How an NBA team can stop the Los Angeles Lakers offense

The Los Angeles Lakers are among the favorites win the championship but can an opponent design a game plan to stop their offense ending title aspirations?

The Los Angeles Lakers are currently seen as the frontrunners to win the Larry O’Brien trophy if the league returns from the COVID-19 hiatus. According to The Action Network, the team is a +285 favorite to win the championship.

But can an opponent design a defensive game plan to nullify their offense lowering the likelihood of a championship? The answer is yes. The defensive game plan should aim to put at least three defenders below the 3-point line to encourage the team to shoot more 3s.

Los Angeles is currently 17th in 3-point percentage shooting 35.5 percent from behind the arc on 31.4 attempts per game. This is 0.2 percent lower than this year’s league average. The below-average shooting is related to several decisions by players and management over the past year a half.

For instance, when then-Lakers president of basketball operations Magic Johnson met with LeBron James on June 30th 2018, he talked to James about signing Rajon Rondo. Johnson brought up Rondo because he heard James complain about the Cleveland Cavaliers not having a second playmaker on the roster during his three seasons with the team.

About a year later, the Lakers acquired Anthony Davis, who told the media during the introductory press conference that he prefers not to play center. His hesitancy to play center led the team to re-sign JaVale McGee and sign Dwight Howard as the backup to share minutes at the center position.

A couple of months later, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka revealed during an interview with Justin Termine of SiriusXM NBA Radio that he was glad the team didn’t give up Kyle Kuzma in the Davis trade. Pelinka believed Kuzma’s shooting and defensive abilities made him the perfect complement to Davis and James.

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These decisions have diminished floor spacing for the team because Davis is playing alongside Howard or McGee for 21.9 minutes per game. Unfortunately, neither of these three players is an above-average shooter. Davis, Howard, and McGee have a three-point percentage of 31.9, 13.2 and 15.2 percent, respectively.

McGee and Howard’s inability to shoot make it easier for opponents to defend the team as the Lakers run a post-up centric offense. They are now second in the league in post-up possessions, averaging 14.5 per game. 62.1 percent of those possessions belong to Davis as he is averaging nine post-up possessions per game.

Consequently, their defenders can stand near the rim in position to double-team whichever big man as the basketball or stop a perimeter player that wants to attack the basket.

The post-up offense requires perimeter players to spend a substantial amount of minutes in the role of stop up shooter. If there can only be two above-average shooters on the court at the same time, that means the third perimeter player is usually a below-average shooter.

Subpar shooting from one of the perimeter players allows coaches to use the defender who was supposed to guard the subpar shooter as a help defender if necessary.

For example, James has spent a significant amount of his minutes in the role of a three-point shooter. James has attempted 32 percent of his field-goal attempts from behind the arc. Unfortunately, he has a career 3-point shooting percentage of 34.4 percent on 4.3 attempts.

The presence of a help defender is concerning as he can provide defensive assistance ie, double teams. The defensive support creates a problem for the ball handler, take a heavily contested shot or pass the basketball to the wide-open man on the perimeter for a low percentage shot.

A prime example of this can be found early in the first quarter of a road game against the Memphis Grizzlies when James stood on the right-wing as Davis posted up on the left block. Consequently, James’ defender Dillon Brooks went to help on Davis.

Brooks’ presence meant that Davis had at least three defenders in his vicinity, Kyle Anderson, Jonas Valanciunas, and Brooks. Consequently, he was forced to pass the basketball to Bradley on the other side of the court.

These decisions have restricted the success of the starting lineup as they are averaging 11.8 minutes of action in 33 games this season. The starters are shooting 38.5 percent from behind the arc on 7.4 attempts. Their success from behind the arc contributed them shooting 50.2 percent from the field on 22 attempts. Shooting 50.2 percent helped them generate 28.6 points per game. The 28.6 points helped them outscore opponents by three points per game.

The team’s offensive statistics should decline in the playoffs as in the regular season; teams have to face a different opponent almost every game. Consequently, coaches don’t afford to spend a significant amount of time analyzing a particular organization.

However, it is an entirely different story in the playoffs as a team usually faces an opponent for at least four games in a row. Therefore, coaches have ample time to develop a game plan accentuating the opponent’s weakness.

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The 2018-19 Philadelphia 76ers had a similar offensive system to this year’s Lakers as they were tied for fourth the league post up possessions with the Denver Nuggets averaging 15.7 per game. More importantly, just like this year’s Lakers, Philadelphia had three below-average shooters in the starting lineup Ben Simmons (8.7 percent), Jimmy Butler (33.3 percent) and Joel Embiid (32.2 percent).

Consequently, Toronto Raptors‘ head coach Nick Nurse decided to put defenders closer to the rim with higher frequency during his second-round series vs. Philadelphia. During the first possession of Game 7, Embiid stood at the top of the key in the role of a shooter. Therefore, his defender Marc Gasol stood at the free-throw line in a position to provide help defense.

Within the first five seconds of the possession, Gasol approached the left mid-block, where Simmons was trying to initiate a post up to act like a double team was coming. Gasol’s actions forced Simmons to pass the ball out to Embiid to reset the offense.

The presence of subpar shooters led to an uptick in heavily contested 2 point field goal attempts in the playoffs. They averaged 11.9 heavily contested field goal attempts in the playoffs, which was a 9.1 percent increase from the regular season.

Philadelphia converted 43.4 percent of those field goal attempts against the Raptors during the playoff series. It was a 1.4 percent decline from the regular season.

The defensive game plan led to a decrease in production as they shot 37.9 percent from behind the arc on 12.4 attempts. This is a 1.9 percent increase from the regular season on 2.7 more attempts.

An increase in 3-point production wasn’t enough to overcome their struggles from two-point range as they shot 52 percent. The 52 percent was a 6.8 percent decrease from the regular season. The reduction in 2 point efficiency led to less effectiveness from the field as they shot 46 percent, which is 5.9 percent less than the regular season.

The combination of these factors led to a 4.9 point per game decline in scoring output as they averaged 39 points per game in 17.7 minutes of action. The decline in offensive production played a role in Philadelphia losing a seven-game playoff series to Toronto.