Los Angeles Lakers: 4 rotation mistakes Frank Vogel must avoid making

3. The Los Angeles Lakers must avoid ignoring defense in the crunchtime lineup

There are two things we know about the Los Angeles Lakers’ crunchtime lineup. First is that Anthony Davis is going to be the center, for reasons that we already outlined. Second is that it is likely going to consist of Russell Westbrook, LeBron James and Davis, no matter what.

While the pairing is interesting and has been dissected critically since the trade happened, it would take a lot for Westbrook to play himself out of the crunchtime lineup. It certainly is possible but is highly improbable.

That means that there are two other spots in the crunchtime lineup for Frank Vogel to hand out and there are so many different options that he has. The one important thing that he has to keep in mind is defense and while one of those players can be someone who is not great on defense, he cannot add two defensive liabilities to the crunchtime lineup.

Those players will get hunted by the best teams in the league and it is much easier to mask one bad defender than it is to mask two bad defenders.

Davis is an elite defensive player who is going to be in the Defensive Player of the Year running. LeBron James is still a really good defender when he puts forth the effort and wants to be a good defender and Westbrook has the tools to be a good defender but needs to make much better decisions.

As much as I love Malik Monk as a bench scorer, it would not make sense for the Lakers to run out Monk and Carmelo Anthony with those two spots. In fact, with so many scoring capabilities from the stars, I lean towards prioritizing defense altogether in crunch time.

If it were up to me, I would play Talen Horton-Tucker as the two guard and Trevor Ariza at forward. Ariza provides defense and a three-point shot while THT is a good perimeter defender and is fine as your fifth scorer.