Second Half of the Season March-April Regular Season Discussion
I think Minnesota was just a horrible matchup for all their weaknesses too. I’m not sure any of the other teams in the West would pose this many problems for how the Lakers are currently constructed.
OKC would be similar but even with them guys like Dort and J-Dub aren’t going to relentlessly keep attacking like Randle did. And as good as Shai is he’s more of a get to his spots type, Ant is just so aggressive it puts pressure on the slower weaker defenders in a different way.
Pair that with 40 year old Bron being their only rim protection (thought he actually had a great defensive series given that) and it’s just a really bad combo. They can’t match Minnesota’s size and their small ball isn’t athletic enough to match them either. Just a horrible combo.
Also offensively, the constant high ball screens for Luka only really work when he can exploit mismatches and pretty much everyone on the floor but Rudy could defend Luka. Naz and Randle switches weren’t mismatches, there was no lob threat on the floor, and many of these possessions were just get the ball to the middle of the floor and hit a shooter in the corner, or Luka hoist a contested step back.
Not enough touches and rhythm throughout most of the series for AR or LeBron. And the Luka picks really slowed down the offense where LAL seemed to look better when they could actually get some transition looks. I think it was Ant mic’d up during game one, or after during post game interviews, he basically said their entire strategy was to not let them get in transition. But Luka sorta willingly does that for them.
Going to be hard to really find pieces to build around this in the offseason. They do need bigs but they also need figure out if they are going full on Luka-ball or if they are going to try and get Luka to blend himself into a more uptempo pace. A big who can both run the floor and be a lob thread somewhat helps fill both spots, but Hayes can already kind of do that and he was deemed unplayable. So idk.
Originally posted by J_Posse
Originally posted by ggsimmonds
I think Minnesota was just a horrible matchup for all their weaknesses too. I’m not sure any of the other teams in the West would pose this many problems for how the Lakers are currently constructed.
OKC would be similar but even with them guys like Dort and J-Dub aren’t going to relentlessly keep attacking like Randle did. And as good as Shai is he’s more of a get to his spots type, Ant is just so aggressive it puts pressure on the slower weaker defenders in a different way.
Pair that with 40 year old Bron being their only rim protection (thought he actually had a great defensive series given that) and it’s just a really bad combo. They can’t match Minnesota’s size and their small ball isn’t athletic enough to match them either. Just a horrible combo.
Also offensively, the constant high ball screens for Luka only really work when he can exploit mismatches and pretty much everyone on the floor but Rudy could defend Luka. Naz and Randle switches weren’t mismatches, there was no lob threat on the floor, and many of these possessions were just get the ball to the middle of the floor and hit a shooter in the corner, or Luka hoist a contested step back.
Not enough touches and rhythm throughout most of the series for AR or LeBron. And the Luka picks really slowed down the offense where LAL seemed to look better when they could actually get some transition looks. I think it was Ant mic’d up during game one, or after during post game interviews, he basically said their entire strategy was to not let them get in transition. But Luka sorta willingly does that for them.
Going to be hard to really find pieces to build around this in the offseason. They do need bigs but they also need figure out if they are going full on Luka-ball or if they are going to try and get Luka to blend himself into a more uptempo pace. A big who can both run the floor and be a lob thread somewhat helps fill both spots, but Hayes can already kind of do that and he was deemed unplayable. So idk.
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