The Lakers’ depth at center is not good, but Tuesday night was a kind of worst-case scenario. Missing Jordan Hill, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol meant splitting minutes between forwards Metta World Peace, Earl Clark and rookie big man Robert Sacre. Sacre bore the brunt of the odd rotation’s weaknesses most of the night in his 28 minutes, but especially when Houston’s James Harden caught him on the business end of two top-10 worthy plays.
Late in the third quarter, with the Rockets leading but not comfortably, Harden exposed Sacre’s non-existent weakside rotation to Harden’s back-cut on Jodie Meeks. The result was a poster dunk that alone would be a nightmare scenario for a defender.
To cap the night, though, Harden went five-hole between Sacre’s legs for his assist that essentially put the game out of reach. I suppose both plays could have happened to most guys on any night. On Tuesday, though, Sacre found himself torn up by plays that — had they been done by a Laker — would have made Sacre bust a move in celebration.
What do you think?
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