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Covering the impact of the coronavirus on the world of sport
Every LeBron James team has the same weakness: his teams forget to play without him This has even been true with superstar teammates In three seasons with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in Cleveland, the Cavaliers were at least 16 years old1 point worse for 100 possessions with him on the bench than they were with him on the field The numbers were similar in Miami even with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh generally sharing bench changes, and they got even worse in the playoffs In the 2017 NBA Finals, Cleveland played just 28 total minutes without James in the game and was beaten by 27 in those minutes Losing LeBron essentially amounted to a point-per-minute hemorrhage
The Lakers experienced a similar phenomenon during the regular season Before the mid-season shutdown, the Lakers had a net championship-level odds with LeBron in the game, but were playing at about the level of magic and pelicans when he was sitting It makes sense No matter who he plays with, James has such a huge influence on everything his team does that he basically has to play an entirely different system when he sits Which bench player could simulate LeBron’s impact?
As the Lakers found out, none could Their attack without LeBron in the game was scoreless at best When the shot clock inevitably ran out, they threw the ball into Anthony Davis and demanded that he save them Often he could not:
Every metric describes the regular-season LeBron-less offense as stagnant Only the Warriors have been worse offensively all season than the Lakers were in LeBron’s bench minutes, and one of the main causes of this decline was the lack of movement These clips above show almost no movement The Lakers contributed 61% of their field goals during LeBron’s pre-pandemic minutes, but only 585 when he was sitting Davis can’t do much with four teammates standing and looking at him
But the switch flipped in the playoffs The Lakers win those Davis-minus-LeBron minutes by 67 points per 100 possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass, and while some shot luck plays a part in that, the Davis’ improvement in play was at the center of the turnaround
The Lakers scored just 0933 points per possession when Davis doubled down in the regular season – a tactic teams generally feel more comfortable using when LeBron is on the bench. Below average number, but an improvement over the majority of his career Despite his background as a playmaker, Davis has never been a point-guard caliber passer
Fast forward to the playoffs The Lakers are up to 1115 points per possession in Davis doubles Most of those points, especially in the Denver series, came from Davis finding cutters:
It’s a pretty straightforward question, based on a high IQ player taking advantage of repetitive defense The Lakers rarely made such basic plays during the regular season, but that’s the base, and it’s something he has become more comfortable doing even without duplicates:
Davis doesn’t have to be Nikola Jokic, but he also can’t be Hassan Whiteside Luckily he’s getting closer to the former in the playoffs Even though it didn’t lead to points this cross pass was a beauty:
Whether LeBron is on the court or not, Davis’s situational awareness has taken a major step in the playoffs Davis is one of basketball’s best pick-and-roll finishers No one would blame him for thinking about the score here Instead, he almost immediately notices that ball handler Rajon Rondo slipped behind the defense for an easy two:
The best compliment Davis can receive on his passing is that, on a smaller level, he thinks like LeBron He understands what his gravity near the basket does to defenses and makes a conscious effort to return the ball behind the line. 3 points when the opportunity arises:
These improvements carry over to the rest of the roster Teammates cut more knowing Davis can find them While the team assist rate plummeted when LeBron sat in the regular season, it actually dropped from 61 in the playoffs6 percent to 635 percent The Nuggets, for the season, have assisted 636 percent of their field goals Perhaps Davis has more in common with Jokic than you might think
It doesn’t have to be for that growth to count in the final Davis is going to draw after the doubles against Miami Some of it could come, essentially, from the opening spike If the Lakers start with a cross on the floor and Miami decides to keep it with Bam Adebayo, the smaller Jae Crowder won’t be able to hand Davis alone If the Lakers get small, doubles come when LeBron goes to bench Miami zone is sensitive to precision passing as most zones are Boston has taken advantage of it Davis can show his own pass too
And if he does, the Lakers won’t suffer the same fate as the Cavaliers They don’t need to dominate LeBron bench minutes They need them to survive LeBron’s former teams weren’t able to do so, but since he needs more rest at the age of 35, it’s no exaggeration to suggest the Lakers can’t win this series if their reserve units can’t score Davis will be at the literal and figurative center of this movement Fortunately, he has passed all of his passing tests so far with flying colors
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Heat vs Lakers
World News – United States – Lakers vs Heat NBA Finals: How Anthony Davis’ death helped solve one of the world’s biggest problems Los Angeles
