The Los Angeles Lakers have the potential to be a very good offensive team this season, especially with new head coach JJ Redick’s emphasis on ball and player movement. But their defense is another story.
They were mediocre on that end of the floor last season when they ranked 17th in defensive rating, 25th in 3-point shooting percentage allowed and 27th in fast-break points given up.
However, in their regular season opener on Tuesday, the Lakers held down the Minnesota Timberwolves and allowed just 103 points on 41.2% field-goal shooting and 31.7% 3-point shooting. It resulted in a seven-point win, even though L.A. shot a wretched 5-of-30 from downtown.
Redick praised his team’s defensive effort from Tuesday.
Via Whittier Daily News:
“We had some possessions with textbook multiple-effort plays,” Redick said after Thursday’s practice. “Just the mixture of stuff that we did and then our guys executing the different coverages was really good.”
One thing a basketball team needs in order to excel on defense is trust. Players will need to trust that their teammates will instinctively respond to them and switch appropriately, provide help defense when necessary and stick to the game plan.
Redick says that his players are starting to develop that trust.
“We’re building trust, that’s the biggest thing,” Redick said. “Trust does not happen overnight. It’s a word we’ve used a lot. You need reinforcement of that trust. It can happen in a practice, it can happen in a game, it can happen in a film session. The best reinforcement though is in a game.
“And when you talk about being a process team, you need to certainly get results to sort of build that trust in the process. Our guys are starting to do that.”
On Friday, the Lakers will host the Phoenix Suns, a team that has an outstanding trio of stars in Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Devin Booker. The very next night, they will host the Sacramento Kings, who have added veteran DeMar DeRozan to the terrific tandem of star point guard De’Aaron Fox and standout center Domantas Sabonis.
While L.A. won its season series versus the Suns last year, it failed to beat the Kings in four attempts.