Probably the greatest elements about being sincere with your self as a basketball staff is that it permits for everybody to acknowledge an space of weak spot after which take the steps to handle it.
The Lakers haven’t been an excellent defensive staff. They haven’t been an excellent rebounding staff. And a kind of treatments, they agree, is to play extra bodily.
But what does that really seem like?
“You’re just watching guys get up into the ball. You’re watching guys fight over screens. They’re not dying on the screens. They’re actually fighting through them,” Jaxson Hayes defined after Monday’s apply. “Boxing guys out. … You see a little guard come down, getting into the big legs. Like that’s something physical. Like the big pushing the other big up on the screen. Just little things to get into them, knock them out of the rhythm a little bit so they can’t just walk through everything.”
Hayes, who has missed the Lakers’ final six video games due to an ankle harm, is about to return Tuesday in time for the Lakers to proceed their NBA Cup pool-play schedule at Phoenix.
The Lakers are 2-0 and have video games with the Suns and the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder on Friday earlier than the knockout stage, ought to they advance.
Getting their backup heart wholesome and on the courtroom received’t repair the staff’s greater, extra innate challenges relating to taking part in this fashion. Whereas Anthony Davis is a game-altering huge, the staff has to offer extra resistance on the perimeter.
“Our personnel isn’t, you know, I think if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, isn’t the best defensively,” Austin Reaves mentioned. “Obviously we’ve got AD. That covers up a lot. But we have to be physical out on the perimeter and especially when boxing out. We got to be a better defensive rebounding team and transition as well.”
Lakers coach JJ Redick flipped his apply plan on Monday to bolster a few of these habits, preserving coaches off the courtroom for dwell intervals and permitting gamers to compete in opposition to each other forward of their third recreation with the Suns this season. The groups break up residence wins in a three-day interval in late October.
“It’s interesting when you go back and watch the two regular-season games, I thought we were really physical on the defensive end,” Redick mentioned. “We did some stuff today to try to reignite that a little bit, and that’s ultimately what you’re going to have to do. Those guys are incredible shot-makers. They’re incredible offensive players. [Coach Mike Budenholzer] has them running good stuff.
“As a defense, holistically, if you don’t dictate the terms a little bit with them and just allow them freedom, they’re just too good. So we’ve got to be physical with them. And we were the first two games.”
Phoenix, who has been with out Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, needs to be getting each gamers again Tuesday, putting an excellent larger emphasis on the Lakers discovering some kind of defensive drive. Via Sunday’s video games, the Lakers have been twenty seventh within the NBA in defensive ranking, forward of solely Washington, New Orleans and Chicago. No different staff with 10 wins is exterior of the league’s prime 10 in defensive ranking.
Admittedly, these numbers have been worsened by the Lakers’ tremendously horrible third quarter Saturday in opposition to Denver once they have been outscored 37-15.
“We can try to joystick it as much as possible, but you still have to like … I can joystick it as much as I want, but if you’re not competing and you’re not playing and just not participating in the game, there’s not a whole lot I can do,” Redick mentioned.
“And that’s an aberration to me. We’ve been punched in the mouth so much in games. We’ve been down and came back, we’ve started slow, we’ve started strong. We’ve had adversity in nearly every game. To me, that stretch of the third quarter was an aberration. That’s not who we are. And I reiterated that to the team this morning.”
Tuesday, they get an opportunity to play with drive and show their coach proper — even when it’s not really who the Lakers are as a staff.
