Los Angeles Lakers: How to integrate Isaiah Thomas into the lineup
The Los Angeles Lakers recently made a big move to acquire Isaiah Thomas from the Cleveland Cavaliers. How will he fit in their lineup?
Isaiah Thomas played his first game for the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday against the Dallas Mavericks. It was a game of good-and-bad for the former Cavalier. Thomas finished with 22 points and 6 assists (16 points in first half, his most in a half this season) but was exploited on defense by the Mavericks. The Lakers overall had a terrible defensive game though, losing 130-123. (Isaiah had the best defensive rating of the team, so don’t blame everything on him).
Isaiah joined the team late Friday night before the Saturday matchup, and didn’t have his first practice until Monday. The Lakers only have a couple games left before All-Star weekend starts, and it’ll be very interesting to see how they integrate IT into the team afterwards. Here’s a few things that will have to be monitored for the rest of the season in relation to IT.
Change of Defensive Scheme
Luke Walton has been consistent all year on his emphasis on defense. He has proclaimed many times that if the Lakers get it done on the defensive end, then their fast breaks will come and made shots will follow.
Isaiah is notoriously known around the NBA as being a very below average defender. At 5’8” tall, Isaiah matches up very poorly with the tall point guards of today’s NBA. He has an even harder time when switched onto NBA bigs whether they are stretch-bigs or traditional post-up-bigs. The Maverick’s took advantage of this many times on Saturday, using pick-and-rolls to put Isaiah on Dirk Nowitzki and Dwight Powell.
The Lakers have taken advantage of their versatile defenders all season, switching constantly. They believed that each player could potentially guard the 1 through 5 spots on the opposing team. With Isaiah Thomas on the floor, they definitely will not be able to do that.
It would be a good idea to have Brook Lopez on the court at the same time as Isaiah. That way, the Lakers can have a rim protector if everything fails on the play. Lopez also has the ability to stick with quicker guards if he needs to. Either way, the Lakers should try to never have IT switch onto a big, and if he does, help will need to come immediately to force the ball to somewhere else on the court.