Key #2: How do the Los Angeles Lakers defend Jimmy Butler?
Basic NBA analytics have betrayed us: allowing open midrange shots is good math, but it will never be good defense. Anthony Davis is known as the quintessential modern-day defender. AD plays sensible modern-day defense: he plays off guys who do not take three-pointers. When he guards Jimmy Butler, he is playing great theoretical, analytically-sound defense.
Not in actuality. Not fundamentally. True, Butler does not like to take three-pointers. He only shot three in Game 5 and it looked like he wanted to shoot threes. His jump-shot is too flat to make him an elite outside shooter.
AD still needs to guard him straight up. Many of Butler’s 35 points came from open midrange shots, which were conceded since he is so focused on protecting the rim.
Miami was smart to use Butler as a screener on this play because of AD’s overzealous help defense. AD played too far off him to recover to Butler on the scrambled closeout.
(The Golden State Warriors would often do this to free up Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson. I cannot believe I just compared Duncan Robinson to the Splash Brothers.)
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— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) October 10, 2020
AD can do two things at once. That does not mean he should. He has to either guard Butler or switch onto a less-threatening player (Jae Crowder comes to mind) and protect the rim. If he is on Butler, he needs to treat him as a legitimate outside shooting threat.
Butler got a full head of steam because AD was too worried about helping against Bam Adebayo’s quarterbacking from the elbow. AD can just guard him like normal and Butler would likely not have made that shot.