freethedevil wrote:MyUniBroDavis wrote:I know that the jazz are apparently gameplanning super wel even though I haven’t been watching them but goddamn they’re on fire lol
You think the jazz could knock off a healthy lakers?
I mean it’s so early on still and this lakers team clearly has more to work on than last years in terms of counters and stuff, they particularly struggle with baseline help in their iso or post possessions more than anything and that’s not really something you can like Lebron mode or AD mode out of, although I’m assuming they can make the right adjustments and they’ve done it inconsistently.
Like they usually just cut when someone sends help which is fine when it’s hell from the wing since it means either the cut or the opposite corner three is open but if you do that when they prerotate baseline you’re basically just helping the D and clogging it up kind of, and because the rotations aren’t gonna be hindered a skip pass doesn’t make as much of an open three as you’d think, although obv bron skip passes like goku
A few other things like AD not popping far out enough, schroder struggling when they go under screens, etc etc but dealing with help defense and paint packing are the biggest problems for the lakers
If the playoffs started now I think it would be a tossup, I don’t necessarily think that outside of the lakers jazz are the best team in the west I’d say a healthy clippers are probably a bigger threat still, shortening rotations helps them more + lues a proven playoff coach.
The jazz typically drop a lot, which is obv fine, and in the playoffs previous years they don’t really adjust super well
Vs more dynamic guards I think in the playoffs, although they’ve done it more lately
The only weak area is gobert on the perimeter, but that’s not THAAAT bad. Wing defense isn’t great but I team defense + top tier interior D is gonna make up for that probably, I mean when bron and ad “struggled” in the playoffs it wasn’t someone shutting them down it was more like pre rotations and LA being slow to counter
But there are reasons the jazz are better other than a picture of mike conley, they’re playing well on defense adapting to teams a bit better, and overall are much better as a unit in terms of rotations communications and stuff like that.
Offensively they’re good in the sense that it’s a strong team, good execution scheme stuff like that idk details. They have like the things for a good system, and even though they don’t really have that one hyper scorer unless bubble Mitchell comes back, great shooting high tier lib threat smart players and a few shot creators they’re solid
I don’t think they’ll be better than either LA teams come playoff time, and like, I’m thinking LAL will solve some of their issues by then
That and they should probably figure out how to use THT and to a lesser extent caruso when they’re being helped off of, mostly through screening action like the warriors do for draymond
I’d say the lakers are clearly the best team if they figure out their issues offensively, which they should be able to do. They do it sometimes, like vs the nuggets they struggled because they both sent help from the wing and the baseline, so cutting from the wing doesn’t create advantage, but you just have to try to make weakside action since now you have a 3v1 or a 4v2 weakside, just get a good shooter on the weakside corner and set a pindown on the defender closest to the weakside corner, THT or Caruso or harrell setting the screen, and that’s prolly good, and they’ve done that a bit and gotten ok results, they had a good stagger screen play that got a good look as well so they clearly have like a concept but just aren’t doing it fully yet, which is prolly cuz of lack of practice time. It’s just about consistency, and it’s hard because as much hate as a guy like AD has gotten because he’s generally doing ok enough vs help like this that it’s not been a huge issue they prolly don’t see it as much, but he’s having to hit some dummy shots
Like the lakers staff are slow but they react on offense and don’t just go “we will hustle harder” like some teams and are a top 2 defensive staff in the league. Snyder isn’t bad in the playoffs or anything and obv they do try things like that crazy defense they did vs the rockets.
It’s interesting but I’d say lakers, then clippers, then jazz come playoff time
The lakers are definately the team with the most upside, but they prolly won’t quite hit that ceiling. I still think they the favorites tho