Lakers
It’s been one crazy ride. The most recent development was the passing of owner Dr. Jerry Buss who finally succumbed to his nearly two-year battle with cancer. For those in the know, this was an inevitability just waiting to happen. For the rest of us, this came as somewhat of a surprise—though in this Lakers season, nothing really is surprising anymore.
Rest in peace Dr. Buss—the greatest sports owner in the history of American professional sports and a true visionary who helped mold and create the game that I love.
Heading into the second half of the season, the Lakers will need to close out with a flourish, winning something like 22 of their next 28 games to have a legitimate shot at the playoffs. They do have the West’s third weakest remaining schedule, but have looked more like a team bound for the lottery—not one poised for a run of dominance. In the three games before the All-Star weekend, the Lakers were decimated by the Heat and Clippers and barely hung on for a win against the lowly Suns.
There are three main factors that must be addressed moving forward.
1. A lack of a defensive scheme. The Clippers hit 16 of 30 from behind the arc while the Lakers defense never adjusted. The team typically gives effort early on, but effort alone can’t win against most teams, especially if your team has a sieve like Nash. The team’s effort wanes when they are unsuccessful in getting stops because there is no foundation upon which to rely. The thing is, this team has all of the components to be a good defensive team besides a lockdown point guard. Metta World Peace, Bryant, Earl Clark, Robert Sacre, and Howard are all good to excellent defensive players. Steve Blake, Jodie Meeks, and Darius Morris work hard and are active. Bring in a Van Gundy to coach the team, and the Lakers would be a top five defense. But without a scheme, without assignments, without direction—there is no cohesion or trust. That absolutely carries over to the offensive side of the ball.
2. A penchant for over-shooting triples. Also against the Clips the Lakers took 20 three point shots and made only six. They don’t have the consistent shooters necessary to make D’Antoni’s system work. For all the talk of Bryant needing to give the ball up inside more often, the real culprits seem to be everyone else. Metta World Peace has 36 shots attempts over his last three games and made only 36 percent of them. As good as Earl Clark has been, he too has taken 36 shot attempts while only hitting 38 percent. Antawn Jameson has taken 34 attempts, as many shots as Howard over the past three games despite playing 30 less minutes. He's at least hitting at a 47 percent clip, though Howard trumps them all at 61 percent. Basketball is not played in a vacuum, so it would be unfair to simply talk about shot attempts and say something is wrong. That said, Bryant has 40 shot attempts over that same time period. Nash has 25. And, as previously mentioned Howard has 34. Ball finds energy for sure, but there's something flawed about an offensive system in which your team's three best players aren't getting more shots up then the fourth, fifth, and sixth best players.
3. A passive Dwight Howard. Howard needs to commit to play hard all the time, whether he gets the ball or not, and the team as a collective unit, but especially that second unit, needs to work hard to get him the ball.
Clippers
Fresh off of his first All-Star MVP award, in which he masterfully orchestrated the game’s best players during the first half of the game (15 dimes) and then closed out the contest with timely shots (20 points on 7-10 shooting), Chris Paul appears healthy and ready to make a run at his first championship. He is the key to everything in Clipperdom as was evidenced in the nine games he missed due to his knee.
While the Spurs have probably overtaken the Clippers as the Association’s deepest team, Los Angeles remains 12 men deep. It is this depth that fueled their 17-game win streak earlier this year, allowed them to somewhat withstand a slew of injuries, and will propel them forward heading into the playoffs.
There are three main factors facing the Clippers as well.
1. Paul’s knee. Obviously, the team isn’t championship caliber without its best player. But I believed the team could withstand his loss, having Eric Bledsoe filling in. Bledsoe is most certainly a starting caliber point guard, but his skillset is not ideal as a starter for this team—hence all the trade rumors surrounding him. Paul absolutely must be healthy for the Clippers to have any shot of winning it all.
2. Playing time. When Grant Hill and Chauncey Billups were out with injuries earlier this season, the rest of the team knew their roles and filled them perfectly. The bench was as automatic as the starters. Now that Hill and Billups have returned, however, roles and playing time are less clear. The closing unit had been Paul, Blake Griffin, Lamar Odom, Matt Barnes, and Jamal Crawford. But over the past two weeks, that has changed to at times include Billups and Hill, and disclude Odom, Barnes or Crawford at times. For guys like Hill, Willie Green, and Ronny Turiaf, losing playing time was figuratively written into their contracts. But for guys that are used to closing, like Crawford, Odom and Billups, it remains to be seen how they will react if they don’t get off the pine in future fourth quarters. So far this hasn’t been an issue, but it will be imperative for Vinny Del Negro to maximize his team’s effort and camaraderie by correctly managing the minutes of all of his players.
3. Halfcourt offense. The Clippers set up their entire game plan with their defense activity, which in turn creates turnovers, which then provides transition buckets, which gives way to Lob City. The second unit has been especially good at this. But the playoffs are a different animal. Teams slow everything down, and it remains to be seen how effective the Clippers can be in halfcourt sets. A healthy Billups should help, but Griffin is going to have to take another step in becoming a consistent lowpost threat—which also means he’s going to have to stop complaining after every play.
No comments:
Post a Comment