The Lakers have a lot of deficiencies, but the LeBron-Luka duo has gotten them winning.
Lakers are the talk of the town right now. The Lake Show has moved from being a play-in team to holding the No.2 spot in the Western Conference team standings.
What’s crazier is that the so-called experts initially said that acquiring Luka Doncic was a move for the future. By giving up AD for “Luka Magic,” they gave up their chance to compete for the championship this season. But it’s been the opposite, at least so far. The Lakers are winning and doing so in a manner no one expected. “The Ringer” founder Bill Simmons says they are a team that nobody wants to face in the playoffs.
“They’re so weird to watch just as a team now,” said Simmons. “They have no center, they have no point guard. But you watch them, and you’re like, ‘I don’t know why this is working, but it’s working.’ And this is a team that I do not want to see in a series where everything slows down, and you have to play the same team every time for two weeks, and I just don’t want to see these guys under any circumstances.”
The Lakers found a winning formula
Head coach JJ Redick has made his players buy into a scrambling defense anchored by Jared Vanderbilt, Dorian Finney-Smith, and, surprisingly, LeBron James. The Lakers have been the best defensive team in the NBA since January 15th, and making stops has complimented an offense that has become more dangerous with Doncic.
Aside from playing what Redick recently labeled as an “All-NBA defense,” Bron had put up even better numbers than when he last won the MVP award in 2013. And with Doncic starting to look like the Luka of old since the start of this month, it’s scary hours for the rest of the league as far as trying to stop this unlikely but prolific duo.
“I don’t want to see this team in a playoff series if I’m basically anybody,” added Simmons. “And I’m sure there’s gonna be ways, as we keep watching them, that you can solve some of their deficiencies. But right now, it’s just…If you have two guys that are putting up sixty points a game, I just don’t want to see a team like that.”
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Bill’s current take on the Lakers contrasts with what he said about them in mid-January. With L.A.’s defense ranking in the bottom 10 then, Simmons predicted that they wouldn’t even win a first-round playoff series this year.
“They’re still in the bottom 10 in defense. They’re in the bottom five in rebounding. Two things that scare me – there was a Dallas game last week where Dallas abused Austin Reaves to the point that I thought Reaves’ corner was gonna throw in the towel, and that’s the rub with this Lakers team. Any smart team can just attack them defensively, and it’s like, ‘Pick you guys,'” Simmons said. “They’re just too easy to score on… I don’t dislike the roster, but I think they have real issues that are going to surface in the playoffs.”
Although they are coming off a loss to the Boston Celtics, the Lakers still showed how dangerous they can be when they cut Boston’s lead to seven points from 22 before Bron got hurt. As long as they can sustain the defense they are playing right now, and if “King James” returns 100% healthy in the postseason, nobody wants to see these Lakers in the playoffs.
