Defense is something that the Los Angeles Lakers have typically taken pride in, but that script completely flipped to start the 2024-25 season. That came as a bit of a surprise considering Anthony Davis is manning the middle, but head coach JJ Redick has been trying to find answers to improve on that end of the floor.
Through this early part of the season, the Lakers relied heavily on their offense to keep them in games. Quite simply, the purple and gold could not get enough stops when it mattered most, but that also points out a personnel issue.
However, the script has flipped recently as the Lakers have improved defensively while struggling offensively. The Lakers held the Memphis Grizzlies to 110 points and then Sacramento Kings to 99 and 100 points, which is impressive since those are some of the top offensive teams in the league.
Davis was asked about what he likes most about the team’s defense recently and he pointed out a lot of things that have caught his eye, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Everything that we’re doing defensively, we’re being physical, we’re talking, we’re communicating, we’re covering for one another, we’re rebounding. Our coverages are on point. We’re just flying around doing everything, getting greedy. Anytime you play like that, we know when our offense isn’t always there, we can rely on our defense. We just want to carry that into Monday’s game.”
It feels like a sudden and out-of-nowhere shift, but Davis revealed that their base defense has remained the same. This change comes from the players taking pride on the defensive end and not anything schematically:
“No, not really. It’s game by game. We still have our base defense and then depending on the matchups, we’ll adjust what we want to do. but for the most part it’s just us actually deciding we want to buckle down defensively and play. We were giving up too many points and offensive rebounds and open 3s or fouling, just everything, fastbreak points. We kind of just cleaned all of that up. It was nothing really schematically that we’ve done but we were messing up so many coverages and not covering for one another, not talking, not helping, so you can’t really know if your base defense works. We still stick with our base defense and we’re seeing that it’s working right now because we’re doing the things we’re supposed to do and game by game we’ll change how we defend certain guys or certain teams.”
Many speculated on whether this Lakers squad was ever going to get out of the bottom half of the league in defensive rating. Nonetheless, this recent stretch of games has been promising and hopefully it is sustainable.
Anthony Davis’ wife told him Rui Hachimura saved him after missed free throws
Saturday’s game almost featured another fourth-quarter collapse as Anthony Davis missed two free throws as the Lakers were up two points. However, Rui Hachimura saved the day by getting the offensive rebound after the second miss.
As a competitor, Davis was beating himself up about it and his wife even chimed in to let him know that Hachimura saved him.
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