Luke Walton avoided losing his job this week
Believe me Lakers fans, Luke Walton was standing at the plank on Monday morning. A Chicago loss would probably been either the end of Walton’s tenure or a huge showdown between Lakers ownership (Ms. Jeanie Buss) and the Lakers front office (Earvin Johnson and Rob Pelinka). Things couldn’t get much lower and if you paid attention to Walton’s actions…you would agree.
The JaVale McGee benching showed desperation. It wasn’t because of his play. It was because in my opinion, because he went to the media after the Utah game and basically showed defensive deficiencies…
"“I just feel like some of the coverages that we were in should have been adjusted earlier,” McGee said. “But, we didn’t adjust and they kept succeeding at what they were doing.” He added, when asked about Mitchell: “They were setting good screens, and he was getting to the rim, and [Rudy] Gobert was dropping really hard, so it was kind of a conundrum being in between the Gobert lob or the Donovan Mitchell layup.”"
For the record, the Lakers still have a few things to work on (Also read: JaVale McGee is right!). Houston basically rolls the ball to James Harden for option A,B,C offensively, but they play a ton of pick and roll. The lineup change is not changing much if that is the reason why he made the change at the center position.
However…
For the first time all year-long, Luke Walton made noticeable in-game adjustments and found 5 guys that would play hard on the court. He benched his starters and went to his bench with another group. When that group did not work, he tried something else. He found a combination of players that would compete and that turned the ENTIRE game around.
He absolutely coached circles around Thunder coach Bill Donovan! He did outstanding and more importantly, he stuck with what was working.
People make a big deal about rotation patterns in a game. Let’s make it simple, rotation patterns are nothing but finding five guys that are playing well and find the best combination to finish a game with in crunch time. This was the one and only game I saw evidence of it.
Plus the fire came out of Walton in this game. He basically called his team terrible in a TNT interview after the first quarter with Allie LaForce, when it came to competing and sent a message to the team the right way…
Compete or sit! Plain and simple!
Neither JaVale or Tyson set the world on fire so Luke Walton was left with one last option…