Being on guard this season means more than defense
Virus avoidance a difficult task facing champs, others in NBA
The Los Angeles Lakers had played 10 games this haphazard season before rolling into Houston for a pair of games, but star LeBron James figured his team’s Sunday night visit to Toyota Center offered a fresh start for the storied franchise.
“We want to be the best defensive team in the league,” James explained, “and (Sunday) was a good start to that.”
The Lakers (8-3), who face the Rockets (3-5) again on Tuesday at Toyota Center following their 120-102 thumping of the Rockets on Sunday, won a record-tying 17th NBA title last season in a peculiar environ: an NBA bubble near Orlando, Fla., as the league managed to finish out a bizarre year during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bubbled mission was difficult and a testament to the abilities of James and Anthony Davis to keep the team zeroed in on the abnormal task at hand. But a title this year, by the favored Lakers or otherwise, might even be more impressive.
“During this pandemic, all this stuff is going to be different,” Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic said. “Some players might get (coronavirus), get sick and not be able to be with the team for (a while). That’s going to be a big part: Which team is not going to have positive people.”
Doncic was referring to positive COVID-19 cases, not
upbeat teammates, and to date the Lakers have steered clear of coronavirus complications.
“So much of this pandemic is case by case, situation by situation,” said Lakers coach Frank Vogel, who won an NBA title in his first season with the team. “… I know there are going to be guys who test positive who miss games, and guys are going to be missing games with quarantines, and there are going to be a few games (delayed or canceled).
“But hopefully all of those things are minimal enough that we can continue on with our season safely.”
The NBA on Monday announced its second and third delays of games in the past the past two days alone. Sunday’s BostonMiami meeting was delayed along with New OrleansDallas on Monday and Boston-chicago on Tuesday.
“It just drives the point home how important it is for us all to follow the protocols to a T,” Vogel said. “If you’re really doing that, it
minimizes the risk of spreading the virus. That’s what we continue to emphasize with our guys.”
Along with, of course, playing title-worthy basketball, and the Lakers are hitting the right notes on that front 11 games into the season. They’ve won six of their last seven games, and their 18-point margin over the Rockets was the widest in that span.
“How the Lakers played — that should be the staple,” Rockets guard Eric Gordon said of Los Angeles’s dominating performance on Sunday. “They relied on their defense and we turned over the ball (21) times — they scored 30 points off it. That’s how you play basketball, and we have to learn from that.”
The Lakers revamped a chunk of their roster from last season, replacing Danny Green, Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo and Javale Mcgee with Dennis Schroder, Montrezl Harrell, Wes Matthews and Marc Gasol. Most importantly to their fortunes, however, the superstars are the same: James and Davis.
First-year Rockets coach Stephen Silas addressed James’ ability to adjust on the fly — for instance from Sunday to Tuesday against the same opponent. Silas was an assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003-04 when James was a teenaged rookie with his hometown franchise.
“He’s better, usually,” Silas said of James rapidly analyzing his opponent’s tendencies in, say, a playoff series, and growing stronger from game to game. “The familiarity that comes with playing a team and getting a feel for what you can and can’t do, he’s a savant when it comes to those situations. So, yeah, he’s better.”
Davis is 6-10 and James is 6-9, and Silas pointed out the Lakers’ ability to play defense inside and out with a handful of additional athletic big men makes it difficult to get off shots.
“They’re such a long team that you have to move them and drive on them and take the opportunities that are given quickly,” Silas said. “Because if you don’t make quick decisions, the (opportunities) are going to close up pretty quickly.”
The Lakers own the NBA’S best record and appear right on target to challenge for a repeat, no matter the oddball obstacles of this year.
“That was a Lakers basketball type of win,” a thrilled Vogel said of his team’s rout of the Rockets on Sunday. “Flying around defensively, getting stops without fouls, forcing turnovers and misses and flying out on the break … it was sort of an ‘identity’ win.”