the lakers' championship-level team defense
a play from the 3rd quarter of game 1 of the 2020 nba finals
i just watched game 1 of the 2020 nba finals between the los angeles lakers and the miami heat. the game was virtually over early in the third quarter, but this one play still caught my eye:
let's break it down.
this is one of the heat's favorite sets to run coming out of a timeout. tyler herro brings the ball up, duncan robinson sets a cross screen for bam adebayo:
herro throws the ball to bam in the post, then clears out. robinson goes weakside to set a back pick for jimmy butler. at this point, lebron james already knows what's up and tells danny green to switch:
immediately after switching onto robinson, lebron senses that a pindown screen from jae crowder is coming to try and free up duncan for a 3. so he stays top-side on crowder's screen:
robinson is great at using off-ball screens, so he doesn't try to go through lebron; he slides underneath and sprints towards the ball. anthony davis recognizes this and picks him up. lebron wisely stays on crowder:
davis chases robinson into the corner to prevent the corner 3. dwight howard, who was on bam, stunts to duncan as well to trap him in the corner. lebron was ready the whole time to rotate to bam:
this play ultimately ended on a foul call, as lebron got too aggressive on his rotation, but it's pretty impressive how locked-in the whole lakers team was on this possession (and pretty much all night long), communicating with each other and moving on a string. they took away four options in all:
jimmy butler backdoor cut off of robinson's back pick
robinson three off of crowder's pin down screen
crowder cut/spot up 3 after setting the screen for robinson
robinson drop-off to bam, who'd then be playing 4-on-3
championship-level focus!
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