Bench Austin Reaves and 2 other changes Lakers must make vs Warriors

2. Stop making Jarred Vanderbilt the primary Steph Curry defender

Jarred Vanderbilt made headlines after Game 1 of this series for how he was able to slow Steph Curry down and disrupt him at the point of attack. It looked like the Lakers had a Steph stopper and if Vanderbilt continued to thrive it was going to be a long (but short) series for Curry and the Warriors.

All of that hype came back down to earth after Game 2 as Curry was doing Curry things and facilitating this blowout win. Sure, he didn’t drop 50 points on the Lakers but he was running the show and was the main reason why the Warriors got anything they wanted offensively.

The entire point of having Vanderbilt on Curry is to get up in his face, disrupt him and keep him from taking the ball up the court. Vanderbilt hasn’t been doing that and at that rate there is really no reason to waste his defensive ability just to get switched off of Steph on a screen.

ESPN’s Tim Legler did an excellent job breaking down the Xs and Os of Curry’s game and you can see how Vanderbilt and the Lakers are only playing into Curry’s strengths.

Jarred Vanderbilt can offer more value to the Lakers elsewhere

Vanderbilt should still defend Curry in key possessions when the Lakers need a stop. But in the natural flow of the game, LA would probably get more value out of him being in a different role.

Instead of putting him on Curry only to immediately get switched off because of a screen, the Lakers would benefit more in having Vanderbilt as an off-ball and help defender. His main responsibility can be Klay Thompson while also having an increased responsibility on playing help defense with LeBron then sliding over to defend Klay if he is left open.

Schroder can chase around Curry and while he might not do a great job at that, the truth is that the Lakers aren’t going to stop Curry. Instead of pouring so many resources into making Curry play a 90% version of his game, the team would be better off throwing an athlete like Schroder at him and allowing Vanderbilt to slow down the role players.

Plus, the Lakers are somehow getting out-rebounded in this series and having Vanderbilt’s size to attack rebounds more definitely helps shift the tide of the rebound battle.