Lakers rank bottom of the league in transition defense

[Slava]

Byron taking Ls from all places this week:

4. The Lakers' horrific transition defense

There is no reason the Lakers should rank near the bottom of the league in every available measure of the transition defense. They don't turn the ball over at a high rate, play at some turbo pace that spawns chaos or send a ton of extra bodies to the offensive glass. They are just a perfect storm of bad habits: admiring their bricks as opponents leak out, lingering in no-man's-land for no reason, meandering toward loose balls they have no chance to snare and failing to find shooters running the wings:

If you asked Byron Scott, he'd probably blame L.A.'s lazy and entitled young players, AAU basketball and millennials. If you watch the games, you know that isn't accurate.

Zach Lowe | ESPN

Quite simply its stunning that Byron hasn't in two years been able to get guys to put effort on transition defense. It requires nothing but picking a man and running as hard as you can along with the opposition. Nope.

[ArC_man]

I think it's a combination of effort but more importantly it's poor offensive and defensive philosophy. Look at the Spurs, their philosophy is to basically completely abandon offensive rebounding in order to have great transition defense (not saying we should do the same but it's one way).

Look at the Warriors and watch their players on the court when a shot goes up, compare how fast they react to how fast our players react. The Warrior players know when shots are going up so they have at least one or two guys heading back on defense before the shot even hits the rim, and their offense is spaced in a way where there's usually someone at the top of the key who can get back before anyone on the opposing team can. In comparison our spacing is terrible and our players often wait until the shot is either made or missed, by that time it's often too late.

[moonpie]

Remember when Byron said those running drills in camp would prevent stuff like this?

...Yeah.

[dockingsched]

That video that Lowe attached is a pretty good microcosm of the issues, Randle hopelessly crashing the boards when he was the one providing balance at the top of the key, Kobe standing around watching instead of getting back.

[ArC_man]

That video that Lowe attached is a pretty good microcosm of the issues, Randle hopelessly crashing the boards when he was the one providing balance at the top of the key, Kobe standing around watching instead of getting back.

By the 1st second of that video Anthony Brown, Kobe, and Randle could have been running back already. If we're going to let Randle go after offensive boards like that (he's good at it at times), the wings need to be back early instead of standing around.

[LApwnd]

Arent we last in everything, including offense too? Lol

[Dr Aki]

Arent we last in everything, including offense too? Lol

we're not last in record

[LApwnd]

Arent we last in everything, including offense too? Lol

we're not last in record

Semantics

[bbconair]

lock this thread as title is misleading.

lakers are the worst, or near worst, in everything. that's why we're one of the worst teams in the league lol.

[Kilroy]

When your team beats another team and the first thing that pops into your head is that the other team must really suck... You know your team has some issues... No need to put too fine a point on it.

[SlimShady83]

Why is this even a topic? I'm surprised we're not bottom everything this year.

[TylersLakers]

Yeah and outside of Kobe (age) and Hibbert (slow as f**k), there's no one on this team that's a bad athlete. No excuse for it. Every time a shot goes up from Bryant, Clarkson, Russell, Randle, etc should be turning and getting back instantly. It's just awful coaching and no accountability. If there was accountability, it wouldn't be happening as routine as it does.