Los Angeles Lakers vs Jazz preview: Can Donovan Mitchell be stopped?
Will Donovan Mitchell burn the Los Angeles Lakers?
Raptors guard Kyle Lowry went off for 33 points against the Lakers in the last game. Will the NBA’s resident Spider-Man go for 50? Or will the Lakers prove to be his Kryptonite? Oh, wait, wrong superhero! Will the Lakers prove to be his Ethyl Chloride?
No. The Lakers are not Mitchell’s Ethyl Chloride (Spider-Man’s weakness), but they did go 2-0 against Utah. Mitchell had 24 points in their first meeting; the Jazz only scored 86 total points. The next meeting Mitchell torched the Lakers for 29 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 assists.
The Lakers won 121-96.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope mostly guarded Mitchell in that game. He obviously did a good enough job for the Lakers to win convincingly. But Mitchell still went off. KCP will have to guard him again.
There is more saving grace for KCP and the other Laker guards. Utah’s second-leading scorer, sharpshooter Bojan Bogdanovic, scored 23 points in that game. Bogdanovic is out for the season with a wrist injury. Former Laker Jordan Clarkson is now the team’s second-leading scorer. The Jazz are fractured and shorthanded right now.
This is because Utah is coming off their own cataclysmic defeat, at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder. OKC smacked them on Saturday – and exposed a very real problem: the détente between Donovan Mitchell and co-star Rudy Gobert, fragile at best…shattered at worst. Both players struggled: Mitchell had 13 points; Gobert had 10.
Winning can only mask very real issues for so long. A shattered détente between feuding co-stars will inevitably manifest itself on the court. Just ask the Lakers in 2004.
Will Mitchell still go off against the Lakers?
Yes. Utah’s complex offensive system will exploit the Los Angeles Lakers’ suddenly vulnerable defense.
Mitchell will, at some point, punish the Lakers’ struggling help defense to get buckets (and to throw lobs to his frenemy Gobert). Utah runs a complex offense, often dubbed advantage basketball. This offense is full of handoffs and misdirection to give Mitchell and others an “advantage” against the defender to attack the basket, hence the colloquial term.
Take a look at the opening minute in the NBA’s highlight package. Look at the handoffs and the screens. Utah runs a very nice half-court offense!
Donovan Mitchell got to the paint at will early on. The Lakers have to try something different.
How do the Los Angeles Lakers take away the advantage in advantage basketball?
Mitchell is a side-to-side attacker. He likes to slither around until he finds an opening. How do defenders stop a player as shifty and athletic as Mitchell?
Playing good help defense and communicating on screens is paramount in snuffing out the misdirection, but doing all this work does not matter if defenders cannot stay in front of their man!
Watch the 4:28 mark to see what the Lakers did to adjust to the Mitchell-Gobert pick-and-roll at halftime.
Double-teaming Mitchell was the best adjustment they could have made. Even then it was not enough! They just need to better execute that defense.