Tonight’s look at a championship caliber defense was a lot more productive. After having a disappointing defensive game against the Wolves, the Lakers were considerably better against the Thunder. There were still some weaknesses they can work on, but this was not another 108 point embarrassment.
For a quick recap, I will be tracking Heavily Contest Shots (HC), Lightly Contested Shots (LC), Altered/Blocked Shots (ABS), Forced Turnovers (FTO), times a player was beaten 1 on 1 off the dribble or into the lane (BDL), Holds (H) where a player is attacked off the dribble but prevents penetration, times a players gets posted up and scored on (PSO), times a player gets posted and the other team gets a clear advantage like a double team (PA), times a player gets posted up and gets a stop (PST) and uncontested shots allowed by the team (TU).
Let’s start with our defensive players of the game.
Lamar Odom – Another fantastic effort by Odom. I am starting to become convinced he is one of the most valuable defensive players in the league. His combination of size, length, speed and toughness allow him to help inside and outside. In this game he was able to alter/block 2 shots (Thunder shot 0-2), heavily contest 4 more (1-4), and lightly contest 4 more (2-4). He also was able to record 3 holds and force 2 turnovers while only getting beaten off the dribble twice. The only drawback to his game tonight was that he was scored on the one time he was posted up. However, he actually defended the play very well and Nick Collison sunk a shot that I believe he would miss 9 times out of 10.
Pau Gasol – Pau was relatively mediocre in the Lakers game against the Wolves, but redeemed himself last night. He was able to alter/block 3 shots (0-3), heavily contest another (0-1) and lightly contest 6 (3-6). He also was able to record 1 hold versus 1 BDL (not bad for a big man) and he forced a turnover. Finally, the Thunder posted up Pau twice and both times he was able to stop them from scoring.
And our defensive goats of the game:
Jordan Farmar – Another hit or miss game for Farmar. He gambles way too much and while he gets away with it versus the bad teams, I am concerned this will come back to hurt the Lakers (or at least reduce Farmar’s playing time) during the playoffs. Tonight Farmar did force two more turnovers. However, because he is overaggressive, he also got beaten off the dribble 4 times and did not record a single hold. Farmar would be better off in the long run just trying to stay in front of his man, instead of trying to hit a “home run” on every defensive possession.
Sasha Vujacic – This was a rather ineffective game for Sasha. He was able to alter one shot (which the Thunder still made, 1-1), had 0 heavy or light contests and was beaten off the dribble twice while only recording one hold. Considering that Sasha did not contribute much offensively, the lack of positive defensive activity explains why the Lakers were a -3 with him in the game. And this would have been a -7 if not for two great plays by Trevor Ariza at the end of the third quarter.
Other notes:
- One defensive key for the Lakers tonight was avoiding unintentional, uncontested shots. Against the Wolves, the Lakers gave up 29 uncontested shots (I believe all unintentionally). Last night, their cumulative number of uncontested shots was still 22. However, the Lakers were also backing off of Thabo Sefolosha outside of 20 feet and Kristic outside of 17 and daring them to shoot. As a result, the Lakers intentionally gave up 7 uncontested shots. This means that the Thunder were only able to create 15 completely open shots all night. Considering a few of those were fast break lay ups that were more a result of offensive mistakes than poor defense and you have a great team defense by the Lakers last night.
- Josh Powell recovered from a disastrous outing against the Wolves, to have a quietly efficient defensive outing. Tonight he altered/blocked 2 shots (0-2), lightly contested 2 more (1-2), forced 1 turnover and was able to record a Post Stop the one time he was posted up.
- Kobe was also a more active defender last night. He heavily contested 3 shots (0-3), lightly contested 3 more (2-3), forced 1 turnover and recorded 2 holds without getting beaten off the dribble once. Subtract a few kudos since he was guarding Thabo for most of the night instead of Durant or Green, but it was still a nice performance.
- I wonder if Trevor Ariza is running out of gas. Even before I started the charting, I noticed he was looking less impactful on both sides of the ball. Offensively, part of this might just be Ariza settling for his improved jumper instead of pursuing offensive rebounds and dunks aggressively like he did earlier in the year. However, defensively he only recorded 1 altered/blocked shot (0-1) and 1 lightly contested shot (0-1). He was also beaten into the lane once without recording a hold. He did force two turnovers though, which is where he provides a lot of value. Outside of these stats, he did try to guard Durant for a stretch in the fourth, but quickly picked up two fouls and was removed.
- I am interested in seeing the Lakers play a team with a good post presence. After there were only 3 total post ups against the Wolves, there were only 5 more tonight. And those were mostly done by Kristic and Collison. Overall, the Lakers performed well getting scored on once, giving up an advantage once (hard double that left another player open for a shot which was missed), and stopped the posts ups cleanly
- Again for anyone doubting the importance of having active players who contest shots, the shooting percentages for each grade of pressure were for altered blocked shots the Thunder were 1-8 (12.5%), on heavily contested they were 2-13 (15.4%), on lightly contested they were 16-28 (57.1%), and on unintentionally, uncontested shots they were 8-15 (53%). So keep up the good work Odom.
I will have to post the total statistics later. Will get those up tomorrow along with the Kings-Bobcats recap. For now, I need to start charting that game.
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