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Lakers’ role players — not stars — are giving L.A. its edge against Grizzlies
Sometimes you have to look beyond the manufactured storyline, and it can be hard to filter it out when it becomes the focus of so much attention.
So it is with the first-round series between the Lakers and Grizzlies. As much as everyone wants to make this series about A) LeBron James and B) the Grizzlies’ lack of maturity, what has struck me most about the first four games is how much this first-round series has NOT been about LeBron James and the Grizzlies’ lack of maturity.
Sure, both aspects have been palpable factors at times; there’s a reason this has been a hot topic. James had an unbelievable finish to send Game 4 to overtime, most notably, and remains a ridiculously good basketball player at 38. As for Memphis, let’s just say the Grizzlies’ youthful bravado has been less charming this go-round.
That said, James was largely a bystander as Austin Reaves and Anthony Davis took over the end of Game 1, was just one of several Lakers who had strong performances in Game 3 and again was a limited participant in the first 11:58 of the fourth quarter of Game 4 … when the big shots mostly came from D’Angelo Russell and Reaves.
As for the Grizzlies’ behavior … sure, Ja Morant and Dillon Brooks need to face the music after a loss. That’s part of being a pro and also part of being a teammate and not leaving Desmond Bane and Xavier Tillman to answer for everything.
That said, the much bigger, more pressing issue is that the Grizzlies seem so short of secondary options. The Grizzlies have only three players they can count on for offense right now, and the bench has scored just 79 point in four games. Rui Hachimura has 72 by himself for L.A.; overall, it’s a plus-40 advantage in bench scoring for the Lakers over the four games.
Wait, it gets worse. The Grizzlies have made just 30.1 percent of their 3s, even as the Lakers continue to even more aggressively ignore their secondary options; beyond the Morant-Bane-Jaren Jackson Jr. core, Memphis’ role players are shooting 39.7 percent from the floor and 27.1 percent from 3, with 19 free-throw attempts in four games. Yikes.
The contrast with L.A. is fairly stark. James can’t buy a 3 (5 of 27), but Lakers outside the James-Davis-Reaves(!) core have made 46.7 percent from downtown and a respectable 44.8 percent overall.
It’s an amazing statement because it’s such a reversal of fortune from how these teams have been for most of recent history. In particular, it’s a high G-force U-turn for a Lakers roster that was once the most top-heavy in the league. And by “once,” I mean like, in January.
I watched the Lakers in a preseason game in Las Vegas in October and chatted with other observers that Reaves might be the team’s third-best player. However, that was not intended as a compliment; instead, it was a red flag that James and Davis were going to have to struggle and strain just to lift a replacement-level supporting cast to mediocrity.
Yet somehow, someway, the Lakers are here, with a commanding 3-1 series lead thanks to a rousing overtime Game 4 win where the secondary performers dragged them to the finish line, even as Davis nursed a hip problem and couldn’t make a shot — and James failed to score a basket for an entire quarter against Memphis’ third-string center.
Some of that is because Reaves, an undrafted find by the Lakers’ crack scouting department in 2021, turned out to be way better than anyone thought. But mostly, it’s a credit to the Lakers’ front office for transitioning this team quickly at the trade deadline, waiting for the right deal rather than panicking early in the season. Amazingly, the Lakers effectively traded Thomas Bryant, a wooden pick-and-roll defender who has been unplayable in Denver, for Hachimura, who lit up the Grizzlies in Game 1 — it cost them three seconds to get Hachimura, and they got them right back when they sent out Bryant.
L.A. also swung big on a deal to reshape the roster by sending out a poorly fitting Russell Westbrook and returning Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley. (Ironic side note: It is not lost on anyone in the City of Angels that Westbrook almost immediately became the player the Lakers spent a year and a half begging him to be almost the instant he joined the Clippers.)
Those moves coincided with the promotion of Reaves into a more prominent role, first as a sixth man and then as a starter. A spicy ballhandler with wing size, he’s been a tough matchup for secondary defenders (since the opponent’s ace is always on James) and in particular feasted on Tyus Jones at the end of Game 1. Including playoffs, the Lakers are 20-10 this season when Reaves plays at least 30 minutes.
All of a sudden, voilà. The Lakers have a real team with a nine-man rotation; that doesn’t promise them anything beyond a chance, but this roster was drawing dead before then. Russell, Vanderbilt and Hachimura have been key players in this series (L.A. is still waiting on Beasley, alas — a talented shooter in Minnesota and Utah, he’s struggled mightily as a Laker); combined with Reaves, Troy Brown Jr. and Dennis Schröder, L.A.’s nine-man rotation only falls short at backup center.
The contrast with Memphis is pretty enormous and pretty jarring based on recent history. The Grizzlies’ second unit pounded opponents to smithereens a year ago, and even this year without Kyle Anderson and De’Anthony Melton, it had reliably outperformed it’s opponents.
Unfortunately, it’s death by a thousand cuts right now. Season-ending injuries to Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke shredded the frontcourt depth, leaving the Grizzlies starting the previously little-used Tillman. He has held up phenomenally well on defense, but he and Jackson are now the only reliable bigs in the rotation. (The other possibility, Santi Aldama, is getting cooked.)
Meanwhile, the loss of Anderson and regression from second-year pro Ziaire Williams has left Memphis with a glaring hole at the forward spot. The Grizzlies still have guard depth for days, but this isn’t a matchup where it can be used advantageously because the Lakers are so big — Reaves is 6-5, Hachimura is 6-8, James 6-9 and even Russell is 6-4. You can’t play Luke Kennard, John Konchar and Bane at the same time against these guys as your two, three and four, or play tiny two-guard fronts with Morant and Jones against the Lakers starters (the unit L.A. torched near the end of Game 1).
As a result, one bench player has truly earned their trust this series: Surprisingly, it’s rookie forward David Roddy. The Grizzlies have switched him onto James and used him as a backup at three positions; for any important moment, he’s vaulted right past Aldama in the pecking order. Roddy has had his share of positive moments, including defending in space. You don’t expect a nose tackle to move his feet the way he does.
But the other piece of this is that the players the Grizzlies are using aren’t scaring the Lakers from the perimeter, including Roddy. Kennard can’t get open, and the other players are being left open. Even Jones, normally a reliable option, is 1-of-13 from 3 in this series and played only eight minutes in Game 4.
Brooks’ demise as a shooter has been crucial in this, and I’d argue it’s been much more relevant to the outcome thus far than his word choices. Brooks averaged 25.8 points per game in a playoff series just two years ago — yes, really — and is a quasi-respectable 34.2 percent career shooter from 3. Even those percentages could have been higher were it not for some adventurous shot selection; with his feet set, he’s a guy defenders would normally worry about.
Except, now he’s not. Even as Game 4 went on, L.A. became increasingly adventurous in offering him opportunities to fire away from the perimeter. Check out how the Lakers defend this Brooks ball screen for Morant; rather than make a decision of whether to switch or show, the two defenders just hang out with Morant and don’t worry about Brooks.
They’ve treated both Brooks and Roddy this way any time they’re above the break, bringing the “nail” help far past the midpoint of the court. (Side note: Brooks or Roddy could also back-cut this.) By the fourth quarter it was almost comical. The Grizzlies have Brooks spaced in the corner on this play while Morant tries to get in his bag against Russell at the top of the key.
Look at where Schröder is. He’s basically two feet away from Russell, completely conceding any corner 3 for Brooks. There is no way Morant is getting to the basket here. (The Grizzlies were bailed out by an illegal defense call against Davis, the first time in NBA history this violation has been whistled in the fourth quarter of a playoff game.)
Memphis didn’t help matters with some of its tactical decisions along the way. The Grizzlies could have focused more on isolating Morant against Russell or Reaves, rather than bringing secondary defenders into the fold with ball screens that didn’t worry L.A.
The most egregious of these decisions came near the end of regulation. With 35 seconds left, here comes Brooks to set a ball screen for Morant; since the Lakers had already established they weren’t even remotely concerned about Brooks’ jumper, all it did was bring the much bigger Hachimura into the play to defend Morant at the rim.
Of course, the Grizzlies can rightly argue they might have won the game anyway had one or two bounces turned out differently. Even allowing for the Grizzlies’ iffy shooters, their 9-of-42 performance on a steady diet of open corners 3s was outlier bad. The Grizzlies also burned their challenge on a low-leverage, out-of-bounds call in the second quarter and didn’t have it available to overturn a brutal charge call against Morant with just over two minutes left. (I know we’re all trying to give LeBron his flowers, but can we talk about how bad this call was?)
Tillman would have been the story of the game had the Grizzlies won, bottling up James for most of the fourth quarter. In fact, with two and a half minutes left, he blocked a very similar play to James’ game-tying drive. Given the postgame commentary regarding Memphis players not helping on that drive, notice that they also stayed home on this one and let Tillman (and Jackson on the back line) handle it:
Nonetheless, the series has underscored weaknesses that go deeper than just one game or one fourth quarter, and it will be interesting to see how Memphis responds. Can the Grizzlies unlock lineups with Kennard to provide enough spacing without getting cooked on defense? For that matter, can they maybe put him in the game when they’re down five with 13 seconds left?
The Grizzlies might also try actually making contact when they set a screen. Here’s an ATO from Game 4 that Brown easily tiptoed around:
Using Kennard as a screener hasn’t worked out much better:
OK, I’m getting into the weeds here, and I’ve already ranted for quite long enough, so let’s finish where we started — with the macro story: The difference between these two teams through four games has been less about experience triumphing over youth and much more about the secondary players on the Lakers outplaying those on Memphis.
It’s a jarring turnaround from the state of affairs at midseason, and one that could lead to the biggest playoff upset (by seeding, anyway) in a decade.
Sometimes you have to look beyond the manufactured storyline, and it can be hard to filter it out when it becomes the focus of so much attention.
So it is with the first-round series between the Lakers and Grizzlies. As much as everyone wants to make this series about A) LeBron James and B) the Grizzlies’ lack of maturity, what has struck me most about the first four games is how much this first-round series has NOT been about LeBron James and the Grizzlies’ lack of maturity.
Sure, both aspects have been palpable factors at times; there’s a reason this has been a hot topic. James had an unbelievable finish to send Game 4 to overtime, most notably, and remains a ridiculously good basketball player at 38. As for Memphis, let’s just say the Grizzlies’ youthful bravado has been less charming this go-round.
That said, James was largely a bystander as Austin Reaves and Anthony Davis took over the end of Game 1, was just one of several Lakers who had strong performances in Game 3 and again was a limited participant in the first 11:58 of the fourth quarter of Game 4 … when the big shots mostly came from D’Angelo Russell and Reaves.
As for the Grizzlies’ behavior … sure, Ja Morant and Dillon Brooks need to face the music after a loss. That’s part of being a pro and also part of being a teammate and not leaving Desmond Bane and Xavier Tillman to answer for everything.
That said, the much bigger, more pressing issue is that the Grizzlies seem so short of secondary options. The Grizzlies have only three players they can count on for offense right now, and the bench has scored just 79 point in four games. Rui Hachimura has 72 by himself for L.A.; overall, it’s a plus-40 advantage in bench scoring for the Lakers over the four games.
Wait, it gets worse. The Grizzlies have made just 30.1 percent of their 3s, even as the Lakers continue to even more aggressively ignore their secondary options; beyond the Morant-Bane-Jaren Jackson Jr. core, Memphis’ role players are shooting 39.7 percent from the floor and 27.1 percent from 3, with 19 free-throw attempts in four games. Yikes.
The contrast with L.A. is fairly stark. James can’t buy a 3 (5 of 27), but Lakers outside the James-Davis-Reaves(!) core have made 46.7 percent from downtown and a respectable 44.8 percent overall.
It’s an amazing statement because it’s such a reversal of fortune from how these teams have been for most of recent history. In particular, it’s a high G-force U-turn for a Lakers roster that was once the most top-heavy in the league. And by “once,” I mean like, in January.
I watched the Lakers in a preseason game in Las Vegas in October and chatted with other observers that Reaves might be the team’s third-best player. However, that was not intended as a compliment; instead, it was a red flag that James and Davis were going to have to struggle and strain just to lift a replacement-level supporting cast to mediocrity.
Yet somehow, someway, the Lakers are here, with a commanding 3-1 series lead thanks to a rousing overtime Game 4 win where the secondary performers dragged them to the finish line, even as Davis nursed a hip problem and couldn’t make a shot — and James failed to score a basket for an entire quarter against Memphis’ third-string center.
Some of that is because Reaves, an undrafted find by the Lakers’ crack scouting department in 2021, turned out to be way better than anyone thought. But mostly, it’s a credit to the Lakers’ front office for transitioning this team quickly at the trade deadline, waiting for the right deal rather than panicking early in the season. Amazingly, the Lakers effectively traded Thomas Bryant, a wooden pick-and-roll defender who has been unplayable in Denver, for Hachimura, who lit up the Grizzlies in Game 1 — it cost them three seconds to get Hachimura, and they got them right back when they sent out Bryant.
L.A. also swung big on a deal to reshape the roster by sending out a poorly fitting Russell Westbrook and returning Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley. (Ironic side note: It is not lost on anyone in the City of Angels that Westbrook almost immediately became the player the Lakers spent a year and a half begging him to be almost the instant he joined the Clippers.)
Those moves coincided with the promotion of Reaves into a more prominent role, first as a sixth man and then as a starter. A spicy ballhandler with wing size, he’s been a tough matchup for secondary defenders (since the opponent’s ace is always on James) and in particular feasted on Tyus Jones at the end of Game 1. Including playoffs, the Lakers are 20-10 this season when Reaves plays at least 30 minutes.
All of a sudden, voilà. The Lakers have a real team with a nine-man rotation; that doesn’t promise them anything beyond a chance, but this roster was drawing dead before then. Russell, Vanderbilt and Hachimura have been key players in this series (L.A. is still waiting on Beasley, alas — a talented shooter in Minnesota and Utah, he’s struggled mightily as a Laker); combined with Reaves, Troy Brown Jr. and Dennis Schröder, L.A.’s nine-man rotation only falls short at backup center.
The contrast with Memphis is pretty enormous and pretty jarring based on recent history. The Grizzlies’ second unit pounded opponents to smithereens a year ago, and even this year without Kyle Anderson and De’Anthony Melton, it had reliably outperformed it’s opponents.
Unfortunately, it’s death by a thousand cuts right now. Season-ending injuries to Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke shredded the frontcourt depth, leaving the Grizzlies starting the previously little-used Tillman. He has held up phenomenally well on defense, but he and Jackson are now the only reliable bigs in the rotation. (The other possibility, Santi Aldama, is getting cooked.)
Meanwhile, the loss of Anderson and regression from second-year pro Ziaire Williams has left Memphis with a glaring hole at the forward spot. The Grizzlies still have guard depth for days, but this isn’t a matchup where it can be used advantageously because the Lakers are so big — Reaves is 6-5, Hachimura is 6-8, James 6-9 and even Russell is 6-4. You can’t play Luke Kennard, John Konchar and Bane at the same time against these guys as your two, three and four, or play tiny two-guard fronts with Morant and Jones against the Lakers starters (the unit L.A. torched near the end of Game 1).
As a result, one bench player has truly earned their trust this series: Surprisingly, it’s rookie forward David Roddy. The Grizzlies have switched him onto James and used him as a backup at three positions; for any important moment, he’s vaulted right past Aldama in the pecking order. Roddy has had his share of positive moments, including defending in space. You don’t expect a nose tackle to move his feet the way he does.
But the other piece of this is that the players the Grizzlies are using aren’t scaring the Lakers from the perimeter, including Roddy. Kennard can’t get open, and the other players are being left open. Even Jones, normally a reliable option, is 1-of-13 from 3 in this series and played only eight minutes in Game 4.
Brooks’ demise as a shooter has been crucial in this, and I’d argue it’s been much more relevant to the outcome thus far than his word choices. Brooks averaged 25.8 points per game in a playoff series just two years ago — yes, really — and is a quasi-respectable 34.2 percent career shooter from 3. Even those percentages could have been higher were it not for some adventurous shot selection; with his feet set, he’s a guy defenders would normally worry about.
Except, now he’s not. Even as Game 4 went on, L.A. became increasingly adventurous in offering him opportunities to fire away from the perimeter. Check out how the Lakers defend this Brooks ball screen for Morant; rather than make a decision of whether to switch or show, the two defenders just hang out with Morant and don’t worry about Brooks.
They’ve treated both Brooks and Roddy this way any time they’re above the break, bringing the “nail” help far past the midpoint of the court. (Side note: Brooks or Roddy could also back-cut this.) By the fourth quarter it was almost comical. The Grizzlies have Brooks spaced in the corner on this play while Morant tries to get in his bag against Russell at the top of the key.
Look at where Schröder is. He’s basically two feet away from Russell, completely conceding any corner 3 for Brooks. There is no way Morant is getting to the basket here. (The Grizzlies were bailed out by an illegal defense call against Davis, the first time in NBA history this violation has been whistled in the fourth quarter of a playoff game.)
Memphis didn’t help matters with some of its tactical decisions along the way. The Grizzlies could have focused more on isolating Morant against Russell or Reaves, rather than bringing secondary defenders into the fold with ball screens that didn’t worry L.A.
The most egregious of these decisions came near the end of regulation. With 35 seconds left, here comes Brooks to set a ball screen for Morant; since the Lakers had already established they weren’t even remotely concerned about Brooks’ jumper, all it did was bring the much bigger Hachimura into the play to defend Morant at the rim.
Of course, the Grizzlies can rightly argue they might have won the game anyway had one or two bounces turned out differently. Even allowing for the Grizzlies’ iffy shooters, their 9-of-42 performance on a steady diet of open corners 3s was outlier bad. The Grizzlies also burned their challenge on a low-leverage, out-of-bounds call in the second quarter and didn’t have it available to overturn a brutal charge call against Morant with just over two minutes left. (I know we’re all trying to give LeBron his flowers, but can we talk about how bad this call was?)
Tillman would have been the story of the game had the Grizzlies won, bottling up James for most of the fourth quarter. In fact, with two and a half minutes left, he blocked a very similar play to James’ game-tying drive. Given the postgame commentary regarding Memphis players not helping on that drive, notice that they also stayed home on this one and let Tillman (and Jackson on the back line) handle it:
Nonetheless, the series has underscored weaknesses that go deeper than just one game or one fourth quarter, and it will be interesting to see how Memphis responds. Can the Grizzlies unlock lineups with Kennard to provide enough spacing without getting cooked on defense? For that matter, can they maybe put him in the game when they’re down five with 13 seconds left?
The Grizzlies might also try actually making contact when they set a screen. Here’s an ATO from Game 4 that Brown easily tiptoed around:
Using Kennard as a screener hasn’t worked out much better:
OK, I’m getting into the weeds here, and I’ve already ranted for quite long enough, so let’s finish where we started — with the macro story: The difference between these two teams through four games has been less about experience triumphing over youth and much more about the secondary players on the Lakers outplaying those on Memphis.
It’s a jarring turnaround from the state of affairs at midseason, and one that could lead to the biggest playoff upset (by seeding, anyway) in a decade.
