So much for the clash of the titans. While the Utah Jazz worked its way to 21 wins in the past 23 games and the Los Angeles Lakers crowned as defending NBA champions, Wednesday’s battle between the two on paper seemed like one of the big games of the year. But with Anthony Davis facing a calf strain and Dennis Schroder out due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols, the Lakers didn’t have enough firepower this season to stay with the NBA’s best team. The Jazz blew them out, 114-89.
The Lakers will see the Jazz again for a two-game run in April and by then Davis and Schroder should be back in the lineup, but they were completely obsolete in this one. Not a single Laker scored even 20 points. Ironically, no player from Utah did. The difference is that the Lakers only had two players, LeBron James and Montrezl Harrell, reaching double digits. Utah had six. Their balanced attack was too much for the Lakers, who lean heavily on a superstar who didn’t play. That’s one of the main takeaways of Utah’s win. Here are a few more.
1. Can the Lakers stretch Utah’s drop defense?
The Jazz plays a very conservative defense based on drop cover. It is logical. Rudy Gobert is the NBA’s best rim protector, so they developed a plan to keep him close to the basket. He is often the only defender at the basket, as Utah schematically tries to take advantage of his edge protection by leaving the rest of his defenders at home on 3-point shooters.
This poses a problem against tall men who can shoot. The Lakers had one in Marc Gasol on Wednesday. For the fourth time this season, he tried at least five three-pointers. Just look at Utah’s defenses in some of them. In second place, Derrick Favors practically ignores Gasol as LeBron James takes on a smaller defender.
Gobert does not offer a meaningful match over Gasol’s third three-point attempt of the night.
LeBron puts Gasol’s fourth try on the pick and roll. Gobert drops to protect against his drive. Another swish.
Finally, on his fifth attempt, Gobert hangs by the nail to see Gasol and steps up to contest his shot.
Fall defense has struggled for the past few seasons. Utah knows that well. James Harden and Houston’s unlimited range of shootings tortured the Jazz in the playoffs, and Jamal Murray-Nikola Jokic’s pick and roll knocked them out last season. Between Gasol and Anthony Davis, the Lakers have big men who can pull Gobert out of the basket, and in LeBron James, they have a shot creator who is able to punish the Jazz if they do.
Without Davis in Wednesday’s game, we wouldn’t have a good idea of how the Jazz would tackle this problem. They may have to compromise on their drop coverage. They may have to tape Gobert to a non-firing perimeter player to keep him close to the basket. This will be one of the main battlefields on which a Lakers Jazz series will be fought. The closer Gobert is to the basket, the better Utah’s defense. The Lakers must be able to pull him away from beating the Jazz. Gasol may have finally done that towards the end of this game, but by then it was too late.
2. More math problems
The Lakers go through this every time they play against a competitor. When they played against Clippers on opening night, their rival at Staples Center tried 11 more 3-pointers and made five more. When the Brooklyn Nets came to town, they rained down in another 10 3 seconds on nine tries. Tonight was the worst so far. The Jazz made 14 more 3s on 15 more tries.
On their way to the championship last season, the Lakers played against the team that tried the most 3-pointers (Houston), and they played against the team that had the second highest percentage of their 3-pointers (Miami), but never played against an opponent who combined elite shots with high volume. The Rockets took the most 3’s in the NBA, but finished at number 24 in tries. That enabled the Lakers to get down from the right gunners and suppress the more dangerous ones. The Heat may have been ninth in three-point tries, but without Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo, they didn’t create the same kind of threes they did for most of the season.
But most contenders, aside from the Lakers, will not only take an inordinate number of 3-pointers this season, but the most. The Jazz leads the NBA in attempts and is third in a 3-point percentage. The Nets are eighth in tries and second in percent. That puts the Lakers at a significant disadvantage in entering any game. Most of their shots are worth two points. Most of their competitors’ shots are worth three. They have to do a significantly higher percentage of their shots to keep up, and so far this season they’ve struggled to do that.
3. The silver lining
Rarely does a team prefer to lose by 25 than five, but the Lakers are in a somewhat unique position. LeBron had played an average of 38.5 minutes per game in the past nine games. Four of those games were working overtime. He is 36 years old. Ideally, the Lakers would probably rather not play him that often, but with Davis and Schroder out, they had no choice but to lean on James. Even if they wanted to be more careful with his workload, James made it clear on Monday that he doesn’t want to sit outside.
“I think this whole story of ‘LeBron needs more rest’ or I should take more rest or I should take time here, it’s gotten a lot bigger than what it really is,” James told reporters after one. loss to Washington. “I’ve never talked about it, I don’t talk about it, I don’t believe in it. We all need more rest, s —. This is a quick turnaround from last season, and we all wish we could have more I am here to work, I am here to hit my clock and be available to my teammates. “
Wednesday turned into some sort of compromise. The Jazz blew out the Lakers, so James only had to play for 28 minutes. The match was decided by the latter, so his overall effort was limited. The Lakers have Schroder back on Friday, and that will further help James manage his workload. In a perfect world, the Lakers would have just won the match, but the silver lining here is that at least it gave LeBron a bit of a breather.