It was weeks ago that Anthony Davis was running his first pick-and-rolls with Dennis Schrӧder. In a normal year, they’d have at least a month of pick-up games before the start of training camp.
On Tuesday night, some of the growing pains were unfolding live. On one possession, Davis nearly lost the ball when Schrӧder made a blind pass over his shoulder to where he thought his All-Star teammate would be.
“We haven’t had that much time together,” Davis said. “Me and Dennis on pick-and-rolls still trying to figure out where I like the ball. He’s trying to figure out, ‘Should I score?’”
That’s one of the hundreds of small-scale questions the Lakers are still trying to hammer out in practices and film sessions that would traditionally be handled on the pick-up court. The 116-109 loss to the Clippers on Tuesday night was not devastating to the Lakers, who expected early sluggishness and are mindful of their larger goals, but it was frustrating to start this season the same way they did in 2019.
Wesley Matthews, 34, was one of the newcomers who struggled to make an impact, missing the only shot he took. He’s been around long enough to know that it takes time for new groups to click – but watching the Lakers’ ring ceremony fueled a sense of urgency to start cracking on his own championship journey.
“That’s one of the biggest things for me,” he said, “is to be patient in that moment and not want to get everything right away.”
While many observers believe the Lakers have assembled the right pieces to build another championship team around LeBron James and Davis, the challenge of the next few weeks is to get all of those players on the same page. Beyond the standard play calls, terminology and schemes, there are also tendencies and small details about new teammates that the Lakers are just beginning to understand.
The coaching staff’s conservative approach to the minutes for Davis and James could hinder some of that process: The Lakers played James just 28 minutes after he suffered a minor ankle twist in the fourth quarter, and played Davis 31 minutes. The early indications are that Coach Frank Vogel will lean hard on his other rotation players to compensate.
It’s not just physical conditioning, the two stars said Tuesday night, it’s also mental. James repeatedly said how it was “weird” to be playing a regular-season game after just two months off, and he was happier to get one out of the way than to actually be playing it. Davis shared that sentiment.
“It’s a short offseason, just won two months ago, now you’ve got to wrap your head around, ‘We’ve got to play again,” Davis said. “We’ve got to play tonight. We’ve got to play Friday. Then it’s a back-to-back, right? Mentally getting prepared for that. It can get to some guys.”
The Lakers’ approach has been constructive. Matthews and veteran center Marc Gasol said a Wednesday film session went well breaking down the gaps in the Lakers’ execution. While Vogel was disappointed on a lot of defensive possessions, he pointed to the Lakers’ second-quarter rally from down 22 points as a sign that they’re capable of playing well on that end.
Gasol was the first to admit that his debut with five fouls and zero points was a “tough, tough game,” and the unsteady start at center fuels questions about whether the Lakers will be able to replicate the defense they played last season with shot-blockers JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard. Vogel acknowledged they won’t: At least, the defense won’t look the same without the rim protection of those two centers, but the Lakers will try to replicate the results with Gasol and Harrell as positional defenders.
Vogel also took blame for not finding ways to use Gasol in the post and getting him involved in the passing game – but the 35-year-old Spaniard said it was something he could improve by getting in less foul trouble. Over time, Gasol said, he’ll get better at reading the game and finding a more snug role.“You have to understand who you’re playing with – their tendencies, their body movement, body reaction and time it all up with your reaction and movement,” he said. “So I think now we have the terminology much more comfortable and familiar. Now with reading their movement and their reaction and their reads as well. Because at the end of the day, we all have to be tied together. Not only two guys, three guys. Five guys on the floor have to be tied and move at the same time.
“That is a process,” he added. “It doesn’t happen overnight.”
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December 24, 2020 at 10:29AM
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Lakers’ season-opening loss shows they’re still learning how to play together - OCRegister
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