12-26-2022, 08:02 AM
(12-26-2022, 07:52 AM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: Powell covered Lebron and Wood covered Bryant. It worked surprisingly well. They ran that the entire time except for one possession coming out of a timeout. In that possession they ran zone with Powell in the middle and Wood on the wing. It resulted in a 3 as Wood's instinct was to stay low when the ball swung to his side. Powell was trying to push him to go out on the shooter, but it was too late by then.
The only big wing Mavs had was Maxi. LeBron was feasting against smaller defenders and Kidd didn't want to put Luka on him (who had foul trouble even without that). So Powell was basically the only option left. I was surprised Mavs didn't want to double on LeBron, because the LA supporting cast really sucks.
Offensively, I think any line-up would work against LA. They literally don't play defense. The only thing they did in first half was double Luka and Mavs started with real ice-cold shooting (and some stupid decisions, early shots and similar). Once those wide open shots started going in, Lakers had to abandon double teams and then it was over quickly. The video below perfectly summarizes Lakers effort.
Mavs/Magic Draft on Twitter: "Great effort from the Lakers on this possession. I'm pretty shocked Dallas was able to out-hustle them on this play for the hard-earned 2 points #MFFL https://t.co/CyoKgD0ajQ" / Twitter