Bron and the squad are too big to handle 💪 pic.twitter.com/wRrbaNSvZX
— LakeShow (@LakeShowCP) September 11, 2020
Lakers New Small Ball Is Too Big for Other Small Ball Teams to Handle
By 
September 11, 2020 6 Comments
Reader Interactions
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The Lakers’ new starting five might turn out to be hard go away from. They have advantages at both ends of the court that lineups with JaVale or Howard can’t match. And like LeBron said, they’re not small although they can play that way.
There’s a good chance the Lakers may stick with this lineup going forward. McGee and Howard would still get minutes but they would be off the bench. Flipping to starting small instead of big could be the next evolution of Vogel’s lineups.
I think they’ll use this and a lot of lineups they’ve discovered in this series. THT has pushed his way into a minor role potentially relegating Smith and Waiters to the bench save for garbage time. However it’s my guess that Vogel will match size with size or attempt to do so at the start of every series. From both is comments and general rotation concepts he values the traditional big for a bevvy of reasons.
Mainly I still think it saves some wear on Davis, allows LeBron and AD to guard players their size or smaller. Helps our traditional defensive coverage’s (which we’ll see against either Denver or the Clippers). Once one of McGee or Howard gets going we’re a really hard team to defend, as well.
We’re still not a knockdown three point shooting team regardless of the overall height of the line up. The true benefit comes on defense and unlocking our transition game. We’re average to below average from deep, doesn’t matter who’s out there. So it’s not inconceivable that Frank switches back to his old line up should we advance.
But I do think this series has helped Frank appreciate what a small line up can accomplish on D. It all comes back to defense with Frank. Since his introductory news conference when he rose to the occasion to defend Rob Pelinka’s coaching search Frank has been all about defense. That’s not changing probably ever. It’s what he’s about as much as MDA is about shooting threes at volume.
In general the Bubble Playoffs have shined a lot of light in some interesting places, fodder for the months after the playoffs end.
I thought it was funny when Van Gundy was going on and on about why was THT in the game.
Because he’s good 🙂
Great game, great to see the team pull for each other. Bron’s not going to put up with any pouting, that’s for sure.
I’ll admit, I was surprised, too. But he made the most of those minutes and I’ll bet he plays more.
It will be interesting to see who Frank is going to start against the Clippers. I think it’s going to be a close call to chose between the two options.
One option is to stick with McGee and treat the Morris version of small ball like Steve Kerr did with the Warriors’ Death Lineup, bringing it off the bench to shut down teams and get stops at strategic moments in the game. That style of speedy quick defense burns a lot of energy and he may prefer to use it like a change-up.
The other option is to start the Morris small ball lineup because it’s truly our best defensive option and we know Frank’s calling card is defense. I think it depends on how teams play against us. Those 5-out sets really opened up the floor and unleashed LeBron and AD against the Rockets and superstars and defense are how you win championships.
Either way, you’re right we’ve got a shiny new weapon in our arsenal and it works beautifully on defense and offense.