Warriors-Lakers megapreview
The Lakers' most played lineups and their injury riddled rotation, what we can learn from previous matchups, and what will and will not work offensively in the playoffs
The play-in tournament is here and the Warriors are going to compete for a chance at the 7th seed against LeBron James and Anthony Davis’ Lakers. This is a bit of a nightmare scenario both in terms of matchup and the narrative/discourse hellscape that will surround this game. LeBron James has played against Steph Curry 22 times in the playoffs. Because he’s a basketball savant, he’s probably better equipped than any individual in the entire NBA to defend and play against the Steve Kerr coached-Warriors, which really concerns me in a one-game playoff game where adjustments need to be made decisively and quickly. Add in the Lakers’ obvious size and experience advantage and you can see how this game could get out of hand real quick.
But this has not been a typical season for the Lakers or the Warriors. The Lakers lost LeBron James and Anthony Davis for significant chunks of the season to injury. They also added a mostly ineffective Andre Drummond on a buyout and now have to figure out who to actually play heavy minutes at the C — the answer is obviously Anthony Davis, much to Davis’ chagrin — and they’ve had injuries and covid-related absences around the margins as well. The Warriors are 15-5 over the last their 20 games and they barely resemble the team that got blown out by the Lakers in March the last time these two teams faced each other. Since that game, James Wiseman and Kelly Oubre got hurt, Jordan Poole and Juan Toscano-Anderson staked a claim to crunch time minutes, Kevon Looney held his own against brute MVP level centers like Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, and Steve Kerr has generally stopped dicking around and has coached the shit out of these last 20 games.
I’m going to do my best to plot out what may or may not happen on Wednesday’s game, but frankly this is a hard preview to do. A brief admission; in most seasons I watch a lot more non-Warriors basketball, but I’ve been on a baby-raising schedule as I help my dad and his wife out with my 2 year old brother, so I’ve really only given time to the Warriors this year and most of what I’ve seen of other teams is how they play against the Warriors. Beyond that, this Lakers team is hard to assess because of the myriad injuries they’ve had so it’s possible that the lineup stats I’m so fond of will have very little predictive value. Nonetheless, I am going to look at those lineup numbers, I’m going to try and take some stock of what the Lakers did in their final games of the year, and we’ll see if there’s anything to be gleaned from the three games these two teams have played against each other this season.
The Lakers statistical profile:
Above average 3 point shooters (36.7% or higher):
Kentavious Caldwell Pope: 9.7 points a game, 2.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.3 stocks, and 28.4 minutes per game on 43/41/87 splits with 58.8% TS
Marc Gasol: 5 points a game, 4.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.6 stocks, and 19.1 minutes a game on 45/41/72 splits with 60.6% TS
Alfonzo McKinnie: 3.1 points a game, 1.4 rebounds, 0.2 assists, 0.2 stocks, and 6.6 minutes a game on 52/41/56 splits with 60.4% TS
Alex Caurso: 6.4 points a game, 2.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.4 stocks, and 21 minutes a game on 44/40/64 splits with 54.7% TS
Quinn Cook 2.1 points a game, 0.3 rebounds, 0.3 assists, 0.2 stocks and 3.9 minutes a game on 46/38/72 splits on 58.5% TS
What lineups played a lot for the Lakers this season?
With all the aforementioned caveats in mind, let’s take a look at the Lakers’ five most five-man lineups (positive combos bolded):
Schroeder/KCP/LeBron/AD/Gasol: +13.2 net rating (116.9 ORTG) in 281 minutes.
Schroeder/KCP/Kuzma/Morris/Gasol: -12.4 net rating (87.6 ORTG) in 80 minutes.
Schoeder/KCP/Kuzma/LeBron/Gasol: +2.6 net rating (111.8 ORTG) in 73 minutes.
Schroeder/KCP/Kuzma/Morris/Drummond: -6.8 net rating (112.5 ORTG) in 70 minutes.
LeBron/Matthews/Kuzma/Morris/Harrell: -12.4 net rating (96.5 ORTG) in 66 minutes.
After that first lineup, which the Lakers started the season with, there’s a huge drop off in minutes played for any of these lineups. The starters played 21 games together this year, the subsequent lineups played 6, 6, 5, and 10 games together respectively. I’m struck by the size of all of these lineups, but it’s also interesting to me that the biggest lineup — LeBron/Matthews/Kuzma/Morris/Harrell — performed as poorly as it did. I’m also surprised that Alex Caruso isn’t in any of these five most used lineups. In last year’s bubble Finals, Caruso played in five of the 10 most used used five-man lineups for the Lakers and three of those five lineups had positive net ratings. For the sake of analysis, let’s look at those 10 most used lineups from the Finals and see if there’s anything interesting or potentially predictive in those lineups (positive combos bolded):
LeBron/Green/KCP/AD/Howard: -0.9 net rating (123.2 ORTG) in 59 minutes.
Rondo/Caruso/LeBron/Kuzma/Morris: -0.4 net rating (109.3 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Rondo/Caruso/KCP/LeBron/AD: +16.9 net rating (125 ORTG) in 18 minutes.
Rondo/KCP/Kuzma/LeBron/AD: +35.3 net rating (141.2 ORTG) in 17 minutes.
Caruso/Green/Kuzma/LeBron/Morris: -26.6 net rating (93.9 ORTG) in 16 minutes.
Rondo/Caruso/Kuzma/LeBron/AD: +24.8 net rating (106.9 ORTG) in 13 minutes.
Caruso/Green/KCP/LeBron/AD: +36.1 net rating (88 ORTG) in 12 minutes.
Caruso/Green/Morris/LeBron/AD: +20 net rating (100 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
LeBron/Green/KCP/Morris/AD: +4.5 net rating (95 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
Rondo/KCP/Morris/LeBron/AD: -4.5 net rating (90.5 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
So the Warriors won’t face a single one of these lineups because Danny Green, Dwight Howard, and Rajon Rondo all moved onto new teams. But you can imagine some of these lineups operating with Schroeder in place of Rondo and some of those Danny Green minutes going to a combo of Kyle Kuzma, Wes Mathews, or Talen Horton-Tucker. I think that if there’s anything to take away from the lineups from last year’s Finals, it’s that the Lakers can probably run two-guard lineups with Schroeder/Caruso with a LeBron/AD frontcourt and survive just fine against the Warriors. For good measure, let’s take a look at the ten most used five-man lineups from the Lakers’ final ten games of the season where they got some games from LeBron James and Anthony Davis and got to see how they did or didn’t work with their new rotation and Andre Drummond (positive combos bolded).
Schroeder/KCP/LeBron/AD/Drummond: +3.1 net rating (118.4 ORTG) in 46 minutes.
Caruso/KCP/Kuzma/AD/Drummond: -18.7 (80.2 ORTG) in 44 minutes.
Horton-Tucker/KCP/Kuzma/AD/Drummond: +6.5 net rating (130 ORTG) in 24 minutes.
Caruso/KCP/Matthews/AD/Drummond: +28.5 net rating (112.2 ORTG) in 22 minutes.
Caruso/KCP/Kuzma/AD/Gasol: +63 net rating (142.5 ORTG) in 19 minutes.
Horton-Tucker/KCP/Matthews/AD/Drummond: +20.3 net rating (110 ORTG) in 15 minutes.
LeBron/Horton-Tucker/KCP/Davis/Drummond: +27.5 net rating (109.7 ORTG) in 14 minutes.
Horton-Tucker/Matthews/KCP/Morris/Drummond: -30.3 net rating (128 ORTG) in 12 minutes
Horton-Tucker/McLemore/McKinnie/Kuzma/Harrell: +12.7 net rating (140 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
Schroeder/McLemore/Matthews/Kuzma/Harrell: -10 net rating (100 ORTG) in 10 minutes
These lineups played in 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, and 1 game(s) respectively, so the sample size is small, but that’s kind of what happens by necessity when you get four games spread over 10 games out of LeBron James to end the season. I’m not sure these small sample sizes offer predictive value, but I would imagine that the Schroeder/KCP/LeBron/AD/Drummond will see significant minutes. I’d also imagine that maybe one of the iterations of the Harrell lineups gets some run against the Warriors, but as for the rest of them? God knows.
What lineups played a lot for the Warriors this season?
Anyone who has been following the Warriors this year will know by now that this Warriors team is very different than it was even a month ago, so their five most played lineups probably don’t reflect who they are now. But for posterity’s sake, let’s take a look anyway (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Bazemore/Wiggins/Green/Looney: +9.3 net rating (116 ORTG) in 268 minutes.
Curry/Oubre/Wiggins/Green/Wiseman: -12.8 net rating (96.9 ORTG) in 247 minutes.
Curry/Oubre/Wiggins/Green/Looney: +9 net rating (114.1 ORTG) in 186 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Oubre/JTA/Green: +9.9 net rating (118.3 ORTG) in 149 minutes.
Wanamaker/Lee/Bazemore/Wiggins/Paschall: +8.1 net rating (102.6 ORTG) in 95 minutes.
Kelly Oubre Jr. won’t play against the Lakers, so the only lineup of relevance here are the starters, who performed badly in the last week in their three most recent and meaningful games. We also aren’t going to see any James Wiseman in the playoffs, so for the sake of relevance, let’s filter the Warriors’ most ten most used lineups since Wiseman went down (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Bazemore/Wiggins/Green/Looney: +6.7 net rating (112.2 ORTG) in 206 minutes.
Poole/Mulder/Wiggins/JTA/Looney: -10.4 net rating (94.8 ORTG) in 48 minutes.
Poole/Bazemore/Wiggins/JTA/Looney: +9.4 net rating (94.3 ORTG) in 43 minutes.
Curry/Mulder/Wiggins/Green/Looney: +9.2 net rating (134.5 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
Curry/Bazemore/Wiggins/JTA/Green: -16.1 net rating (104.6 ORTG) in 37 minutes.
Curry/Mulder/Bazemore/JTA/Green: +16.8 net rating (127.5 ORTG) in 35 minutes.
Curry/Mulder/Wiggins/JTA/Green: +42.5 net rating (130.6 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Oubre/JTA/Green: +29.4 net rating (133.3 ORTG) in 22 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/JTA/Green: +30.1 net rating (120.8 ORTG) in 20 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Lee/JTA/Green: +32.5 net rating (137 ORTG) in 20 minutes.
Turns out that Steph and shooters is a recipe for success, who knew? It’s worth noting that a fair amount of the Warriors’ games without Wiseman have been against bad or mediocre opponents, but it’s striking to see just how good this team has been since Wiseman has gone down. It’s notable to me that the starters got more than 75% of their minutes total on the years since Wiseman went down and I’m also struck by how good Curry + Poole pairings are (this bears out in the two-man combo data as well: +17.9 net rating is highest of all two-man combos to get more than 100 minutes this year).
But what is concerning is that the Poole led bench lineups have struggled to score. One of those Poole led lineups is going to have to find a way to survive some 8-10 minutes a game without Steph Curry. Put Bazemore in for Mulder and that lineup can apparently D up enough to survive, but neither of the Poole led bench lineups were able to score at even close to a league average rate. That’s going to be a huge concern. More generally, scoring against a long and experienced Lakers team could be a huge struggle, depending on how Lakers coach, Frank Voegl, sets his rotations.
Looking at the Warriors vs. Lakers games from the regular season
Again, these games might not offer a lot of predictive value because of how radically different these teams are now, but let’s just briefly recap anyway.
January 18, 2021: Warriors win 115-113.
I think this is the most interesting of the three games this season because it offers a potential blueprint for what has to happen for the Warriors to win — significant scoring output from non-Steph players. If you’ll recall in a previous post, I ran the numbers and found that the Warriors were 11-1 if Steph Curry played in a game where Andrew Wiggins scored 18 or more points AND Kelly Oubre scored more than 16 points. This Lakers game was one of those rare games and it so happens to be a rare game that the Warriors won despite a relatively low scoring game from Steph Curry, who only had 26 points on 8-22 shooting and went 3-12 from three. But to give you a sense of how different things were back then with the Warriors rotation, I’ll give you this Anthony Slater quote from his recap of that game:
Here’s a look at the game tracker. The Warriors went down big quick and didn’t lead until late in the fourth. It’s early in the second quarter, as the first uphill climb begins. That pocket of the game has been terrific for the Warriors this season, which is a stunner, because that’s when Steph Curry sits.
But the Warriors have found something in Eric Paschall, the small-ball center, surrounded by gritty floor spacers and defenders. Paschall clubbed Montrezl Harrell and Kyle Kuzma and any Laker in front of his bully-ball drives Monday night. He scored 19 points in 19 minutes, making eight of his 11 shots. That microwave scoring changed the game.
The Warriors got over 100 combined minutes that night from James Wiseman, Kelly Oubre Jr., Eric Paschall, Brad Wanamaker, and Damion Lee, none of whom are going to play a single minute in this play-in game. Just a totally different team.
February 28, 2021: Lakers win 117-91.
I won’t linger much on recapping this game other than to point out that Steph shot like shit — something he frequently does against the Lakers at Staples Center — and that Andrew Wiggins had probably his worst game of the year with 3 points on 1-5 shooting. I think this score tracking graph sums up the game better than my words can:
March 15, 2021: Lakers win 128-97.
To be honest, I don’t remember much of this game. I think I probably blocked it out of my memory — I remember being very excited about the Warriors beating the Jazz the previous game and I’d guess that the huge let down against the Lakers soured my mind and stimulated some internal Men In Black style erasure mechanism. Looking through the game chart and reading a few recaps to try and jog my memory, I see that the game was mostly close until Steph Curry sat to start the 2nd quarter and things got out of hand shortly thereafter, culminating in a brutal blowout loss. Here I’ll note again how different the Warriors’ rotation was: Kelly Oubre Jr. was still starting, James Wiseman was trying to find some chemistry with Jordan Poole in rejiggered bench lineups where Nico fucking Mannion handled the ball for reasons that still don’t make sense, and Eric Paschall played three times as many minutes Damion Lee that night. Gross.
What can game film tell us?
Here, I am immensely grateful to the work of Anthony Slater and Joe Viray, both of whom see the game better than I do in realtime and do a great job of cutting up film that I am going to refer to generously in this section.
As I said before, LeBron James has seen the Warriors 22 times in the playoffs and countless other times in the regular season. He understands the Warriors’ pet plays as well as anyone in the NBA — hell, he probably knows Kerr’s playbook better than half of the Warriors’ rotation. A LeBron-led team is a nightmare in a one game playoff for that reason and that’s without factoring LeBron being one of the greatest playoff performers in NBA history.
In his preview of the play-in game, Anthony Slater highlighted a few sequences from the Warriors and Lakers’ previous matchups where LeBron quickly susses out what the Warriors are running. I’ve linked them below. For good measure, here’s Slater’s descriptions:
Just look at these three clips, from this season, of LeBron identifying an off-ball action and blowing it up. The first time, he sees the Looney slip and steps in for a charge. The second time, he makes the well-timed switch onto Curry and breaks up the pass. The third time, he predicts Green’s tendency — figuring he won’t lob it to Wiseman with LeBron on his back side — and jets right into the passing lane for an interception before Green realizes he’s moving toward Oubre.
The third clip is particularly interesting as is Slater noting that LeBron understands fully what Draymond Green intends to do. The most unfortunate consequence of Draymond Green’s multiyear shooting regression is that he’s a lot more predictable offensively than he used to be. Smart teams and even some well coached young teams have figured out that Draymond rarely looks for his own shot and that overplaying the passing lanes can create some nice, juicy live ball turnovers. A veteran team like the Lakers should in theory, be able to switch defensive coverages on the fly and better execute a game plan than a team like the Warriors that consists of a lot of unproven and young players with minimal experience in high leverage situations. But sometimes good offense beats good defense. Here’s an example I like from the Jazz game last week that Joe Viray noted:
Using Steph as a screener for Draymond or Wiggins is a clever way to leverage Steph’s gravity to create an easy look. The Jazz deny the initial Steph screen so Draymond improvises and the fear of Steph gets Draymond an easy dunk. That’s the type of aggression you need from Draymond.
Here’s another play I want to note from that Jazz game. It’s a simple split screen action. I’ve watched the Warriors run this for LITERALLY SEVEN YEARS under Steve Kerr. I know it’s coming the moment Kevon Looney catches the entry pass. I bet you there’s thousands of literal high school aged Warriors fans in the greater Bay Area who can diagram that exact play and can tell you that Kevon Looney isn’t gonna do jack fucking shit in the post here. And yet, the Jazz bungle the split action because Rudy Gobert, a multiple-time DPOY who gets cooked by small guards in the playoffs, can’t scamper out the perimeter to defend it.
That’s not going to fly against the Lakers. At least, it’s not going to fly against lineups with Anthony Davis at center. Now if Frank Voegl dicks around and gives Andre Drummond some courtesy minutes, the Warriors can probably manufacture some clean looks out of the classic split action. They might even be able to do it with Marc Gasol on the court — I think if I’m Frank Voegl I’d trust Gasol against the Warriors more than I would Drummond, but I digress. My point is that some of the classic Kerr looks are probably going to get mucked up as they often do in the playoffs. But I have noticed that the Warriors are adding wrinkles to the traditional split action set that put more bodies into the mix and have confounded opposing defenses. This is one I really like from the game against the Grizzlies on Sunday.
Jordan Poole passes from the top of the key to Kevon Looney on the left wing, who then dumps it into the midpost to Draymond Green. Thus begins a very cool split post action. Watch how Steph Curry is hanging around the post with Draymond Green before Looney makes his entry pass. As the pass is made, Steph walks over to the top of the key to set a screen for Jordan Poole who has the option to cut down the middle of the lane or use a Kevon Looney screen — Looney, after making the pass is now walking into the screen at the top of the key as is typical in the split action. Poole cuts down the middle, at which point Steph walks into a weird screen where he uses his butt to wall off Poole’s defender and then he shoots out to the left wing and Looney walls DeAnthony Melton, who is now totally fucking confused as to what just happened and Steph walks into a clean three point shot. It’s an absolutely gorgeous set and it’s the type wrinkle that could work against a team of grown ass men like the Lakers.
Here’s another play I like from earlier this week, this time from the Phoenix Suns game. It’s a pretty simple play in crunch time; Jordan Poole sets a screen on Steph Curry’s man, and DeAndre Ayton, who somehow ended up on Poole, scrambles to trap Steph. At that point, Poole is wide open on the right wing and Steph kicks it over to him for a very open three pointer that Poole nails.
That’s another type of look you might see in crunch time against the Lakers, but I don’t think the Lakers are nearly as vulnerable to Steph/Poole two man actions as the Suns are. If the Lakers are healthy and Frank Voegl commits to playing his best lineups — both of which are big ifs and we’ll get to in the next section — the Lakers are theoretically as well equipped as any team in the NBA to defend the Warriors.
So what’s gonna happen?
The cynic in me says that the Lakers win. They’re a big, long, veteran team with capable defenders who should be able to execute complicated reads and mid-game adjustments with a higher level of competence than these Warriors. In crunch time, the Lakers could roll out a lineup of Schroeder/Caruso/KCP/LeBron/AD and have competent defenders at all 5 positions. That Lakers lineup could defend the Warriors straight up or they could do some crazy ass crossmatching. Imagine this — the Warriors go on a brief run in the fourth quarter and Voegl and LeBron decide to stop dicking around and put AD on Draymond to limit his ability to pass out of the DHO’s and PNR’s, LeBron goes on Steph, KCP hangs out on JTA or Looney, Caruso guards Wiggins, and Schroeder harasses Poole. That’s one of many crossmatches the Lakers can do in crunch time. A fully healthy Lakers team has the bodies and smarts to do weird stuff like that in important minutes and do it well.
But what version of the Lakers are we going to see? LeBron James has claimed, improbably, that his sprained ankle may never be 100% ever again. Since he returned from a bizarre calf/achilles injury, Anthony Davis has averaged a very mortal 20.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 2.5 stocks on 42/21/77 splits. He’s listed as questionable for the play-in game. Dennis Schroeder, claims not to have COVID-19 despite a recent stay in the league’s health and safety protocols — who knows what he’ll look like after a layoff. On top of that Andre Drummond seems to be a bad fit with the Laker’s most important players. Check out this quote from Kyle Kuzma about the Lakers’ center position:
“I’m not sure what to do. I wish we could get a little bit more time out there with Marc (Gasol). That’d be something that would be pretty good for us, for sure.”
Here’s some other numbers to ponder, via Hoopshype: Overall, since March 31, the Lakers had a net rating of 23.9 when Gasol shared the floor with Davis. For comparison, since that date, the defending champs recorded a net rating of -3.4 with Davis on the floor with Drummond and -15.9 with Davis flanked by Harrell.
And yet, all indicators are that Frank Voegl wants to give Andre Drummond the chance to start. I for one, welcome that. I also welcome any attempts to placate Anthony Davis, who despite saying he’ll be happy to play the 5, has a well documented aversion to actually doing so. It’s entirely possible that the Warriors can steal some minutes with AD at the 4 to build up a cushion for whatever the fuck happens when Steph Curry sits and what happens when things tighten up in crunch time.
I am so excited and so curious to see how Jordan Poole and Juan Toscano-Anderson perform in the playoffs, but I’m also absolutely terrified to imagine what happens if Poole goes cold and the Lakers attack him on defense. God forbid Steph has a cold night as he’s apt to do at Staples Center — noted Warriors shill, Drew Shiller, pointed out that Steph is 16-77 from three in his last eight games in LA against the Lakers. If that happens, you absolutely NEED 40 combined points from Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. In the one victory the Warriors had against the Lakers this year, they got 62 points combined from Andrew Wiggins, Kelly Oubre Jr., and Eric Paschall. How in the world are the Warriors going to scrounge together 60 points from non-Steph players if he’s cold?
Beyond that, I have my concerns about the unproven Warriors, namely Poole and Mychal Mulder, holding their own defensively when Steph is off of the court. In those minutes, it’s likely that Montrezl Harrell gets lots of run and he’s the type of player that typically abuses Kevon Looney. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’d much rather subject Kevon Looney to 40 minutes of James Harden than I would 6 minutes of Montrezl Harrell. And that’s not even factoring in how the guards will handle Harrell PNR’s. It’s possible Kerr banishes Mulder to the fringes of the rotation and rolls with Kent Bazemore in the bench lineup to minimize the defensive boners, but there has been no Poole led bench lineup to play significant minutes that’s scored anywhere near league average, despite some great flashes from Poole. But the reality is that the Warriors are going to need Jordan Poole to play big minutes. He’s the Warriors second best creator and he pairs very well with Steph Curry. Those attributes should outweigh any of the potential downsides.
Really, what I’m banking on is that Frank Voegl digs the Lakers into a hole by way of Andre Drummond minutes and the Warriors take enough of a lead into the beginning of the 2nd and 4th quarters to tread water when Steph is off of the court. Once it gets to crunch time it’s anyone’s game. Even if Steph has a cold game, he’s still dangerous in crunch time and Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins, and Juan Toscano-Anderson took and made tough shots this last week in closing minutes. You’ve got to hope those made shots translate into confidence in crunch time for this play-in game, but you never really know what a team will be like in the playoffs until they’re actually in the playoffs.
I still am inclined to think that the Lakers win (if healthy), but I’ll hedge a little bit. If the Warriors can get 35 points combined from Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins, I think they win this game. I’d love to see Steph Curry take 30 shots, but I think that the Lakers are smart enough to realize they absolutely cannot let that happen, so it’ll be on the Warriors’ supporting cast to provide just enough for the Warriors to get into crunch time. From there on, it’s anyone’s game and my stomach will be doing flips and I’ll be slapping tables with every made or missed shot and I’ll know playoff basketball is back.