Give Lakers’ second year head coach JJ Redick and his staff their flowers because they have found the blueprint to beat the younger, bigger, stronger, and more physical Houston Rockets in their first round playoff series.
The Lakers’ blueprint for beating the Rockets is to offensively optimize their shooting and playmaking advantages and defensively take advantage of Houston’s youth and lack of playoff experience and playmaking woes. Despite Houston taking 21 more shots per game, the two teams ended up making the same number of field goals for the 3 games but LA made 6 more threes and 15 more free throws for 10+ points more per game.
Right now, without Doncic and Reaves, the Lakers’ offense is 8th out of 16 playoff teams, their defense is 4th, and their net rating 6th. The Lakers and the Thunder are currently the only playoff teams who are undefeated.
Offensively, the Lakers shot a playoff-second-best 51.2% from the field and a playoff-best 46.1% from deep while defensively holding the Rockets to a playoff-worst 39.6% the field and playoff-second-worst 28.7% from deep.
Houston has shown why they were a heavy favorite heading into the series, posting a playoff-best 18.7 offensive rebounds in their first three games while forcing the Lakers into a playoff-worst coincidental 18.7 turnovers.
Unfortunately for the Rockets, the Lakers’ #2 field goal, #1 3-point shooting and #2 playmaking produced enough points and their #4 playoff defense was good enough to overcome negative offensive rebounds and turnovers.
Additionally, the Lakers have dramatically changed their style of play without Doncic and Reaves, replacing their Luka heliocentric iso offense with a quicker, less predictable, balanced offense that’s #2 in playoff assists.
Ime Udoka essentially called out his team and told them to grow up so it‘ll be interesting to see how hard the Rockets play in Game 4 on Sunday, when the Lakers will likely get Austin Reaves back and push hard for a sweep.
The Lakers plan to follow the same wnning blueprint tonight and outshoot and outassist the Rockets by enough points to survive whatever negative differentials they will suffer from offensive rebounding and turnovers.
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