The Lakers have their ‘death lineup’
As the Los Angeles Lakers head into the playoffs, coach JJ Redick has found a way to maximize the team’s strengths and mitigate its weaknesses.
Rui Hachimura says JJ Redick told his players at the start of the season that his goal was to reach 50 wins and secure the No. 3 seed in the West. Mission accomplished. The Lakers’ risky choice as head coach has paid off.
Redick had no coaching experience and was best known as a media figure and a podcasting colleague of LeBron James, whom he now coaches. But the Los Angeles team heads into the postseason in good shape, on the back of a trade that was unimaginable just a few months earlier: in February, Luka Doncic arrived in a historic deal that sent Anthony Davis to Dallas. Davis had been LeBron’s teammate for the past five years and a key player in the 2020 championship, which was also the last time the team reached 50 wins.
First home-court advantage for over a decade
This will be the first time since 2012 that the Lakers will play the opening game of a playoff series in their home arena in L.A. (The 2020 playoffs were held in the Florida bubble). Surprisingly, this is only the second time that Doncic, who won the West last year with the Mavs, has had home-court advantage in a postseason series. After securing the third seed by defeating the Houston Rockets in the penultimate game of the regular season, he said it was his first time. However, he forgot that in the first round of the 2022 playoffs, which he started in the sick bay, the Mavs had home advantage over the Utah Jazz.
The Lakers are an imperfect team with a low floor. If their role players miss open shots, their offense goes through humdrum phases. Defensively, they need constant effort and no gaps to compensate for the lack of pure specialists in some positions and the departure of Davis, one of the best defenders of the last decade. However, the Lakers have managed without him, with some defensive metrics even surpassing pre-Doncic-trade numbers.
“You will see teams target LeBron and Luka”
According to an unnamed scout who spoke to ESPN, the Lakers’ defense could prove their downfall in the postseason: “Luka has to guard somebody, and you can wear him down. When LeBron is on the weak side, he switches so he doesn’t have to move as much. I’ve seen him do it several times in one possession. In the playoffs you will see teams target LeBron and Luka, put them in the pick-and-roll. The thing with LeBron is he’s not going to foul; you can score on him with the right matchup. With the right personnel he could be exposed on defense in the playoffs. He’s amazing, taking nothing from him, but it’s a worry.”
However, experts also feel the Lakers can turn their theoretical flaws, especially the lack of top-tier big men, into strengths. Noting that Redicks’ Lakers “have leaned into a perimeter-centric scheme that best suits the talents of their roster”, LAFB Network’s Ryan Anderson says the coach has been busy “harmonizing the ball-sharing among their primary scorers [Doncic, LeBron and Austin Reaves] while simultaneously addressing their noticeable lack of traditional interior size.”
Anderson adds: “Interestingly, the Lakers’ lack of a traditional center is somewhat mitigated by their exceptional positional size across the board. Austin Reaves, often the Lakers’ smallest player on the court, stands at a noteworthy 6-foot-5. Even their shorter guards, the 6 foot 2 Gabe Vincent and the 6 foot 4 Jordan Goodwin, bring a significant level of physicality to their roles. This unusual size at the guard and wing positions is part of how Coach Redick has attempted to compensate for the absence of traditional rim protection, utilizing length and strength on the perimeter to disrupt opposing offenses. A significant boost to the Lakers’ perimeter-focused approach has been the synergistic play of Doncic, James, and Reaves. Rather than seeing his role diminish alongside two ball-dominant superstars, Reaves has thrived since Doncic’s arrival via trade, playing arguably the best basketball of his career.”
Reaves’ growth as an outside shooter is crucial, because Doncic and LeBron create enormous advantages for their teammates. Since he has been playing with the pair, Reaves has been the NBA player who takes the most three-pointers without any defender nearby, completely open (5.9 per game). He also makes the most (2.8) because he’s shooting an excellent 46.8%. The fifth player with the most open opportunities is Dorian Finney-Smith, who hits 40.5%. The forward is crucial and transforms the Lakers when he’s hitting from outside. Defensively, he’s one of the most valuable role players in the NBA, one of the few who can genuinely defend all five positions, from point guard to center.
“A battle of wills”
Redick’s plan is working: since the trade deadline, the Lakers have played 14 games against top-10 teams by points differential and won 12. In those games, they’ve posted numbers that would rank them as the fifth-best offense and third-best defense in the NBA. They’ve beaten teams that tried to counter their style with big men, like the Mavericks or the Rockets, whose coach, Ime Udoka, explained the challenge of playing against these Lakers: “Spacing is totally different without [Jaxson] Hayes in there... It’s a battle of wills as far as us playing bigger lineups vs their smaller ones.”
That’s the key: the Lakers start games with a pure big man like Hayes, but before the midpoint of the first quarter, he gives way to Finney-Smith. That small unit (Doncic, Reaves, LeBron, Finney-Smith and Hachimura) is the Lakers’ version of the “death lineup.” A nod to the Warriors’ dynasty because Redick, like Golden State head coach Steve Kerr, doesn’t use it at the start but leans on it in the final quarters, when games need to be won. That lineup has had a +18.6 offensive rating in the last 15 regular-season games, with an offensive efficiency of 124.9. In the final quarters, the number is even better: +22.5 offensive rating.
A style that sows doubts in opposition defenses
Five players who aren’t really that small, who defend very aggressively with constant switches and a lot of energy to protect individual weaknesses, and who have stretches where they seem unstoppable on offense. Of the five, only Doncic is shooting below 40% on catch-and-shoot threes. And it’s not, of course, an optimal strategy to leave the Slovenian open. So you have to watch everyone on the perimeter, creating enormous spaces. Redick creates doubts in opponents and gets his stars to play one-on-one or, even better, to draw significant defensive overloads. In that case, the Lakers generate a four-on-three where two of those four are from the Doncic-LeBron-Reaves trio. A nightmare for any defense that makes these Lakers very dangerous in the playoffs. And their seeding matters: 76 of the 78 NBA champions have finished in the top three of their conference.
And if all else fails, the Lakers currently have the two players with the highest scoring averages in do-or-die playoff games, when their teams know they’ll be out if they lose: LeBron (33.5 with a 58.5% true shooting percentage) and Luka Doncic (33.4 with a 56.2% TS). The closest man to them, in the entire history of the league, is Michael Jordan (31.3 with a 53.7 TS%).
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