Throughout his eight-year NBA career, Matisse Thybulle has been tasked with guarding all sorts of stars and offensive archetypes. His foremost traits defensively are his anticipation, timing and ability to cause havoc, which helped him earn consecutive All-Defensive Second Team accolades in 2020-21 and 2021-22 as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers.
For his career, he’s averaged a staggering 2.8 steals and 1.4 blocks per 36 minutes, underscoring his knack for disrupting opposing offenses. Since signing
with the Los Angeles Lakers this summer, Thybulle has seemingly been imparting whatever wisdom he can upon second-year wing Adou Thiero, whose tremendous athletic gifts suggest significant defensive upside.
“We [were] talking about defense,” Thiero told reporters following an Oct. 6 loss to the Golden State Warriors. “That’s what he’s been helping me with the whole time. Just letting me know to pick my spots when I want to be aggressive, when not to, ways to keep the ball in front and just telling me different things defensively.”
In 55 minutes this preseason, Thiero has collected four steals and two blocks, four of which (two steals, two blocks) came Thursday against the Sacramento Kings. During that game, he authored a handful of eye-popping plays defensively, including a rotation to deflect and steal a Maxime Raynaud short-roll pass, fighting around a screen to stay attached to Darius Acuff Jr. and get a hand on his jumper, and containing a Precious Achiuwa drive before blocking his shot.
Here’s the block on Acuff:
After the Lakers’ preseason opener against the Sacramento Kings on Oct. 5, when they forced Sacramento into 27 turnovers, head coach JJ Redick said “clearly, that disruption we talked about carried over.” Across the two ensuing games, the Lakers have forced 51 more turnovers.
The generally sloppy, experimental and shake-off-the-rust nature of preseason presumably inflates turnover numbers across the league. But the Lakers, with plenty of full-court pressure, are clearly trying to be a disruptive group defensively. Thiero’s size and athleticism can help amplify this identity, and it appears the veteran Thybulle is offering his own insights to accelerate the young forward’s development on that end.
You can follow Jackson on Twitter at @jackfrank_jjf.
