rookies, cause you need the 100% best rotations and availability every single game to eak out 42 wins and a guaranteed 1st round loss, you doing it wrong and the team is simply not good enough. It´s not the rookies fault. It´s the GM/owner for putting on a poor roster.

We got 61 minutes out of players 22 or younger tonight. That´s 25% of the total playing time without even including Luka/Williams at age 24.

[Mavs2021]

Line-up with Exum at the end of the first quarter and start of second really worked great and turned the flow of the game.

It´s likely Lindsey wanting to be right on Exum, is part of the reason, the Mavs showed interest, but it´s worth it to look at former NBA players that kill it in Europe, especially EuroLeague, to bolster your roster for little money. He was the game changer tonight.

Isaac Bonga might be the perfect fit for the Mavs in that regard. Imho he was the standout defensive player for Germany at the World Championships. Still only 24 years old and comes with the quality stamp of being a Lakers draft pick. It might take a minute, but they rarely miss. Zubac, Mo Wagner, Ingram, Randle. All great pick-ups for cheap.

[The Jom]

Lakers get a lot of help from the refs with their draft picks. Not a fair comparison.