Lakers: Portland’s two key adjustments and how to counter them

Key offensive adjustment: Damian Lillard slides off the ball full-time

The Lakers are playing awesome defense. Just enjoy this clip for a minute.

In short, they are pressuring Dame at half-court and denying the first pass to the wing. To parlay a term from football, the Lakers are Belichickian in how they have taken away Portland’s main offensive strength: Dame pulling up from Foxboro.

What happens is Portland wings end up catching it 30 feet away from the basket…and no one except for Dame has Dame range. This is good for the Lakers.

I see Portland coach Terry Stotts making an adjustment and moving Dame off the ball to gum up the Lakers’ initial point of attack defensively.

CJ McCollum will run the point. Dame will come off a maze of screens and handoffs to get the ball. Big man Jusuf Nurkic will be deployed as a powerful screener.

Dame’s injury may affect things. It is much tougher to catch a pass with a dislocated index finger, but the impact of the ball comes mainly to the shooting hand. Dame dislocated his left (non-shooting) index finger so this does not affect his ability to catch passes as much.

His pull-up off the dribble going to his left will suffer, but he is still an imminent threat off the catch. Portland has enough facilitators and screeners to play Dame off the ball.

How can the Lakers counter? Channel Tom Thibodeau’s patented defense and “ice” most off-ball screens.

New Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau pioneered a new way to defend the pick-and-roll: “icing” all ball screens, which forces the ball-handler away from the screener. 

My suggestion is to apply this principle with the Lakers’ off-ball defense against Damian Lillard.

Right now, the Lakers are wisely face-guarding Damian Lillard and denying him full-court. Dame cannot get the ball if the defender is chest-to-chest against him.

A good way to maintain chest-to-chest contact is to switch all off-ball screens. The Lakers do a good job switching some off-ball screens.

For example, if Carmelo Anthony sets an off-ball screen for Dame, LeBron James would jump onto Dame and KCP would stay on Melo. If the on-ball defender (let’s say Danny Green) adequately pressures the ball, it would not be as easy to deliver the pass to Dame.

The problem with the switch-everything strategy is Portland can pick who guards Dame. Who wants the smoke? Kyle Kuzma? Javale McGee?

Nah! Dame would go off again. It is better to divert Dame away from the screen and into the paint, where the weak side help defense can clog up the passing lanes inside.

Yes. It flies in the face of two core tenant of good help defense. Defenders should always stay between the ball and their man, and between their man and the basket.

In this case, defying conventional defensive wisdom is the best way from preventing Dame to going off. Do not let him receive any catch-and-shoot opportunities off screens, because he is a much stronger threat catching the ball from anywhere outside of the three-point line as opposed to catching it 10-15 feet away on the baseline.

Let’s see how they fare when Dame moves off the ball. And how the Lakers fare in general!

Tonight’s prediction: who takes the 2-1 series lead?

Portland has not shot the ball well this series. That changes tonight. The Lakers keep up just enough to stay in the game, but the headlines will proclaim Portland as the winner. The talking heads will overreact and assume Portland wins in 5 games.

Carmelo Anthony will be the hero tonight. With the off-ball attention directed at Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum handling the ball, Melo revisits his vintage form to go off for over 30 points.

Prediction: Portland wins 121-115