Aloha,
The Lakers have now exceeded my expectations for this year. When I saw the poorly constructed roster at the beginning of the year I thought that if we could stay healthy and the young guys ramped up their play then maybe we could sneak into the first round. Over all the young guys gave us some good moments but we got stung by the injury bug again. Then came the trades. You have to hand it to Rob. He didn’t panic and waited it out until the right trades materialized.
The adjustments that Coach Ham made are some of the best between game adjustments I’ve seen in a very long time. Of course it was all made possible by the best defensive center in the game. ( sorry triple J )
Only AD has the mobility to jump out and double the pick and roll and still get back to protect the rim. Shrinking the rotation to 8 also was huge. Bringing Gabriel in instead of Troy or Beasley was huge. It gave us 3 players with size to counter JJJ. Even though Gabriel only played 10 minutes it was impactful with a couple of baskets and blocks. I also thought putting Rui on Bane was genius. Rui had a tremendous defensive game. His size really bothered Bane and Rui demonstrated the quickness needed to stay with Bane.
We will only go as far as our defense will take us, but we have the blue print now. Even LeBron, who I have been critical of for only defending in spurts was locked in defensively all night. I think a lot of that is made possible by having 2 playmakers in Austin and Dlo running the show. LeBron is no longer tasked with always having to be the playmaker. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Vando’s defense on Ja. What a luxury to have a long 6’ 9” player capable of hanging with one of the quickest guards in the NBA.
I believe we can match up defensively with any team moving forward. Our shooting comes and goes but with our transition game and paint points , our defense will keep us in most of the games moving forward. I can see us losing to any of the remaining teams, but for the first time I can see us beating any of them as well.
Great post, Michael. Could not agree more with all of your points. While the year was certainly tumultuous, having the team peak and raise its ceiling every game is exciting and promising. We’re really a year early for this team and you have to give Darvin credit for it. He took on an unbelievable challenge and has come out standing tall. We have a shot at it this year and the core of a future dynasty built around Anthony Davis and LeBron James. Kind of like Reaves and Russell are to LeBron what Pau Gasol was to Kobe.