The Los Angeles Lakers' size advantage in their Western Conference semifinal series against the Oklahoma City Thunder has and will continue to be negated by their significant lack of solid production off the bench.
Through three games of the two teams' seven-game series, the Thunder reserves have outscored the Lakers' 101-51, by an average of 16.7 points per game. Though Oklahoma City's bench features the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year in James Harden, he alone is not responsible for holding LA's backup unit to a combined 25 points in Games 2 and 3 of the series.
Backup point guard Steve Blake currently leads the Lakers bench in scoring this series, averaging 5.7 points per game, which is sadly more than starting point guard Ramon Sessions (5.3 PPG); Sessions only averages one more minute per game than Blake in the series, however.
Outside of the struggling Blake and Sessions, much of the Lakers' lack of bench production can be linked back to the rest of LA's starters. The core four consisting of Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace has taken 75 percent of the Lakers' shots this series, and scored 75 ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NBA
Article written by Patrick Clarke
Lakers vs. Thunder: Lack of Bench Production Will Be LA’s Downfall vs. OKC
May 19th, 2012 by Patrick Clarke Leave a reply »
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