Horrible game yesterday. Turnovers and fouls and poor shooting. The good news is that those things are fixable.
Tactically a few notes. The lakers learned from game 2 and put AD on JMG instead of Greene so he wouldn’t get pulled into every pick and roll. In theory this is good for us since it keeps AD out of the paint but that is only true if he has to respect JMGs shooting, which he didn’t yesterday. Some of that can be fixed by shooting luck. We can also use JMG in the pick and roll to bring AD in, but he just isn’t a great screener and roll man so that isn’t great.
A few options:
1. Go smaller. Put GP2 in the JMG spot. Better defense, and he’s a good screener, but same streaky shooting issues. Or put DDV or Moody there. Run 3 guards with more lineups with Greene as the only big. Looney only comes in to spell green, ideally when AD is resting. This will force AD on Greene or on a shooter and keep him out of the paint. We may lose some rebounding but force Rui or their other non AD bigs to defend in space. The issue is this relies on Dray to stay on the court and out of foul trouble which has been a problem in the two losses.
We can also try Kuminga. Same issue as JMG in that they will put AD on him and sag off but he can at least pressure the rim more and is a better defender then JMG.
Tactically a few notes. The lakers learned from game 2 and put AD on JMG instead of Greene so he wouldn’t get pulled into every pick and roll. In theory this is good for us since it keeps AD out of the paint but that is only true if he has to respect JMGs shooting, which he didn’t yesterday. Some of that can be fixed by shooting luck. We can also use JMG in the pick and roll to bring AD in, but he just isn’t a great screener and roll man so that isn’t great.
A few options:
1. Go smaller. Put GP2 in the JMG spot. Better defense, and he’s a good screener, but same streaky shooting issues. Or put DDV or Moody there. Run 3 guards with more lineups with Greene as the only big. Looney only comes in to spell green, ideally when AD is resting. This will force AD on Greene or on a shooter and keep him out of the paint. We may lose some rebounding but force Rui or their other non AD bigs to defend in space. The issue is this relies on Dray to stay on the court and out of foul trouble which has been a problem in the two losses.
We can also try Kuminga. Same issue as JMG in that they will put AD on him and sag off but he can at least pressure the rim more and is a better defender then JMG.