Gabe Vincent is 6-1. He’s an excellent defender towards gamers in his common size-range, however there’s solely a lot he can do towards gamers considerably taller than he’s. In an ideal world, you would not wish to go away him alone on the ground towards, say, a 7-foot future Corridor of Famer who can rating from in all places. That is not an issue towards most opponents as a result of frankly, only a few such gamers exist. The Phoenix Suns occur to have one in Kevin Durant.
Within the remaining minutes of the primary lack of JJ Redick’s teaching profession on Monday, that was the distinction. With the rating tied at 101 and a bit greater than three minutes on the clock, Durant landed on a really fundamental and really profitable technique: hunt the small man.
That is about as fundamental a switch-hunt as you may ever see. Durant is guarded by Rui Hachimura. Bradley Beal, who’s guarded by Vincent, comes up and screens. The Lakers are pressured to change. Durant sinks a jumper over the smaller defender. One possession later, it is a lot the identical, and whereas Durant wants to attain in site visitors, he provides two extra to Phoenix’s tally.
Even when the method did not lead on to factors, it created benefits that finally generated them. Durant as soon as once more discovered Vincent, and although he swung the ball and Devin Booker missed the shot, the Suns bought the offensive rebound, and with everybody out of place, Royce O’Neale scored on a straightforward floater.
That final bucket gave Phoenix the three-point lead it finally wanted to win the sport, and Redick took accountability after the sport.
“If there’s one factor to nitpick, it is most likely me,” Redick stated, noting that he might have blitzed Durant earlier within the fourth quarter. He might have, however let’s not fake that was an ideal possibility. There wasn’t one given the instruments he had at his disposal.
Blitzing towards Phoenix is an enormously dangerous method. The Suns have three star perimeter gamers, final yr’s 3-point proportion chief and a bevy of position gamers greater than able to flattening open seems to be. They don’t seem to be a staff you wish to hand 4-on-3’s to. In an ideal world, you need to have the ability to defend them straight up.
The query, then, is who Redick might have carried out that with. Max Christie, a 6-5 wing, was imagined to be that participant for the Lakers, however he has struggled enormously so far this season. The Lakers have misplaced his minutes in all 4 of their video games this season by 55 mixed factors. Even after two years on the bench, he is nonetheless too uncooked for high-leverage minutes, particularly on offense.
Jarred Vanderbilt is the very best perimeter defender on the Laker roster, however he is injured. Even when he weren’t, properly, he isn’t even on uncooked on offense. He is simply dangerous. Because the Lakers found within the 2023 Western Convention finals towards Denver, trusting him in large moments is tantamount to taking part in 4-on-5 offensively.
D’Angelo Russell may’ve made this straightforward if he’d made his pictures. Whereas he is no match for Durant, he is a minimum of larger than Vincent and would have opened the door for the Lakers to win on offense as an alternative of protection. As a substitute, he shot 2-of-9 from 3 and missed his final two makes an attempt, each huge open within the fourth quarter, badly. Redick could not belief him to shut the sport, particularly when he’d put the offense within the fingers of Austin Reaves.
Dalton Knecht is an offense-first rookie. Jaxson Hayes is a middle, and whereas he is extra cellular than most large males, the Lakers weren’t going to shut large towards a Suns staff with a lot perimeter firepower. And now, we have coated the complete rotation.
That is the issue Redick ran up towards down the stretch in Phoenix, and it is the one he will hold coping with because the season progresses. The Lakers have 4 usually dependable gamers: LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Hachimura and Reaves. Barring harm or excessive in-game variance, they’re going to be closing most Laker video games and might broadly be relied upon to execute on each ends of the ground. However basketball groups use 5 gamers at a time, not 4, and as we have coated, each different participant on the staff shares some important flaw.
On Monday, Redick determined that Vincent’s flaw — his measurement — was the lesser of all of those evils. That call could have value the Lakers the sport, and from that perspective, he was proper to take some measure of blame for the defeat. However there wasn’t a very good possibility out there to him both, and as reductive as it’s to boil each Lakers season right down to the commerce market, there’s actually no different repair out there to the Lakers right here.
Redick has the Lakers outperforming the expertise they’ve, however that expertise comes with an outlined ceiling. Monday evening, that ceiling was precisely as tall as Durant. If the Lakers wish to break via that ceiling, they’re going to have to provide Redick the instruments to do it.
