Anthony Davis Discussion: Thanks For The Ring AD!!!

Good defensively but awful offensively. We're gonna need better from him if we want to go deep this playoff run.

Game 5 is gonna have to be AD's game with Lebron playing 45 mins here.

 

He has to be able to hold post position though. Maybe it was the hip but when the Lakers created a mismatch:. Memphis has playing drop vs Reaves and have gone switch heavy. So when JJJ is off of him he needs to make himself to at least get the ball in a good spot.

Could care less of he score but that will make the defense collapse
Otherwise they need to let him go faceup from the the FT line

That being said for all the talk of no Clarke and Adams: Tillman has been very good. It's two big dudes versus one and the Lakers not having a backup center just continues to be a big problem

 

felt like he did on several occasions, and memphis saw it and ran down to cover before the lakers could get the ball to him. i think people are focusing too much on that one possession where bane was on him. that was a bad possession for everyone. first, AD had the ball on the dribble near half court with a smaller defender--not good. he (wisely) gave it up and dragged bane with him, but in haste to get the ball back, he set up shop 20 ft away. bane (wisely) pressured him, knowing AD couldn't blow by him like he does bigs, but needed to take 2-3 dribbles to become a threat. bane dug at the ball (also fouled him), pulled the chair, and AD lost the ball.

but that was one play. i remember a few others where he got a guy sealed and the ball couldn't find him, and then late he finally figured out how to be in position when jjj challenged, and schroder just flat didn't see him.

late in the game, he had a beautiful iso post up on jjj that got him the first set of FTs. just dusted him.

 

cant just say AD is a defensive player 1st, he is designated as a star, gets paid like one....there are higher expectations. IF there are schemes that can neutralize him like this than there wont be much further playoff success. We're only 3yrs removed from that bubble AD, gm 2 and 4 are not normal for any type of star player

 

If this is the case, Bron better be in street clothes as well.

 

I definitely agree with this and why I find gamechat so annoying sometimes: Memphis was clearly selling out in multiple ways to prevent AD going 1v1. You have to punish this and one reason I thought they had to go back to DlO in the game chat despite his iffy game till then. The lack of shooting was a real problem against a very good defensive team.

Problem the Lakers have to solve is usually they could post Lebron but Memphis put Tillman on him so no big advantage there.
Lebron/Reaves/Schroeder driving they had AD in the corner (no bueno) and JJJ roaming.

The solution to this is Lebron has to hit his 3's and/or get DLo 1v1 and get him to his spots. They have Brooks their best defender on Reaves now so they got to find a way to attack Morant on defense (they may have to go Reaves/Dlo hunting Morant)

 

YA THINK?!

agree with the rest. would be nice to get beasley or russell or rui hitting some open looks so that the free safety has to think twice and the flood gates open. but the idea that we can just cram it into the post to AD and expect something good to happen is ridiculous. insert any name there, btw, save maybe jokic because he's such an outstanding passer. when a team sells out as hard as memphis has on AD, the gameplan is to exploit it with non-AD players.

 

Fair enough because I rarely agree with Chuck. However, on this one I do.
On the other hand, many guys who were actual NBA players and have continued to stay around the game their entire lives are somehow dismissed as “knowing nothing” or being just “haters” around here lately. This is just ridiculous.

 

Whatever they do they cannot have AD as the outlet in the corner unless he's on fire: that let's JJJ completely off the hook.
THinking more about this the two counters I would do is headhunt Ja relentlessly with Lebron/Reaves/Dlo.

If that is not working and JJJ is on AD with the way they are switching: invite the switch with Reaves and Dlo and let AD go 1v1 off the screen facing the basket. If JJJ helps rotate it out to Reaves and Dlo for the open shot

 

Late to the party, but have been thinking about the AD vs. Pau debate and how they are/were perceived by fans.

Here's where I'm at: Pau received a lot of complaints from us, from Kobe, from Phil, and from NBA fans in general. Gasoft was a thing. He was too smart and too skilled to be going through the motions like he was caught doing more often than we'd like. Kobe and Phil had to get on him daily--in games, in practice, and in the media to constantly push for this guy to come out:


BUT there was no confusion of his role on this team. He was here to be Kobe's sidekick. At no point was he ever going to take over for Kobe or were their roles going to flip as Kobe aged gracefully. Pau was only two years younger than Kobe.

That is not remotely the same situation there is with AD. Davis is 9 years younger than Bron. The plan was for their roles as #1 and #2 to gradually flip and that this would be AD's team after Bron rode off into the sunset. Bron, Vogel, and Ham have all pushed for AD to take that step forward and it hasn't happened for a significant enough stretch.

So not only is there the why is he not a #1 offensively? why is Bron in year 20 still having to carry this team? But from seeing his ceiling as an offensive threat for the duration of an 82 game season, you have to look at who can we get to be AD's Batman when Bron retires? That is a completely different prism he has to be viewed in that Pau was not.

You see what AD can do as a two-way big. When he's THAT guy operating at his peak, he's the best big in the NBA. Pau wasn't that, there was always TD and KG who Pau would never leapfrog no matter what. Pau might have been the best passing big of his time or the smartest, but as a Laker he never held the title of the best big in the NBA.

And then there's the Kobe piece of it all. Pau is the closest link we have to Kobe. Now that Kobe is gone, that is going to soften any criticism we had of him. Factor in how much he and his wife have been there for Vanessa and the girls and I consider Pau to be a saint. All that plays in how he's remembered.

 

Anthony Every Other Dayvis

 

yeah, pau's time with the lakers was quite a rollercoaster of emotion

-he arrives to a ton of fanfair as the lakers first legit #2 since shaq

-lakers lose to boston in the finals and he's labeled "soft"

-redeems himself in 09 and even more so in 10 when he stepped up in game 7 with kobe struggling

-completely folds in 11 playoffs and the "soft" label returns

the rest of his lakers tenure was mostly spent being the subject of trade rumors on bad lakers teams. pau certainly got his fair share of s*** from the fans during his time here (a lot of it unfairly,) but i think most lakers fans held him in a high regard by the time he left. his performance in 11 certainly left a bad taste in people's mouths, but winning in 09 and 10 outweighed the bad

 

i see your point, but i actually think AD quietly took the step this year; he was just hurt for a big chunk. but teams gameplan against AD defensively first and foremost. everyone does it, and it's happened all year. i think this means he's become our most important offensive player.

however, i don't think it means our success hinges on his statistical production on offense. he's the guy that makes everything possible on both ends. he makes lebron's job much easier, so that he's iso-ing the other team's undersized center for the crucial bucket with no help coming.

the batman/robin stuff drives me nuts, though. what you mean is "ballhandler vs. not" imo. damian lillard would be "batman" here, but i wouldn't trade AD for damian lillard, if that makes sense. kyrie irving would be "batman" for 26 teams and 20 teams might elect not to acquire him at all. stephen jackson may be the batmanniest batman that ever batmanned.

it's just not a useful distinction, imo. AD is now our most important player, which was the plan. it just doesn't look like people expected. he's not new orleans AD in the box score. but teams contorting their defense to him says he's still new orleans AD in their minds.

edit: and the pau stuff was just on my mind because the guy routinely called "gasoft" is now sacrosanct. AD will be the same way. just try to enjoy it so that you don't have to twist into a pretzel about how it was ok to say he was a soft beta then and a lion superstar now. the objective reality didn't change because time passed.

 

The team always gets hammered at the end of quarters when he goes to the bench. Ham really needs to change up his rotation and find another time for AD to rest. We just can't function at all when he's on the bench.

 

Good performance. Hope he can keep it up next game, we’re gonna need it.