Los Angeles Lakers: 4 Lessons from loss to the Memphis Grizzlies

Ivica Zubac brought his “A” game for the second game in a row

Now you might be reading this and wonder how can Zubac be the best player on the court Sunday night with all of the talent around the Lakers with LeBron James on the roster.

Cool, let me tell you…

Ivica Zubac followed up Friday’s performance against the Pelicans scoring 19 points, grabbing 4 rebounds and dismissing four shots in extended minutes. Moe Wagner was ineffective in this game, so Zubac had to go a bit longer than intended tallying up 33 minutes. The game was almost a carbon copy of the New Orleans game…

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Zubac came out and played the pick and roll game to perfection…

https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1077034364385390592

As LeBron James brings the ball up the court, Zubac hits Kyle Anderson with a solid pick that frees James to drive in the lane. Zubac then follows LeBron into the lane and makes himself available for the pass. LeBron draws Marc Gasol to him and hits Zubac with the pass. Zubac proceeds to dunk on Gasol and Jaren Jackson Jr.

How about this play here…

LeBron is on the wing and goes baseline. Again Zubac picks Kyle Anderson and slides to the open spot on the floor. Again, LeBron draws the defense to him and hits Ivica with a pocket pass and the Grizzlies players take Polaroids while getting dunked on.

Here’s what set Ivica Zubac apart from the rest of the Lakers…he gave effort ON BOTH sides of the ball. He actually competed on defense.

https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1077037009531592704

Pay attention to what Ivica Zubac does here. In the pick-and-roll Marc Gasol brought him out of the paint to allow Dillon Brooks to drive to the basket. LeBron James was caught trailing the play. Zubac rotated back to rim protect which allowed LeBron to swallow Brooks’ shot up at the rim from behind.

This is a very important point of emphasis here. When Zubac was sitting down the Lakers defense struggled mightily in crunch time. Early in the game, Memphis was struggling to keep up with the Lakers matchups that enhanced the hustle by Zubac. His team defense coming from the weak side was excellent.

The problem is that the concept was lost on some of his teammates. More on that later.

Let’s move on…