...And how much data from the series do you need to collect before you adjust/change scheme?

The instance that comes to mind is back in the 2024 first round Playoff series against the Timberwolves where 3 player shot well above their season average from 3 and it ultimately sunk us in that series:

• Julius Randle
  • Regular season 3FG = 34.4%
  • Playoff series 3FG = 39.3%
• Jaden McDaniels
  • Regular season 3FG = 33.0%
  • Playoff series 3FG = 37.5%
• Naz Reid
  • Regular season 3FG = 37.9%
  • Playoff series 3FG = 50.0%

Of these three players above, only one would actually be considered a shooter and that's Naz Reid. Clearly the scheme was to send help off McDaniels to double Ant on the perimeter and force him to make PG decisions and it didn't seem to work as well as hoped, Ant averaged 6.2 ASTs in the series and only committed 6 TOVs in the series. If Ant drove into the paint, the scheme was to pack the paint with the "Center" and Power Forward (since Jax got played off the court, the two to pack the paint ended up being Rui and DFS) and Rui would leave Randle open.

In Game 1 where the Lakers got blown out, Randle went 4/6 from 3, McDaniels went 3/3 from 3, and Naz Reid went 6/9 from 3.

In Game 2, the lone game the Lakers won, Randle went 2/4 from 3, McDaniels went 0/3 from 3, and Naz Reid went 1/3 from 3 and I noticed the Lakers made an effort to run Naz Reid off the 3, but they still more or less let Randle and McDaniels let fly in the hope that Game 1 was an aberration.

In the elimination game the Lakers lost, the Randle/McDaniels/Reid trio went a combined 1/9 from 3, Ant himself went 0/11 and Minnesota shot an abysmal 14.9% from 3, and yet the Lakers still lost.

All the above is to essentially ask this question, do you buy into the idea of leaving poor shooters wide open from 3 in order to take away something else that is potentially more dangerous, in the above case the Lakers didn't want Ant to get into the paint and wanted to force him into make quick decisions upon the blitz? Does a 7 game series not provide enough data to do this because of small sample size variance, AKA, a bad shooter could just get hot from 3 in a series which happened in the above example, Randle shot almost 5% better than his season average?

The other reason I ask is that I see so many people asking, "well why is so and so wide open, that's terrible defense!" and there is a difference between a blown rotation/blown assignment leaving a shooter open or leaving a shooter open by design to either do a hard double team/blitz, pack the paint etc. To use another painful example....there's a reason Russell Westbrook was left wide open from 3, that wasn't bad defense, that was the opposing coach scheming. Now we never got a playoff series with Russ to see if small sample size variance came into play, but I'm just wondering what people's thoughts are regarding this particular scheme since JJ seems to really believe in it and it's such a hot topic given the prevalence of 3 point shooting in today's game.

Not a spurs fan by any means, but the way this kid moves and poise he has at this stage is special. Watching his footwork, able to get into the lane I just can't help but see shades of Kobe in him. It made me pull up some old Kobe highlights on youtube.

The Lakers might have three of the biggest steals of the summer 🤫

Matisse Thybulle and Ziaire Williams are BOTH on minimum deals, but the value they’re bringing to this team are WAY bigger than their contracts suggest. 💯 Plus Cam Carr at the draft position we stole him, our front office was cooking.

Thybulle and Williams both made plays on both ends of the floor and will be HUGE keys to our success this season 🙏

To all the haters’ rhetoric:

“Lakers won’t win more than 30 games this season”. We’re 10% there already.

“Lakers have only beat trash teams”
Proves we’re not one of them.

There’s always some simple brained rebuttal but let our record, our leader Luka, and our coaching, and play making speak for itself. Top 3 seed this year with an essentially new team where AR is our most tenured player. LFG! So excited to continue watching and supporting our Purple and Gold!

Continue being realistic: we need to get rid of Looney Tunes and find at minimum a decent backup big. There’s just no one on the market worth pursuing at the moment that I see but if we can solve that, we are true contenders this season and the next few seasons.

I watched the entire game yesterday and man was the defense bad the first quarter. 47 points bad! sheesh. The rest of the game they gave about 25 points a quarter but watching them get overpowered like that was tough. Why do you think that happened? What changes did they make the rest of the game?

The Clippers need picks. We have picks to give. I think as a backup he would be really good on the boards and enforcing the physicality. I think we could figure out some deal involving Hardy and picks maybe Looney too. Thoughts on him?

To explain myself better, Pat Riley's mantra "no rebounds, no rings" sometimes feels like a curse to me, especially looking at the game stats. Still, I loved our late-game execution. The Utah Jazz are a great squad—they were buzzing around the Lakers like a swarm of hornets and look capable of doing real damage. A few of their players really impressed me, and while it's early in the season, they look like a solid playoff team. The Delta Center is going to be a tough fort to conquer for anyone this year.

Setting that aside, I was concerned about Kessler's minutes—I get the emotions, but he looked powerless out there. The Jazz completely exploited that to dominate the glass, out-rebounding us 52 to 31. That just shows how impressive this Lakers win actually was.

In my opinion, the Lakers started rolling in the 2nd quarter when Austin Reaves brought the energy and sparked the team—especially Luka, who went absolutely nuclear with 52 points, 10 assists, and 7 rebounds. He drained 8 three-pointers, and the Lakers shot over 40% from deep overall. That hot shooting was the main reason we survived Utah's rebounding dominance.

That said, wouldn't you agree it was a rough night for our rim protectors? A couple of Utah's plays looked downright brutal. I couldn't wrap my head around how Kevon Looney (6'9", 222 lbs) was getting pushed around so easily by smaller wings. After seeing him get outworked twice, I was begging JJ to put Mamu in the paint to add some physicality down low. And it actually worked... kind of.

At the end of the day, the board reads 132–123, and we get another mark in the W column. Take it easy, Lakers Nation—greetings from Croatia!

We have been so spoiled by the Stu and Bill combo that the drop in quality with Danny, is just so apparent. Hopefully they can come up with a better replacement by the time Stu officially hangs it up, because I don’t wanna deal with Danny for long.

He showed respect and class to us when our guys were down. Even though OKC fans had zero compassion for Luka and AR, lets show class.

Luka’s defense and rotations were really bad early. I think the first 12 points scored by the Jazz were basically Luka falling asleep on defense or forgetting to box out his man. (But this also proves that letting LeBron go was definitely the right decision. LeBron has started off slow defensively too, and having both of them together would only compound the issue.)
Thybulle is really playing at an elite 3&D level. As I predicted, he’s better than Smart. He provides the same level of defense with longer reach, better shooting so far, and none of the boneheaded plays.
We have a lot of good rotation players this year who are hungry on the court. Jake, Mamu, Grimes, Sexton, and Ziaire. I think Carr will get around 10 minutes a game too when he’s back. These guys are playing with maximum effort and intensity. A lot of dogs on this team, and Jake seems to have leveled up his game defensively.
The Jazz’s plan of doubling Kessler without the ball was just the stupidest game plan I’ve ever seen…
Reaves needs to stick to quick and efficient moves. Whenever I see Reaves trying fancy dribbles, attempting to become Iverson with the crossovers, or dribbling into heavy traffic, it’s almost a guaranteed turnover. He’s also risking his body when he goes flailing into multiple big guys in the paint.
He played excellent basketball tonight, but to take his game to the next level against elite competition, he needs to cut out those inefficient moves.

The rebounding was really bad tonight. I’m not sure if we can fix it or if it’s just a personnel problem, but we definitely need to put more emphasis on boxing out. And yes, we need a backup center too.
I think we’re one or two moves away from being an extremely deep team. If we can get a backup center and turn some of our dead weight (Vando, James, Hardy) into another legitimate rotation piece, I believe we’d be very, very deep.
I’d trade Thiero too if we could get a rotation piece back. I honestly don’t think Thiero will have a great career despite his raw potential. His movements are too forceful, and the way he lands just looks injury-prone. I feel like that’s going to be very hard to fix at this point.

Just watched the replay of the game against the Jazz with the Jazz's own commentary team.. It's always satisfying to hear an opposing broadcast team feel worried and frustrated while their team is getting torched 😅

With the Jazz sending 2, sometimes even 3 bodies in the paint to ensure that Kessler does not get a lob dunk, put back or rebound, it created 14 wide open 3s for Ziaire and Matisse, who were exceptional shooting the ball tonight.

While I do think Kessler could have done a bit more on the offensive and defensive glass, getting bear hugged by 2 big men on your first game in your old city isn't always easy.