What do you think about the Laker team now?

You follow the box scores of 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 bar 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.

I'm Pete, today not joined by Darius, but a very special guest that we've been talking for years, but never on the pod.

Great Laker fan.

Sometimes he threatens us by telling us that the Lakers are playing that day, one of my favorite online traditions. Great Raj Chappalo, how you doing, man? Thanks for joining the LFR pod. Yeah, no, it's great to be here, man. I know it's early morning that we're recorded, but, you know, it's an exciting Laker week in basketball, you know, never sleeps. And so it's exciting to be here and talk about a fun Laker team.

Yeah, and a good win last night, right?

Last couple of years, I've been calling AD Atlas, the mythical figure that carries the world on his shoulders because everything absolutely collapses when he's not around.

Hasn't been the case this year.

And Lakers have been dabbling in small ball and all that. So talk to me a little bit about a win last night against Portland and then just more broadly where you're at with the team. Yeah, last night was cool. I think we have like the DeLo trade has handed Austin Reeves the keys to a car. and Austin's like, I'm not going to crash it. You know, I'm going to get it to where we need to go.

And his pick and roll scoring, I thought, has really jumped out this week. And he's kind of carried the offense. LeBron obviously had an amazing game, which, you know, we can speak about later. But it's been cool to watch him. And I think Max Christie's growth as well. And last night, I think you saw kind of the vision of what JJ Reddick wants from this team, which is a small ball group. I'm still not a big fan of the Rui at center lineups. I think those are the ones that needs to go. But you look at it from the outside is kind of like Vanderbilt, Dorian Finney Smith, all these rangy wings with size that can kind of run and space as well, right?

You get this five out look where there was a lot of guard to guard screens and I think Max

had 80 back cuts last night on the Blazers because they were overplaying and their, you know,

their rim protection is DeAndre 8 and yeah, it feels like the team is, you know, ascending and

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