Laying out for the blueprint for Lakers’ success without Doncic, Reaves
The Lakers are down after the regular season-ending injuries to star guards Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.
But they’re not out.
Already having clinched a playoff spot before Doncic (Grade 2 left hamstring strain) and Reaves (Grade 2 left oblique strain) suffered their regular season-ending injuries during last Thursday’s blowout road loss to the Thunder, the Lakers are guaranteed to play beyond Sunday’s regular season finale against the Jazz.
How much further they’ll play beyond the first four games of their first-round playoff series, and whether they’ll extend the season to give Doncic and Reaves enough time to return to the floor in the postseason, will depend on several factors.
The main one being whether they can find the right formulas and game plans to win during life without their star guards.
“We have to be diligent on the offensive end with our screening and still want to just have a paint-touch mentality,” coach JJ Redick said ahead of Sunday’s loss to the Mavericks. “Got to put guys in a position to do that, but our screening’s going to be a big part of that, our effort offense as well. We’ll play lineups that haven’t played together probably all season. Got to crash, got to run.”
The loss to the Mavericks, in which they scored 128 points but allowed the Mavericks to score 134 points in their first home win in over two months, showed there’s progress for the Lakers to make.
And with LeBron James missing Tuesday’s home game against the Thunder because of left foot injury management, in addition to Marcus Smart sitting out of the matchup for his eighth consecutive missed game because of a right ankle contusion, significant progress won’t be able to be made until Thursday’s road game against the Warriors at the earliest.
Here are the factors the Lakers need to hone in on to maximize the team without Doncic and Reaves
The possession battle
Doncic and Reaves combined to average 56.8 points, 13.8 assists and 6.3 made 3-pointers per game for the Lakers during the regular season.
There isn’t a player, or even a collection of a few players, who can replicate or replace the statistical production the team’s star duo produced on a nightly basis.
But what the Lakers can do is improve even more on the margins.
The Lakers have been one of the league’s better teams this season at winning the possession battle, but they can be even better.
Already one of the league’s best teams at getting to the free throw line, a strength of Doncic’s and Reaves’, and not allowing many offensive rebounds or opponent free throws, the biggest way they can give themselves more bites at apple is from better offensive rebounding.
This can be achieved by playing bigger lineups more often, which they did against the Mavericks when they used Maxi Kleber as the 4 alongside either Deandre Ayton or Jaxson Hayes.
They have an above-average offensive rebounding rate when Kleber and Hayes share the floor, and become an elite offensive rebounding team when Kleber and Ayton are on the court together.
Transition defense
Getting stops has been an up-and-down challenge for the Lakers.
And a depleted offense won’t make things easier defensively.
But the Lakers can help themselves by consistently getting back on defense with more urgency compared to how they did against the Mavericks.
Their 12 turnovers, a very low mark, weren’t the problem. But the 21 points they allowed off turnovers made it a game of catch up.
Slow down
The Lakers are going to need all of the easy points they can get.
But they also need to be strategic with how often they push the ball up the floor in transition offensively.
James is a one-man fastbreak, third in the league in transition points per game.
And they have multiple players besides James, including Hayes, Ayton, Jake LaRavia and Rui Hachimura, who thrive offensively when getting up and down the floor.
But without the proper ball-handlers to feed them, the Lakers need to be careful with how often they push.
Mistakes in transition not only would prevent them from having offensive rebounding opportunities, but will spread their defense thin.
