After a pair of frustrating first round exits in recent years, the Lakers exorcised some demons in a cathartic win over the Rockets.
Awaiting them now, though, is the best team in the NBA in the Thunder. To say the Lakers had limited success against OKC in the regular season would be an understatement.
In the two meetings in Oklahoma, LA trailed by 30 before halftime. The only close game between the two sides was when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the likely back-to-back MVP, was out. Even if the Lakers
were without Luka Dončić in that contest — a situation they’ll be in for at least the start of this series — it’s going to take a dramatic improvement from the purple and gold to make this a competitive series.
Predictably, when I fielded questions for the mailbag, all of them were about this upcoming series, ranging from how the Lakers close the gap and what the rotations are going to look like.
So, let’s dive in.
Definitely the offense. The biggest takeaway from those two games in Oklahoma City was how much the Lakers’ offense was out of whack.
The Thunder feast off turnovers. At their worst, LA is prone to bad turnovers. We saw it often in the last series against the Rockets. If they commit those unforced errors against the Thunder, it’s curtains.
In multiple games, Houston used those turnovers to get back into the game, particularly in Games 1 and 2. Oklahoma City will use those turnovers to blow the game open.
Concerningly, Austin struggled mightily in those games, turning the ball over. He’s going to have to handle the ball a lot in this series. It’s going to be a huge ask considering it’s only going to be his third game back, but if the Lakers want to have any chance, they’re going to have to replicate their performance in Game 6 against Houston by being smart and taking care of the ball.
Because if you toss a lazy pass into the post, the Thunder are sprinting the other way for a huge dunk.
I actually wonder how much Vando will play in this series. The Thunder do have athletic wings, but the issues, as always, are going to come on the other end. If the Lakers are going to have a center on the floor that isn’t a floor-spacer, then Vando is forced into one of the corners.
Oklahoma City is one of the best help defenses in the league. Adding a player on that end they don’t have to worry about only strengthens their defense.
It will allow them to either hide one of their centers in Isaiah Hartenstein or Chet Holmgren on Vando or it will allow them to have a player like Alex Caruso or Cason Wallace play free safety and ball hawk.
The old adage goes trust eight, play nine. I think the Lakers’ eight are going to be the starters — Austin, Marcus Smart, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura and Deandre Ayton — along with Jaxson Hayes, Jake LaRavia and Luke Kennard. Vando is the ninth guy that’s going to have to earn some trust.
As for the Adou point, he’s still pretty far away. I know he’s a fun intriguing prospect and I’m very excited to see him in Summer League, but it seems unlikely he’s going to see the court. If things are really going haywire with Vando and the Lakers really need a body out there, maybe. But in that case, I still think they’d turn to even Bronny James before Adou.
I think Austin is going to be the lead ballhandler, but I also think LeBron is going to do a lot of playmaking this round, too.
While the Thunder have a bunch of athletic wings, they don’t have many players built to slow down LeBron. The Lakers have unlocked some things with him in the post and I think they can find ways to exploit that against a smaller OKC team.
Austin also isn’t going to have the legs to be as on-ball as he was earlier in the year. Not with so little time back and heading into a playoff series that’s going to be physically demanding.
It’s going to have to be a different dynamic than it was in March, certainly. No one is going to be as ball-dominant as Luka was, but it won’t be quite as egalitarian as it was early in the Rockets series either. Expect a lot lower usage for Marcus and Luke.
Join the conversation!
Sign up for a user account and get:
- Fewer ads
- Create community posts
- Comment on articles, community posts
- Rec comments, community posts
- New, improved notifications system!
One of my favorite traits about the bubble Lakers was their adaptability. Whatever a series called for, they had the solution. It just required them to drop Game 1 to figure things out. But by Game 2, the staff and players knew what needed to be done.
Being concerned about Redick’s adaptability is fair. It’s going to hang over him for a while after playing five players in a second half of a playoff game.
But I think the Rockets series showed that he can adapt. Take Game 6, for example. The Lakers went from doubling Alperen Şengün to playing single coverage against him. It was a bold call and required big performances from Ayton and Hayes. But it was the right call as it stalled out the Rockets’ offense.
JJ is still a second-year coach. In the 2019-20 season, Vogel was in his ninth year as a head coach after eight years as an assistant. That’s a library of knowledge he had that Redick didn’t.
In my book, Redick wiped away a fair amount of concerns about his playoff performance with that Rockets series, where he coached laps around Ime Udoka, even if that’s not hard to do.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
