The Suns made one key adjustment for Sunday’s game — they pushed the tempo up and forced the Lakers to make their reads and decisions more quickly.
The Lakers were not athletic enough or smart enough to deal with that, and under pressure got away from what worked before. They didn’t trap on the pick [...]
It comes down to defense.
In game three not only did the Lakers switch (or occasionally trap) on the pick-and-roll, not only did they play better man defense, but they cut off diagonal and other passing lanes. They limited Suns options, and they are going to have to do that again.
Thanks to Gatinho for posting something [...]
Forty-eight minutes.
It’s pretty clear what the Lakers need to do to win in this series — if you have not read Nate Jones’s breakdown of game three on Fanhouse yesterday you must, it’s so good and comprehensive I’m not going to repeat it all here.
But this time they need to do all that for [...]
Finally!
In the second quarter, the Lakers started playing like a desperate team, and washed in with that wave of desperation was hustle and honest-to-goodness pick-and-roll defense. Back for three quarters were the Lakers from last December, the team other squads didn’t want to see come playoff time.
Keying the 21-9 second quarter run that got things [...]
It says a lot about this Laker team that the coaches are still tinkering with player substitution patterns and lineups well into the first round of the playoffs.
They can overcome that if we see a Laker team that’s a little angry tonight, one with a little fire in its belly. They need to be physical [...]
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