A natural skepticism of Luka Doncic being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers was how their team defense would be impacted. Trading away an all-world defensive center in Anthony Davis and relying on Jaxson Hayes would warrant plausible concern.
However, head coach JJ Redick embraced that challenge and it is not to say that Doncic has played poor individual defense. He is averaging two steals since arriving in L.A., showing that he can read and play passing lanes.
After a recent matchup with the Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans forward Trey Murphy credited them for playing smart defense, via The Young Man and The Three:
“Pretty good team, really good team. I think the biggest thing that stood out to me is them defensively. They play a really smart defense where they shut off driving lanes, they help off of guys and they try to funnel everything into the paint. But, also try to take away paint points. It’s really hard to explain, but they do a lot of peel switching. Where if one guy gets beat, there’s another guy there that takes the driver and they kick out to the 3-point line. It’s pretty good defense, I guess JJ [Redick] has done something good with defense for once in his life.”
The Lakers having the No. 1 ranked defense over the last few weeks comes as a shock given the losses of Davis and Max Christie. Hayes deserves credit for stepping up big time to fill that massive void and Murphy acknowledged his former teammate thriving in this new role:
“If you look at the numbers, Jaxson [Hayes] has been the number one defensive big since February 1. I think that’s where people had their worries, but they defend really well as team and then Jaxson, he’s tall, athlete, defends in space, he’s able to protect the rim. And then offensively, all he has to do is stand in dunker’s spot and Luka and LeBron are going to find him. It’s really not much that he has to do that he can’t do, like he’s able to do all those things at a high level. I think he’s filled that so called ‘void,’ that everybody thought was going to be present with the Lakers because he’s been able to do so.”
Redick has had to get creative with his schemes on both sides of the ball, but mainly defensively. It shows a high level of buy-in from his players to simply play hard on the defensive end and that has led to results.
Come postseason time, hopefully, these positive defensive trends will carry over when games kick up a notch.
JJ Redick had conversations with Rams’ Sean McVay before taking Lakers job
As a rookie head coach, JJ Redick stepped into a situation with serious expectations to win a championship before LeBron James retires. Leading up to getting the job, Redick shared that he held conversations with L.A. Rams Super Bowl coach Sean McVay to get some advice on coaching.
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