the warriors sniff out a lakers lob play
film study matters
playoff basketball is back! ok fine, technically the play-in games aren't officially playoff games, but whatever - the games matter, and teams are trying.
and what a difference that makes, especially compared to the last day of the regular season when we had this happen:
the los angeles lakers played the golden state warriors last night in the 7/8 play-in game, and it was fantastic.
honestly i could highlight so many things that are deserving of praise, including the defensive performances from draymond green and anthony davis, both of them were everywhere, affecting every possession... kyle kuzma, who played perhaps the best game of his career... timely plays from alex caruso again and again when the lakers needed them the most... lebron james and steph curry being incredible...
initially i was going to use this post to cover anthony davis' defense on the final inbound play of the game:
he started on andrew wiggins, switched onto jordan poole, passed poole off to caruso to switch onto dray, then at the last second jumped to double steph to put an end to the play. all of those decisions made in four seconds, in the biggest defensive possession of the game.
but i think there's an even better play to break down that most people may have missed. here’s the first possession coming out of halftime:
if you turn your sound on, you'll hear the entire warriors bench start to yell "lob!" at around the 5 second mark of the video.
i love stuff like this, because it's the essence of playoff/play-in basketball: teams doing a bunch of work before games even start, and it translating to on-court results.
if you're confused, here's what the lakers wanted to happen:
but in last night's game, the warriors were ready for it. kevon looney and steph didn't get caught on kentavious caldwell-pope's backscreen, and golden state took away what could have been an open dunk for andre drummond.
film study at work.
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Damn this was really cool