Episode 47: Lakers/Wizards Film Breakdown On LockerRoom

probably like twenty minutes after I'm done. Uh So, Roger and I, you know, we talked a lot about how we wanted to, you know, kind of find areas and and Lakers coverage that haven't already been done or aren't already being done to a great extent, and that's why we've been doing our postgame shows and things along those lines.

Uh And I wanted to just kind of taking a take this opportunity to try some of this film breakdown stuff to see what you guys think if it's something you guys are interested in, you know how it is. We're just kind of rolling with the punches, and we appreciate you guys feedback and anything that you guys can let us know about how we can provide better content for you guys, if you guys could just let us know. But anyway, I wanted to focus on the second half

last night. I've always been you know, when you watch games like this, I feel like you learn the most when the game is decided. That's why I focused on the second half. Um, that run there in the middle of the in the middle of the third quarter is where everything went off the rails. That's when the game was decided. Everything leading up to that it's just teams kind of feeling each other out. But then when the team kind of gains their advantage and goes on their run,

that's when the game has decided. So that's when I focused on it. There were a bunch of interesting things that I noticed from the film and you can see them on my Twitter page. I put the handle in the name of the of the locker room here. Um that underscore Jason LT. If you guys follow that, you'll see the full thread where I broke down not every play, but just about every play and in that run to start the third quarter. Um, you can kind of get

appeal for what I was noticing, you know. So I want to start with uh with Drummond's defense, because that was the big talking point last night, and you know, one of the big things that that stood out to me First of all, when you look at the numbers, the Lakers defend extremely well with everybody on the roster. To this point in the season, with exception of Andre Drummond, every single player on the team has a defensive rating

sub one ten except for Andre Drummond, who's almost one thirteen. Now, it's important to understand that defensive rating is a team related stat. Drummond has only played eleven games. In the last five games, the Lakers defensive rating is up over if I'm not mistaken, right around one third team. So as a team, they haven't been playing great defensively. I think that's important context there, because roughly half of drummonds games they haven't been defending. Well, that's gonna throw off

some of his stats. But then the question becomes how much of a roles drum into playing that? And when we watched the film, the big thing that stands out to me is just awareness. You know, drummonds criticism throughout his career has always been inconsistent awareness and inconsistent effort. Talk to anybody you watched him in Detroit, anybody who

watched him in Cleveland. You know, once every four or five games he would look like Bill Russell where he's just flying around everywhere, he's breaking everything up, and then the next four games he would just be a shell of that type of impact. And in my opinion, it comes down to a couple of different things. It's not

just playing art, it's paying attention. And if you look in that read that I that I put out, you can see so many examples of him just being a step slow in his reactions and not being really aware of what's happening around him. And Russell Westbrook is basically careening down the floor and uh, keeping his eye on Drummond and just waiting for him to stop paying attention for a second and then firing the ball to Alex Lynn whoever it is that he ends up for another

layup or for another dunk. And you know, uh, if you look at the Lakers defensive scheme in general, you know there's all this There's always been this idea that they defend teams by being huge. That kind of started last year with with Dwight Howard and with JaVale McGee. This idea that you know, we're just so big, we're gonna block a million shots. Teams can't score on us because we're so big, And the truth of the matter is is that was never the reason why they were

so good defensively. They were so good defensively because Frank is an amazing XS and those defensive coach, and they have unbelievable effort and focus from their perimeter players defensively, that is the reason why their defense actually went up a level without Dwight and Javail, And that is the

reason why their defense still looks so elite. When Lebron and a d are out, they just fly around on the perimeter, chasing guys off the three point line, flying around in rotations to help each other off the double teams and things along those lines. That's what makes their defense so intimidating and so productive. And so you know, it's easy to think like, oh, we bring Drummond back and we're just gonna be like we were last year.

But the truth of the matter is the only reason that last year is the only real impact that those bigs had on last year's defense with shop walking, Lakers led the league in shop blocking last year. But shot blocking is just a small part of defense, and that's been proven right this year without successful they've been without those two guys, But had Drummond, a guy who is essentially a weak link in their focus chain, a weak link in their effort chain, a weak link in their

awareness chain. On defense, it just causes these breakdowns that lead to wide open dunks and wide open layups and things along those lines. And so if you look in that thread, you'll see three or four examples where you know he's kind of paying attention, Like here comes across screen for brad Lewton, for Bradley Beale, and he's aware of the screen is happening, but like he's not really

paying attention to what his responsibilities are there. Like guess what, Like you're you're you've already got separation from Alex Lennon. You've made a gap. They call it opening up um in making an opening for k CP to run through, And you've made that opening. But then you run with Beal anyway, So you're you've basically defended as though you're expecting KCP to follow Bill, but then you follow Bill anyway. Alex Lynn is wide open, Russ throws it to him

for a dunk. That's just that's like it's like you're trying, but you're not paying attention. You're not putting the brain work into it. And there was another one in there where in transition, alex Lynn just goes and sets a pin down for Bradley Beal coming out of the corner and on a sequence like that, which you prefer to do as a big is show on the screen so that Beale can't just curl it and fire away wide open, which is the right way, the right way to defend

that play. However, he's slow to get there on the pin down, so if be able to come off, he would have been open anyway. And then when alex Lenn slipped the screen, he was slow to recover back to alex Lynn, And so essentially he's again trying on defense, he's just not paying attention well enough for his athletic tools to really be impactful. And I think that that's

been a recurring theme so far from him defensively. That's why if you look at highlights, you'll see these moments where you know he looks like he's a deeply impactful I mean, look at that first sequence in his first game when he came back, when he when he blocked that shot on that second jump, you know, along the baseline in that first game, it's like, oh, man, like

we haven't had this since last year. That's awesome, But the actual totality of the product in all of the plays together, um, there's a lot of mistakes mixed in there, and that's where that's where it's really really hurting them. And then you know, shifting towards him on the offensive end, you know it's there's again a ton of good and bad. And that's kind of like the theme with the Drummond

experienced so far. You look at uh in that film threat I did, there are a couple of really really awesome sequences of the chess match of the Drummond Davis offensive experience. That first play of the of the second half and that thread that I put out Drummond is kind of standing in the dunk your spot. The Lakers try to run pick and roll with Dennis Shuder and

Anthony Davis. They just switch it and then they have Russell Westbrook front Anthony Davis because they know Alex Land is right behind him because he doesn't have to guard Drummond. And so what do they do. They flash Andre Drummond to the free throw line. They throw it to the free throw line, forces Alex Land to step up on Drummond, which then leaves Anthony Davis open over the top for a for a foul. Rust ends up having to foul

and to stop him from laying it in. Then they run these cross screen actions where they basically just have Drummond screen for a D so he can kind of flash to the semi circle and take a little jumper, a little floater or whatever it is that he takes from from up there. First time they run it, the Wizards switch, but they're a little slow. It's a wide open shop for a D. He makes it. Second time they run it, the Wizards switch. They switch it more aggressively.

Now Ruy Hatchamura is on Drummond, Drummond just ducks in and Kuzma throws it um to Drummond for an easy layup and one. These are all examples of the good of having this kind of size advantage. You know. Again, it's the Wizards switch everything. That was one of the big things I noticed in that second half. And the Lakers are gonna face some teams that switch everything along the way, namely the Clippers and the Nets and those

specific teams. There's a tendency for teams to try to force the ball to the big man against the small man, and they think that's how you beat a switching defense, and there's some truth to that, but it has to be the way the Lakers were doing it with Drummond, which is a deep seal where he can just catch

and go up. Because rests allowed so much physical contact from smaller players against post players in those matchups that if you throw it down to the post and he's ten feet away from the rim and he has to back him down and make a play, it makes all of this opportunity for defensive help to come in and for the small man to you know, shove his knee up as his asked or whatever it is he's got to do to push him out of the lane where the refs aren't going to call anything. There's all these

ways where it can go wrong. Well, that kind of thing, that a deep seal from Andre Drummond. That's a really interesting way to attack a switching defense. Because ruy Hatchamura is a big, strong wing. I mean, he's the guy who guarded Lebron for the most part in their matchup earlier when when a d was out and when that happened, Ruyama was every bit is you know, big and physical and imposing as any defensive wing that Lebron had went

up against and actually had some success against. Lebron. Well, he can't guard Andre Drummond when he gets that deep under the basket, and you saw that in those sequences when he would get a deep seal uh lay up. And so that those are the interesting good parts of having Drummond on the floor as a way to attack around the rim against the switching defense. But there was a lot of bad from Drummond, and as you could

probably imagine, has to do with spacing. So, I mean, we've we've talked about this all at length another podcasts, but yes, you know, Anthony Davis is clearly extremely intent on plane with the center. He has made that abundantly clear and every single one of his interviews that it's very important to him that somebody next to him is banging around with bodies and taking all of the physical punishment while he gets to focus on being mainly a

perimeter player. That's that's all uh, Anthony Davis cares about. He has also said I'm only to play the five when I have to, and that's great. However it it became really clear after those comments from a d yesterday when he said that um that that he is really

invested in that Andre Drummond partnership. It's very clear that the Andre Drummond signing was probably a reaction to the fact that Anthony Davis didn't really get the feeling that Marcus al was accomplishing that goal, which we all disagree with. I'm pretty sure I would imagine if I told you guys, you all would say that you prefer Marcosol, But uh,

right now, Anthony Davis is calling the shots. It would seem with that specific rotation decision, And all we can hope is that when push comes to shove that Frank Vogel will, for lack of a better term, have the stones to to step up to everybody in the room and be like, hey, it's time for us to put Marcusol out there. But you can see it really interestingly with the with the spacing. So this is something I

noticed for the first time in that Mavericks matchup. Actually it was the Orlando Magic matchup at the end of the game when they started spamming Dennis Shrewder and Andre Drummond kick and roll with Anthony Davis in the corner and Shrewder just picked them apart. When they use Andre Drummond as the screener, it allows the uh the Lakers to generate enough space for Dennis Shorter to gain an advantage which he can then use to pick apart the defense.

When they use Anthony Davis as the screener, Andre Drummond's man just camps in the paints, completely shutting down any driving lane and clogs up the entire action. And that's been the story of the Laker offense for two years. When it wasn't Drummond, it was Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee. But and there were even some moments early this year where they would for whatever reason, use Marcusolo in the dunker spot, which was a huge waste of what he

does offensively, especially at his age. But I really think that's interesting because you know, think about the Warriors. For example, the Warriors know that teams don't want to guard Draymond Green, but if they use Draymond Green as the screener, it makes it harder for you to ignore Draymond Green, because if you ignore Draymond Green, he can pick you apart in that short role where he sets the screen, they

double steph Curry. He just kind of pops about ten ft away so step can loop it over the top and he catches it barreling down the lane to either lay the ball in or kick it out to a shooter. Where Draymond Green becomes completely useless on the offensive end is when he's not involved in the screening action and he's standing somewhere else on the floor and they can

completely ignore him. Well, that's what the Lakers have a problem with with Andre Drummond, if they put him off the ball at all whatsoever, that he just gets completely ignored. And that would be fine if he was like montrez as a finisher, because that's the same problem to have with Montrese. The difference is Mantres is such a monster finisher around the basket. If he catches it, he's gonna

make it or he's gonna get fouled. Well, Drummond will miss every easy layup he takes and then make a handful of these crazy chaotic layups, and his finishing percentage will be crazy low and he'll have a you know, like, I think his field goal percentage this year is right around I think so he doesn't make you pay enough in the dunker spot to bring value, and then they completely ignore him anywhere else on the floor, which is making it so that any action they run with Drummond

out of the screening action is just easy to shut down. That makes Anthony Davis one of the best pick and role players in the league useless, are more useless than he should be with that poor spacing. Then they take Drummond put him as the screener and everything opens up. And if you look in that thread, you'll see a lot of examples of Dennis Shrewder getting separation, getting to the rim, dropping to dropping to Drummond kicking out the shooters when Anthony Davis was spotting up at the three

point line and Andre Drummond was the screener. Enrollment, it's obviously the best way to use him when he's in the lineup, which for the record, there's some advantage there, especially when Lebron comes back, because Lebron is just a little bit better and all of the things that Dennis does and as so much better as a score um. But at the end of the day, like you know, the Lakers went on a huge run in the fourth

quarter with a D at the five. And it's really simple why, because you lose all of those defensive mistakes that Drummond made, all of his slow defensive awareness. You're taking that weak link in their defensive chain and you're swapping it out for another guard who is a strong

link in their defensive chain. And and then on the other end, you're getting that same spacing they were getting with Drummond as the screener, except now Anthony Davis is the screener, and you've got the same amount of shooting around that, and it's just a much more devastating attack. And that's how Anthony Davis got going in isolation. You just have more room to work with. That's how Dennis

got going. Everything about the way that that lineup works is better, and the only silver lining if you're a Lakers fan, the only thing that should make you feel good about this is last year in the postseason, the Lakers played about six of their minutes with a D at the five. So if there's one now, a lot of that was uh, markis Morris at the five, But technically a D is the five in that case, and uh and Markief is just a better player this year than he was last year, although he's in a little

bit of a cold spell right now. But if there's one silver lining, that obvious advantage of the gain with a D at the five, we can be relatively certain that the Lakers are going to use that and use it often when they get to the postseason. I just think it's it's really jarring because you know, it seems like, really, you know, it seems like really uh simple and easy to be like, oh, the Lakers are better with a D at the five. The Lakers are better with a

D at the five. You know, Drummonds bad, Drummonds bad. But then you watch the film and it's like, really really easy to see how that impacts things when Drummond is off the ball. Ever, a two man action becomes two on three. You had russ on Dennis, you had Rudy hatch Mura on a D and Alex Len just playing free safety behind them. Then all of a sudden, when they would move Drumming into the screener position, Alex Len, the slow footed center is now directly involved in the

screening action. Rudy hatcher Mura is off the ball trying to guard Anthony Davis, who is a shooter and Dennis Shooter now has the ability to attack and get into the lane and make things happen. It really is that simple. Um, let's see, I had a couple other things I wanted to hit on. I want to hit on Anthony Davis's offense and then talent talent Horton Tucker And when I thought about him last night again, UM, if you guys have any questions, drop him into the comments and I'll

hit him at the end. And as usual with this locker room stuff, if you want to hop in and talk, all you gotta do is drop a speaker request. That's the whole point of me doing these And I would love to have you hop in, okay offensively with Anthony Davis. So you know, when he's coming back from this injury, there's been a lot of people talking about how great he looks physically. Um, I think he looks great in the sense that he's healthy, which is all that really matters.

But he does I think have quite a ways to go in terms of really, uh getting his athleticism back. And the dead giveaway to me was there was a play late in the fourth quarter where if you remember, he tried to do a um. He tried to do like a a put back dunk, then he missed it, got the offensive rebound like power dribble, went back up for another put back dunk, and he missed them both off the back of the rim a d from the bubbles dunking both of those, And I don't I don't

think it's a concern. I just think it goes to show you that he still has a level he can get to in his conditioning and his life strength where he's gonna be a more athletic center around the basket. Uh. The example, the example I would give is right before my sophomore year, I broke my foot and I was fully healed when I got into training camp, but I just didn't trust that foot to jump off of. I didn't quite have that confidence in it to to really take off. And I was really a bad player for

the first half of that season. And then I kind of regained my confidence in that foot in conference play and I ended up making the All Conference team because I was much much better in conference play. It just too there's a health phase, but then there's the confidence phase. And this was literally a d s Achilles like he's at that health phase. But he has to regain the confidence in his achilles to really trust it when he

plants off of it. And ironically, it's one of the big concerns I had for Lebron because he you know, he had his growing thing, but other than that growing thing, he hasn't really had an extensive lower body injury at all in his career, and so this is the first time that he's going to be getting back on the floor and not really trusting one of his feet to

plant on when he's elevating in the lane. And so I hope that he doesn't go through a similar phase where he's healthy but not confident and has to regain that confident confidence in the limb in his leg. Now, the one thing that makes me feel a little better is I think, if I remember correctly, it's his right ankle, and uh, he's always been a left leg jumper. When he gets into the lane. He can't go off two ft when he needs to, but he's left foot jumper

type of player. Um, And so I'm less worried about him regaining his confidence as far as a d Offensively, though, I thought it was good to see him regain his confidence in his jumper He's been a bad jump shooter for most of the season. That's the thing that's kind of frustrating. He came back from the Bubble in December and had like a little five to ten games stretch where he was from three and still making some mid

range jump shots. But then he tanked. And it wasn't just injury related, like for literally like thirty games or whatever it was that he played there, and he played twenty seven games, called like called like twenty games. You know, after its hot start, he just couldn't make a jumper. It's bad from three, bad from mid range. He was just a shell shell of himself from the same point of confidence in his jump shot. And he actually, I want to say he at one stretch missed thirty two

out of thirty six three point shots. That's like something crazy like eleven or something along those lines. Um, So it was good last night to see him really have a shot chart that resembled what he did in the bumble. In the bubble, which is just three level scoring, scoring at the rim, making shots in isolation at a mid range, and he made two threes and putting a big one in the fourth quarter. I mean that the Lakers weren't

really in a position to win the game. But it was absolutely a a uh somewhat meaningful shot in the sense that it got the game back to nine points with you know, roughly five minutes left, and and it was just good to see. And he stepped into it. He's a little bit behind the line, was on the right wing. He's probably like seven ft and just and just nailed it. So I think he looks good and confident. The jump shot is the most important thing to keep

an eye on. It looks healthy, but I think people forget just how good he is as an athlete and uh, and he's so spindily and long, and we see him get dunks anyway that we think he's healthy. But I think he still has a long way to go in a good way. But I think he has a long way to go to recovering um how good he was as a as a as an athlete from before the injury. The last thing I wanted to touch on before I get you guys out of here is uh um is

talent hornon talk. So uh, he had a really bad stretch uh there at the end of that Wizard's run. So the Wizards got it to ten on a on a play where Drummond lost alex landon transition again for the third time in the third quarter, and alex Land ended up getting a uh like a little hook shot that he made in Kuzma came over the top of him and fouled him. And it was like seventy eight

to sixty eight or something along those lines. And so incomes Montrez Harold for Andre Drummond, and then they brought in Tell Horton Tucker for Dennis Shooter. That was the sub pattern, and uh, you know, Washington, for the record is an is absolutely a much better defense than we all think. Uh. Then we all think they are based on what they were early in the season. In their last I think it's like a month or so month and a half if you throw out garbage time, they've

actually been the top ten defense in the league. And a big part of that has to do with them playing more athleticism, you know, with with Chandler Hutchinson and and uh with Ruey Hotching Murra, who has been playing all season, but he's just the channel. Like Rudy hutch Mura is developing into like a really really good three four forward defender. And then you know, Russell Westbrook has regained most of his athleticism after looking pretty washed to

start the season. And Alex lim Is, you know, every bit as good as any starting level, middle of the pact type of center that you'll find in the league. And Bradley Beals Okay, I thought he was pretty sloppy defensively last night, but they're a good defensive team. And town Warton Tucker really didn't know what to do with

the Robinetto and and Ish Smith. We're putting a ton of ball pressure on him, and the ball pressure really seems to throw him off, which is crazy because he has a distinct advantage in the sense that he's stronger, and he's taller, and he's longer than most of these little guards he's gonna go against. So he has a physical advantage that he can use. But he seems to be a little bit discombobulated by ball pressure, and it

ball preusser. One of the one of the big reasons why teams like to employ ball pressure is not to force turnovers necessarily, but just too fatigue players and to accelerate that make them make decisions faster than they want to. You know, a lot of guards want to see the floor slowly because that's how they can pick a defense apart. But if you ball pressure a guy and force him to drive past you, now he's kind of going at a faster pace than he wants to and it could

force him to make some mistakes. And there was a sequence they're right at the end of my thread that I did where you know in uh, He's handling the ball top of key against ball pressure and Montress a deep seal and he throws the ball over the top of Montres, believes it way short, and they steal it

and run the other way. Then the next possession is Smith is ball pressuring him again just like I said, got on his backside and forced him into the paint, drives right into Alex Lynn, has absolutely no angle and just does some like crazy scooping flip shot over his right shoulder that's not remotely open, and I think it ended up like hitting the corner of the backboarder or something. And then the very next possession um the Lakers end up getting a kick out three to Ben McLamore and

talent Horton. Tucker runs back on defense and gets into the painted area, which is what you're supposed to do for the record, when you're the first man back, you r under the basket. But Ben mclimore uh later in the sequence is screaming at th H team, pointing at Bradley Beale in the in the right corner for him to get out to the shooter. Th HT is way way way way too slow to react is and paying attention even though other Lakers at this point had already

gotten back. And bradleybial makes a three and just like that fifteen point game and you know, once you once you get up to the you know few team plus type of margin, the game takes on a completely different feel because now you damn you have to play perfect. And that's literally what happened. The Lakers went to the eighty at the five, and they really uh got stuff going offensively and started playing better defense. But if you watch,

there's just some crazy shots that get made. Brad the deal after time out shoots a little step back over case be tough, contested shot makes it, you know, Ruby Hatchmurra and a close out does like a step back I think it was on Kyle Kuzma, but contested step back shot makes it. And then another play Russell Westbrooke

in and semi transition attacks Kyle Kuzma. Kind of a questionable call, probably not a foul, but it gets called and Russ makes it anyway, And you know, those seven points there completely uh closed the door on you because you're down fifteen and you have to play perfect. And all they have to do is even if they played bad basketball, they just have to make a few shots and they're gonna win at that point. Um. So, as far as th HT goes, you know, I think I

think I've been pretty consistent about this all year. I I think he has all all All Star type potential, and especially on the defensive end. He's been one of the best defenders on the Lakers this year when he's engaged. But he has two fatal flaws. He can't shoot, which directly impacts the Lakers spacing, which is not just about him in his percentages, it's about everybody. It affects the Bronze ability to get in the lane, and impacts Anthony Davis's ability to get in the lane, and it impacts

Dennis Shuter's ability to get in the lane. Everybody hurts when you have one non shooter on the floor and then on the defensive end, he oh, by the way, that stuff which th h T is shooting that just gets exaggerated in the postseason, like everybody takes those same defensive principles they employed in the regular season and just exaggerates the hell out of him to take away stars. Then on the defensive end and he's engaged. He's one

of their best defensive players. But it's the lapses. You know, if you think of we think about um defense in terms of points per one hundred possessions, right, like what essentially just scoreboard? How many points are you giving up? And you know th HD can play really good defense on three possessions, but make a catastrophic mistake where he's not paying attention that leaves a shooter open. And let's say they make a tough shot on one of the

other possessions. Now all of a sudden, they've scored five points in four possessions. That's a defensive rating of a hundred and twenty. Like that's how bad at a catastrophic mistake can be on the scoreboard, even if you do your job on other possessions. Whereas let's say a lesser defender, someone like Ben Macklemore. For instance, Let's say Ben Maclimore is not as impactful when he's engaged, but he doesn't

make the catastrophic mistake. Maybe they'd make, you know, two tougher shots, and they're both two pointers, and now they've scored four points in four possessions. That's the one defensive rating. Essentially, what I'm saying is you would rather have a lesser defensive player who doesn't have mental apses than a th ht who's got like Mini Kawhi Leonard type potential but has these like brain farts that give up wide open

shots to fantastic shooters that can swing games. And we've seen a lot of examples of that this year, starting with that Toronto Raptors game earlier this year where he let Gary Trent Jr. Get going, all right, I am almost that. I'm just gonna check the questions real quick to see if you guys have any questions. I've got one in here already. If you guys have any other questions, just drop him in the comments and I'll hit him before I get out of here. What are your thoughts?

This is from Vankotech. What are your thoughts on Wes Matthew's absence from the rotation recently outside of drum and Gets and Gassol in eighty at the five lineups, what do you think will be the odd man out to get squeeze out of the rotation in the playoffs. So as far as far as West Matthews goes, you know, I think I think the Lakers have gone all in

on a couple of things. One, they're really trying to get um Ben mcamore acclimated and try to get a feel for what he brings to the table as a shooter. Um Ben mcamore has shot okay, not great. I think he was three for ten last night, and I think he's up to I think he's like thirty seven percent or something like that on the season. Um, if he's only going to shoot thirty seven percent from three, the trade op doesn't make sense and you end up going

with someone like West. Um. But if Lebron comes back and he ends up being a thirty eight percent UH contested shooter and forty five percent wide open shooter, just like a really really effective shooter, then he does he does bring value, and then you are better off playing Ben mcimore because he is an okay defensive player. In their scheme. He did pretty well running around in rotations last night. UM, But as far as West goes, like if if the shooting isn't there for for Mcamore, he's

just a much better defensive option. And it's all matched up dependent. Like I think the Lakers are gonna play a lot of a lot of Wesley Matthews against Brooklyn and against the Clippers because of the fact that they need his strength on the wing to guard bigger wing offensive players, to take that responsibility away from Lebron and a D so they can focus on being back line defenders and and being effective offensive players. So I mean,

it's all it's all gonna be matchup dependent. Let's see, outside of Drummond cassolve in a D at the five lineups, who do you think will be the odd man out they can squeeze in the rotation the playoffs. So let's say let's say the Lakers drop centers entirely. We're looking at in the front court Anthony Davis, Lebron, Kyle Kuzma, Markis Morris, and UM. In that case, I would say that Montrez would probably be benched as well. So you've got four forwards there in Kuzma, lebron A d and Morris.

Then at the guard words, you're choosing between Dennis and KCP, Caruso and th H T Wes Matthews and uh and Ben McLamore. So that's a ten man rotation, you know. I think given the way that the Lakers play, it's not completely unfathomable that all ten of those guys could play in that circumstance, especially given the fact that they're gonna start against Denver and deal with high elevation and

all the impacts that can have on fatigue. But I mean, when push comes to shove, I I personally think that you're gonna see talent Horton Tucker get squeezed, and then you'll see some combination of You're gonna see a lot of Dennis, KCP, Alex Caruso, and then um, I think you'll see West or Ben macalmore based on matchups whether they need a wing defender or they need more shooting.

And then in the front court, the I think you're gonna see Kuzma take more from markis Morris and reason why is Kuzma And this this is the last thing I'll say, because I don't have any more questions in the thread. Uh, Kuzma has turned into a really, really, really solid role player. This is something that's been talked about at length. Last night again, he had eight assists and was just making excellent reads everywhere that he caught the ball on the floor. He's turned into a better

He is a better defensive player than Markis. I think I take Markis as a post defender. So it just depends, like maybe you want, you know, Mark Kief in a in a matchup against uh, someone that's trying to bully you. But outside of that specific matchup, I think Kuzma is

a better defensive player. He's better in rotations, he's better as a help defender, He's got a little bit more length, um and I actually like him better on the perimeter than Marquis, although neither of them are fantastic in that in that role, UM, but Kuzma has turned into a really really solid player. He's that thirty six percent from three now on the season. Marquee, by the way, is lower.

He's at like thirty two on the season. A lot of that has to do with his recent cold streak, but I would imagine that if things really got squeezed and they dropped the dropped. Playing any of their fives, you'd see a lot of You'd see Kuzma, Lebron in a D basically play all the four five minutes, and then like let's say, let's say a D plays you know,

thirty eight minutes in the postseason or forty minutes. You might see eight minutes of Montrez in that in that five role, just because he's a little bit better flying

around in rotations. Um, but you're gonna see a lot of Kuzma, and then my guess as the Keith gets squeezed, and then they'll play UH, they won't play t HD and they'll choose between West and uh Ben mckamore based on the matchups already, let's see any of the questions, should Schroder close every series or there are situations where he shouldn't? I think you should. I think Schroeder is

the one guy you have to play. And the main reason why is because it's a He's become flat out a really good playmaker and talked about that in the thread to that. You can see a couple of examples of that. He's one of their best defensive players at the point of attack, and he's a serviceable I think he's at thirty four percent from three on the season. He's gonna he's gonna make enough threes that that you

have to guard him. And he's a confident shooter from the three point line, a confident and consistently aggressive shooter from three point line in the sense that he doesn't hurt your spacing. UM. The only thing that would be interesting with Schroeder is if the Clippers just like really got good at posting him up on switches with with Kauai or PG, and then they started finding a way to capitalize on Laker double teams out of that and consistently get good looks, and they wanted to find a

way to um to stop double teaming. Then I could see them going with, you know, some crazy line like West Matthews, Alex Crusoe, Kyle Kuzma, Lebron a D where you feel a little more comfortable with any of those guys on an island in the post. It's rather than that I would I would have shorter clothes in every game. I would rather run Gassot with a D off the

bench with Braun out agreed. We talked about that a lot earlier in the show, I'm gonna I'm gonna release the the full length version of this on the podcast feed here in about twenty minutes, and you can see everything I said about that a D and a D should play together as little as possible. Same thing, Marlon. We talked about that a lot. I talked about the differences in the way they guard pick and roll with a D and a D on the floor. Um, just stay tuned for the podcast feed and you'll see all

that stuff. Do you think Mark is going to get the bulk of the five minutes in a Denver series? Do you think they start with Drummond? My guesses are gonna start with Drummond. Um, And if Drummond really, you know, gets barbecued that I think that they will go to Mark as an audible. But there there there's no way they're not going to start with Drummond just as a result of the favor he has from the stars in

the locker room, which isn't fair. I think we all agree Marks better, but it's just the nature of the business. Um A D, Gasol, Kus, Dennis and Crusoe would be nice off the bench in the playoffs, agree Um and he uh, I would run as much a D and Shrewder as you could with Lebron off the floor. And because Lebron is so good when you surround him by shooters. If you actually look at the line up data this year, Lebron on the floor without a D and Dennis is

a net positive. Um. So I think an awesome strategy would be to stagger in a way that has Lebron run the bench lineups with shooting, and then have Dennis and a D run with more of the core guys because they need help. Um. If I'm not mistaken at Dennis and a D is actually a net negative this year, I'll have to look it up. Um. But you want to Your goal there is to always have an advantage when you're on the floor. I trust a D to do or excuse me, I trust Lebron to do more

with less help. So I prefer to have him out there without a D and Shrewder and vice versa. Is Tread's playable verus Denver? Technically I don't think tres is much playable in any playoff matchup. The only reason why you might consider doing it is if you want to get really into a trap and recover type of defense against stars, meaning like you're double teaming yr Kich. Every time down the floor, you're double teaming uh, you know,

Quai every time down the floor, you're double team. You're trapping every Chris Paul pick and roller, You're trapping every Donovan Mitchell pick and roll, and there's it's like living in a consistent state of chaos. I prefer Tred's running around in those rotations to one of those big, lumbering centers. But if they're gonna play straight up coverage, he's not good in any of those matchups. But he did his job. I've said this many times, like, you know, Treads deserves credit.

He did everything the Lakers needed him to do. Lebron and maybe got hurt, and he just ate a ton of innings for them in the regular season. All right, That's all I got, guys, Um, Roger and I are gonna up doing something on Friday. I'm not sure exactly whether or not it'll be a morning podcast or a postgame podcast, but we'll figure something out. I think Lebron is gonna come back on Friday. That's just my guess

based on just the nature of the situation. I think the next two games are absolute must wins against Sacramento in Toronto because they run into some tougher ones after

that against Denver and the Clippers. Um and so, as I've said many times, I think the Lakers absolutely need the five seed for the sake of their playoff run being more manageable as they ramp up with Lebron and a D. And if you look at it, um the the uh, they're one game out of the sixth seed right now, and there are two games out of the

seventh seed. That I could get even more complicated if if Denver passes the Clippers, which is a distinct possibility because they're one game back of the Clippers right now. I think it's two in the lost column, but it's a one game overall against against the Clippers. So if the if Denver left to them and got into the number three, then you'd actually rather be in the sixth seed.

So it gets complicated. But the Lakers can kind of control their own destiny a little bit if they can beat Denver next week, because by winning, by beating Denver, you put yourself in a better position to to pass the Clippers. And uh, but anyway, those Clippers and Nuggets games are not guarantees, especially with the rusty Lebron. You'd prefer to have him have a few more reps going into those games. Anyway, your best bet bring him back on Friday. Let him get his sea legs against two

lesser teams. Although Toronto is not bad and Sacramento is definitely capable. They just beat Dallas the other night. Um, but get to get a couple of wins that you absolutely need against those two teams and then turn around and beat Denver if you can. If you do though, if you do that, you put yourself in a really good position to get the five seed and to keep Denver at the four seed and give yourself a chance to have a manageable playoff run. I mean, I cannot

say this enough without poorly they're playing. I don't know how they beat the Clippers if they catch them in the first round, or even you know, like if they catch them in the first round. I I'm not sure i'd take the Clippers, but man like that gets that gets a lot more complicated. Um. Anyway, thank you guys so much for for hanging out and listening. Thank you guys so much for supporting the pod and for checking out the film Threat and all the good stuff. UM.

Like I said, I'm looking for feedback. Roger and I are constantly looking for feedback and what you guys are looking for in terms of Laker content from us. UM, so don't hesitate to reach out on Twitter and let me know if you guys have any uh comments or anything like that. UM, and UH hang out about twenty minutes or so, I'll have the full length version of based on the podcast right. Al Right, guys, enjoy the rest of your day.