EL SEGUNDO, Calif .– After having a day off to digest his team’s season opener defeat to the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers coach Frank Vogel said Russell Westbrook’s debut wasn’t nearly as terrible as it seemed.
“[Westbrook played] pretty good, “Vogel said after Thursday’s practice session when asked what the big Lakers takeover looked like in the off-season in his review of the feature film.” We didn’t get him involved enough, and that’s up to me. We keep looking at situations to make it useful and don’t back off from that [Anthony Davis] and [LeBron James] are there.
“These guys obviously started, but I haven’t done enough work to get Russ to work and that’s an easy fix.
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Westbrook saw the team’s worst plus-minus as the Lakers were beaten by 23 points in the 35 minutes he was on the field. LA led in the 13 minutes with 16 minutes Westbrook sat on the bench.
James (34 points on 13v23) and Davis (33 points on 15v26) both scored more than 50% of their shots, while Westbrook (eight points on 4v13) only scored shot 30.8%. His five rebounds and four assists were also offset by four ball losses and four fouls.
Davis said you didn’t know that Westbrook had trouble returning home to LA if he behaved himself while training.
“He was himself, as a person and on the ground,” said Davis. “He’s got some of his moves, the post-ups where he scores. Dribble back-downs where he scores and dribble pull-ups from the glass – his first choice when he scores. Talk to everyone s — and all that .
“He was his normal self, and it’s good to see that he had a day off to think, get over it, flush it. And then back to practice and be himself again. And hopefully that carries over to tomorrow, where he can be Russell Westbrook. “
The matchups are not getting any easier for Westbrook and the Lakers. After facing Stephen Curry on Tuesday, they will host Chris Paul and the defending champion of the Western Conference, Phoenix Suns on Friday.
Getting Westbrook up and running will help, largely as LA received more dire injury news on Thursday. Kendrick Nunn, who missed the end of training camp and was sidelined Tuesday due to a sprained right ankle, suffered from pain in his right knee and an MRI revealed a bruised bone. According to Vogel, it will be reassessed in two to three weeks. Vogel said Wayne Ellington (thigh) would also be out on Friday.
And LA was already without Trevor Ariza (ankle) and Talen Horton-Tucker (thumb) after both had surgery in the preseason.
Davis sounded confident the Lakers would find out about Westbrook and said it might take time.
“We know him as a person, as a friend, as a brother,” said Davis. “We played for the Olympic team, but of course it’s completely different. All-Star Games, completely different. Playing with him in one season is the first time for me and Bron. It takes time to find out – that’s what he has to get back, or we have to run to get it going. Or he likes to do it. He only played in three preseason games, he and Bron, so the rhythm still comes – for all three of us … So we’re going to make sure we’re doing everything in our power to help him speed up this process and get it up and running.
“But he’ll be fine. He just has to be himself, like I said, and everything will work out for him.”
Vogel said he believed the same for his team as a whole.
“We’ll need more patience than most teams because we have eleven new players. It’s that simple,” said Vogel. “We are very different and new to each other. So it will take more patience with our team than with any other.”
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