As every coach in every sport will tell you, it’s about getting your own house in order before you start to worry about what the other team will do. So, before we talk Bucks let’s talk Laker defense.
For the first 14 games, the Lakers were giving up 102 points per 100 opponent possessions, good for fifth best in the league.
In the last two games, that number is 123.3.
That’s bad. Battlefield Earth bad. Those two games alone plummeted the Lakers from fifth in the league for the season to 16th.
The more important question, heading into a six-game road trip, is: How do you fix it?
Part of this is getting back to basics and working on the rotations — the Lakers have just looked lethargic on defense the last couple of games (Rudy T. era lethargic). Phil Jackson needs to crack the whip, or some skulls, or whatever he needs to do to get the team to refocus its defense. But I am going to throw out two more radical suggestions that may help.
1) Start Sasha. Smush has been a great story so far this year, but he has not been playing the same quality of defense in the half court set of late. Teams have figured out he is weak on the high pick and roll (almost always going under) and are now exploiting that. Statistically, when Smush is on the floor other point guards are playing just as well as they did last year against Chucky Atkins, both have an opponents PER of 19.1. To Smush’s credit, PGs are not shooting as well this season (49.6% against Atkins compared to 45.9% against Smush) but compare that to what Sasha has done when matched against PGs — an opponents PER of 13.3 and a shooting percentage of 42.4%. I’m not sure if this works well long term, but the defense needs to be shaken up, and Sasha is shooting the ball well right now so the offense won’t suffer. If nothing else, it should light a fire under Smush.
2) Play Chris Mihm and Andrew Bynum together some. One thing we can say about when Kwame Brown was in the starting lineup is that having two 7-footers along the baseline helped slow penetration. Not so much anymore, even with Cook getting big minutes. As best I can tell, Bynum and Mihm spent a few minutes together on the floor for the first time last game (they were a total of -3 in that short time). This combo is not going to be great on offense (Kobe and Lamar are going to really have to carry the load) but this should be a good defensive and rebounding pair. And you might want to keep doing it even when Kwame comes back.
If you’re going to pair Mihm and Bynum at all, Milwaukee may be a good place because the Bucks are such a good rebounding team. Four Buck players — Jamaal Magloire, Andrew Bogut, Joe Smith and Dan Gadzuric — all pull down at least 11.8 rebounds per 40 minutes (each grabbing at least 16% of the available rebounds when he is on the floor), the best rate for a Laker is Bynum at 10.3 (and 14.9%). The Lakers need to crash the boards.
The Lakers suddenly resurgent offense should again find room to work against a team that is 27th in the league in defensive rating (109.6 points per 100 possessions) and allows teams to shoot 49.5% (eFG%) against them. This could be a good game for Smush and Sasha as point guard has been the Bucks weakest defensive position this season.
But the Laker defense will be the key. The Bucks have a pretty average offense (a rating of 106,8, 12th in the league) although, not surprisingly, they do get a lot of offensive rebounds and put backs. They also have Michael Redd, who is leading the team in scoring and shooting a very good 52.5% (eFG%) from the field. Also watch out for point guard Maurice Williams, who is second on the team in scoring and shooting just as well as Redd percentage wise, and is a +11.2 per 48 minutes (the other guy to watch is UCLA guy Gadzuric, who is +12.7).
The Lakers have the Bucks tonight then head to even colder climates for a game against Toronto tomorrow. They need to get at least a split to start the road trip, and I think we know it’s a lot easier to win at the start (particularly since the Lakers have beaten the Bucks eight straight times). Count me in the group that thinks the Bucks are not as good as their 9-6 record, this is a game the Lakers can win. If they play defense.
john says
sasha slips under the pick n’ roll too, at least during the minnesota game. hudson looked like the greatest of all time agaiin like the good ol’ days.
and his better defensive stats could be that he’s defended backups a good part of the time, right?
i’d keep things consistent as far as the starting rotation. sasha has been getting the fourth quarter minutes the past couple games, anyway. he’s used to coming off the bench and gives it a punch. who knows how smush will react to the change. yank him quick if he gets blown by and maybe he’ll stay in the habit eventually.
Kurt says
John, Sasha has been covering more subs that starters. I’m not sure he’s the answer, but as I said my hope would be that either Sasha would be better or Smush would be so angry at getting bumped he would pick up his game. Either way we win.
I’m not sold on Sasha’s D completely, although it has improved from last season.
Finally, I want to steal a page from a great article (by friend of this site Kevin Pelton) over at 82games.com where he tracks how Detroit dealt with the Phoenix pick and roll (by the way, the article proves that Barkley and Kenny Smith from TNT were wrong, reason enough to read it). I want to look at the Lakers D against the P&R more closely, but I’m not going to have time to get to that until Wednesday night at best, more likely this weekend.
Gatinho says
I like both of those ideas. Sasha at least seems to be more active on defense. He has picked up some offensive fouls as well.
Achilles had his heel, the Lakers have the pick and roll. Still.
john says
what a work of art.
now THAT’S the potential future of lamar odom. that’s why i’m so lamar-centered all the time and probably sound like a broken record. bringing out the second coming of magic goddamn johnson is something the coaching staff should be giving every effort to make happen.
scored 20+, still dished and rebounded like a madman. god i love him.
like joel myers pointed out, it was good to see the lakers really looking to exploit mismatches against him. let’s hope that’s the start of a new trend too. get him on the wing against big men, put him in the post against smaller guys.
chris henderson says
I hate to sound like a broken record, but…
end of the first half, lakes up by 10, so it’s not that bad, but, damn, LO and Chris Mihm are still trying finger rolls when they are right under the basket! ..of course they roll out, or are blocked.
I ask you, if you could dunk the ball, and you got a rebound under the hoop, would you try a soft touch bank/finger roll,…or would you SLAM DUNK the darn thing??????
if they did, we’d be up by 18.
Kurt says
This was the first game I’ve had to miss, “watching” only online, so I’d love to know what you out there saw.
john says
well, it looked like your “threaten smush’s starting job” technique worked well. lakers went small and he still started, but sasha started in place for cook because of matchups.
kobe played much more in control. his points came pretty natural and for the most part seemed rather effortless. not perfect, but jordanesque.
lamar did everything. phil took advantage of kukoc’s inability to match his speed and lamar worked him. like i said before, his game tonight was very magic johnson– he was a significant scorer, yet he still almost managed to get ten assists, worked the boards and he too didn’t appear to be straining all that hard or completely dominating the ball to do it. the other players [mihm, parker] were cutting hard and fast for him.
the defense was pretty lax in the first half, but you can argue it could afford to be since they were up by ten+. they coasted then in the second half locked it down. smush’s hands were everywhere, besides the 7 steals he registered.
sasha got kicked in the face during a dunk and bled a bit.
profit threw the worst alley-oop pass i’ve ever seen in the second quarter. it looked like he was trying to bank the ball off the backboard from 25 feet away and have it land in the backcourt, which it practically did.
chris henderson says
at one point I was going to make the comment, “why is it that Smush Parker is our strongest player taking it to the hole?” I mean, in the first half, he had the biggest dunk, (taking off just inside the free throw line), while LO and Mihm were trying these weak teardrops and finger rolls, …but then, in the second half, I did see Mr. Mihm do some surprisingly strong dunks, it just makes me wonder why??? why doesn’t he do that more often?
someone needs to get to Phil, tell him to work with an editor, make some demo reels from the season, showing how ineffective both LO and Mihm have been when going soft to the hole, and how EFFECTIVE, (either it goes in, or they get fouled) when they go strong!
Gatinho says
Getting the MIL feed on NBALP, the visiting teams announcers were surprised at the “good Laker defense” and the Lakers “clicking on all cylinders.” LO had a great game because MIL let him go left all night. They also commented on the “length and quickness” of Smush and Sasha together in the backcourt on the smaller Bucks guards.