LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.– The Los Angeles Lakers might have missed out on out on convincing Kawhi Leonard to join LeBron James and Anthony Davis and form a “huge three” last summer, but Lakers coach Frank Vogel states L.A.s team defense is ending up having the very same impact another All-NBA person contributed to the mix would have had.
” Thats as powerful a weapon there remains in one of these playoff runs. Its as effective as a super star,” Vogel stated after L.A. beat the Houston Rockets 110-100 on Thursday to go up 3-1 in their Western Conference semifinal series. “If you have an elite defense, that can be your third star, so to speak.”
Beyond holding Houston to 43.4% shooting as a group, L.A. limited James Harden to just 21 points on 2-for-11 shooting from the field. Even with Harden making 16 of 20 totally free throw attempts, he was kept well listed below his league-leading average of 34.3 points per game.
James, who simply missed out on a triple-double with 16 points, 15 rebounds and 9 helps in Game 4, highlighted just how remarkable an accomplishment the Lakers defense is attempting to pull off versus Harden.
1 Related” James is probably among the very best offensive players that weve ever seen in this league,” the Lakers star said. “I mean, he had 20 totally free toss attempts and were trying to not put him to the free toss line. One of our strategy is to not put him to the free toss line and were trying to not put him to the free toss line, and the guy is simply so creative that he was still able to get 20 free throw attempts.
And like I said, hes really tricky with his relocations in the paint, where he gets to the complimentary toss line. Were just trying to take away some things. We try to follow the game strategy and see what takes place from there.”
L.A. caught Harden 17 times in the pick-and-roll Thursday, which is more than two times the amount of times he has been caught in a playoff game in the past six years, according to Second Spectrum data. The Lakers trapped the former MVP 13 times overall in the very first three games of the series.
The Rockets balanced just 0.714 points per belongings when the Lakers trapped Harden in Game 4. It was a significant drop-off from the 1.13 points per possession Houston averaged in the regular season, which ranked ninth in the league.
” When you have the self-confidence you can go 4, 5, 6 belongings where youre simply squeezing the other teams offense, getting stops and after that with our ability to run the flooring with LeBron James being the quarterback of that action and being in attack mode, we have strong belief in what we can achieve as a group,” Vogel said.
Despite the protective showing, Davis– who was the runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year this season to the Milwaukee Bucks Giannis Antetokounmpo– was not pleased with his performance on that end.
” I feel I was an action slow on protective rotations tonight. I feel I can be better defensively,” said Davis, who led the Lakers with 29 indicate choose 12 rebounds, 5 helps and 2 blocks. “Kind of got knocked off my rhythm early [in Game 4] But for me to just keep going, I go in and attempt to get offending rebounds, screen for my colleagues, do all the intangibles and ensure I can affect the game in other methods besides just scoring the basketball.”
L.A. will have a possibility to liquidate the Rockets in Game 5 on Saturday and advance to the Western Conference finals for the very first time because 2010.
“It can always get much better. Strategy A with safeguarding James Harden is do not put him on the free throw line and we provided him 20 totally free toss attempts. We got to make sure were doing a better task there, however in general, were simply attempting to limit him and make him as uncomfortable as we can.
” Hes seen every coverage there is in the world and he knows how to attack it. Like I stated the whole time with this group and with him: Were not going to be comfy due to the fact that we understand what hes capable of. So, we just got to continue to enjoy movie, improve, enhance the strategy each video game that we play and ideally get much better in Game 5.”
One of our game strategies is to not put him to the free throw line and were trying to not put him to the complimentary toss line, and the guy is just so creative that he was still able to get 20 complimentary throw efforts.
And like I said, hes very tricky with his moves in the paint, where he gets to the totally free toss line. For me to just keep going, I go in and try to get offending rebounds, screen for my teammates, do all the intangibles and make sure I can affect the video game in other methods besides just scoring the basketball.”
We got to make sure were doing a better task there, however in general, were simply attempting to limit him and make him as uncomfortable as we can.
We simply got to continue to enjoy film, get much better, enhance the strategy each game that we play and ideally get better in Game 5.”
