What do you think about the Laker team now?

You follow the box scores, the games every day, just the Lakers.

You're kidding.

That is really a compliment.

I was pleased to see you smile at the top part show because once the game starts you have a game face

you don't smile much out there.

I don't think you have to do things for money anymore.

Correct.

What's up, Laker fans.

Welcome to the Laker Film Room Podcast, brought to you by the Blue Wire Podcast network.

I'm Pete joined by Darius, and today we start the second half of the Lakers season.

But we're going to start on the pod here with a more specific topic and the reason for it is that it branches out into a bunch of other ones that I think are really important for this team. I think the most crucial area

where we need significant improvement for us to be a contending team is in our closing lineup.

So much ink is spilled about starting

lineups and who's a starter, who's not, and but your most important lineup

is your closing lineup and that's been somewhere again where the Lakers have struggled. And a central figure within that over the course of the first half of the season has been Russell Westbrook. In several games, teams have put their center, a big man, a slow-footed big, on Russ and just not guarded him, right?

And he hasn't shot particularly well.

And in a broader sense, the Lakers offense has kind of fallen apart in a lot of those games.

That said, it's not the only issue that the Lakers have had with their closing lineups.

One of the things they've done is,

okay, we're just gonna bench us in those situations.

And one of the things that has happened in those points is we really get out-muscled

...