After finding their form defensively, Anthony Davis feels the Lakers have some swagger to them on that end of the floor.
It’s hard to imagine how fans would have reacted if, after losing to the Heat by 40 three weeks ago, they had been told the Lakers would eventually have a top-ranked defense within weeks.
The sample size remains small, but with each game the team plays, they continue to look stronger and stronger on that end of the floor. A two-game sweep of the Kings featured two of their best defensive showings of the year.
“When we’re actually playing, it feels great, it looks great,” Anthony Davis said after Saturday’s win in Sacramento. “We can feel the energy, we can feel the swagger we have defensively. And we’re starting to like do things that we didn’t do during the stretch that we were bad and they’re kind of instinctual. Then, when you see it on film, it’s even more glorified because, like I said, it feels good in a game and then you watch it, you’re just like, ‘Damn, we’re really good.’ Just have to keep that up. The old term defense wins championships. We just have to keep defending.”
It’s been a very sudden change for the Lakers who, for the majority of the season, were far, far behind defensively. But the way they’re finding success on that end of the floor certainly feels, and looks, translatable moving forward.
The team is finding success in numerous ways, whether it’s rebounding, defending the rim, helping and recovering or anything in-between. And they are coming up against are talented offensive sides.
The Kings ranked fifth in offensive rating coming into the pair of games. The Grizzlies, who the Lakers beat at the start of this stretch, are currently fourth. The Lakers beat both behind strong defensive displays.
“Everything that we’re doing defensively – we’re being physical, we’re talking, we’re communicating, we’re covering for one another, we’re rebounding, our coverages are on point, we’re just flying around doing everything,” AD said. “We’re being gritty and playing desperate on the defensive end. Anytime we can play like that when our offense isn’t always there, we can rely on our defense and we just want to carry that into Monday’s game.”
That this turnaround came following the extended break surrounding the NBA Cup knockout rounds is not a coincidence. Given the time to return home and re-evaluate things, the Lakers looked themselves in the mirror, had the frank discussions and made the necessary adjustments.
Those adjustments weren’t schematic changes, but simply executing the defense they had in place.
“For the most part, it’s just us actually deciding like, ‘Ok, we need to buckle down defensively and play,’” Davis said of what has changed. “We were giving up too many points and too many offensive rebounds, open threes, we’re fouling…and we kind of just cleaned all of that up. There was nothing really schematically that we done. We were messing up so many coverages, not helping, not covering for one another, not talking, not helping, so you can’t really know if your base defense works. We still stick with our base defense and we’re seeing that it’s working right now because we’re doing the things we’re supposed to do.”
No matter how long this run goes on for the Lakers, it’s been an impressive stretch to the season and should provide lots of optimism for the team moving forward.
But if it is real and does carry throughout the season, then it significantly changes the outlook of this team.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.
