Lakers vs Celtics Summer League Rematch: Those shining points and problems in the loss

Today, let's talk about the Lakers Summer League game against the Celtics.

In five summer league games, including the California Classic, the Lakers' young people have shown a lot of surprises:

For example, Christie, this summer he has trained a tendon meat and a brilliant hand of ball holding attack + ball handling ability, the original catch, shot and defense are also more stable, the most rare is non-sticky ball, no non-play - 5 games per game average of 19.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists three-point shooting rate of 55%, in the summer league has faintly stood out from the crowd;

Jaylen Hood Schifino, for example, has a clear pedigree as a point guard: skilled at instigating blocking, using mid-range and throwing to punish opponents' sinking defenses, and has a good view and vision, often delivering eye-catching passes, and as Summer League progresses, he has become increasingly reliable on the defensive end and control of mistakes, including three-pointers, showing good adaptability.

For example, Castleton, as a big man who came to the Lakers with the "Reeves route" this year, his strategy and frame protection ability are quite outstanding in the summer league: since he was put in the starter, he has become the team's assist king in 3 games in 4 games, he knows how to set up cover skills, and his ability to handle the ball and dominate the ball is quite prominent, with a running speed that does not match his height and size, and he can even control the ball and send a wonderful pass through the half, he has a very good sense of position when protecting the frame, and will not lose the defensive position for the block, Instead, he knows how to use his height and reach to interfere with his opponents, and his foul problem has improved in recent games.

For example, Maxwell Lewis, as a forward recruit, he is very good in size and athleticism, every game has some defensive highlights and shows the ball intelligence (such as wonderful passes or open cuts), but at this stage the offense is still rough, his primary goal is to find his player positioning and then carry out targeted training, at least the offensive end must have a skill.

(Of course, they also have some shortcomings, the specific advantages and disadvantages are written on Weibo, if you are interested, you can go and flip through)

Then we go back to the game.

In this game, I think it's actually the first time that the Lakers' boys have really encountered "adversity" in this summer's league - the first loss to the Heat in the California Classic is more like the process of the boys getting acquainted with each other; The second loss to the Spurs was a "dimensionality blow" by the Spurs' three second-year regular-season rotation-level players - and this game was the first time the Lakers' summer league roster experienced a real challenge after gradually stabilizing. (also the first loss)

Let's start with some of the problems exposed by the Lakers:

1, the fourth position (Swede) is too short, resulting in the lack of second height + rebounds were exploded, in fact, the overall lineup, especially the bench lineup, is also short, crushed by the height and athleticism of the Celtics, lost 13 rebounds, allowing the Green Army to score 23 points through secondary offense.

2. There are too few people in the lineup who can impact the inside, facing the 215cm Barcellovsky and the 208cm Azubuyik sitting in the Celtics, too much reliance on outside projection and mid-range, throwing, attacking the frame basically relies on Christie. (Xifino and Castleton both have problems with lack of bounce and explosiveness, and the offensive method is more inclined to medium and close range mid-range shots and throws, and the ability to kill the inside is limited)

3. Christie still exposed his immaturity in controlling the ball and handling the ball (five mistakes) under the focus of the Green Army's strong defense point (Walsh) and assisting the defense pinch, although he can still score 24 points by blocking and receiving shots, but the threat on the field and the role of driving teammates has obviously declined.

Overall, the Lakers did not play very well in this game, they exposed some "hard injuries" on the lineup, and many offensive treatments in the second half were not very "reasonable". But considering that Summer League was originally a stage for rookies to experience and show themselves, in addition to the shortcomings, I still want to talk about some of the highlights that the boys showed in this game.

 Christie

We won't talk about the same thing - Christie's current ball holding and receiving ability has been clearly displayed in the previous 4 games, and you can find out by searching for some highlights.

Let's talk about the details of the game that are less noticeable.

For example, defense:

Celtics No. 29 Scubb received the ball and broke through and took a step past the Lakers' No. 29 Damien Bow, at which point Christie showed excellent defensive judgment, he noticed what was happening on the strong side early, properly defended his own defensive weak side player, stood between the basket and the bottom corner (keeping a distance that can be covered by two points), and jumped and fanned the ball when Scubb rushed in for a layup.

By the way, I don't know if you noticed that this round Lewis also made a gesture to signal Christie to make up for defense, and he moved to the bottom corner at the same time to help Christie make up for defense - the Lakers' two young forwards have a good sense of defense.

Christie's defense was even more perfect this round.

He first bypassed Azubuyik's cover three times in a row to keep himself in front of Walsh, and then after Fuchi (No. 27) chose to change defenses, he quickly went to Azubuyik to defend around the front, not giving Azubuyik a chance to catch the ball, and finally succeeded in causing the Green Army to make a mistake.

Also facing Walsh, after squeezing through the cover, he accurately judged the timing of Walsh's korfball layup, and the jump blocked the angle of his rubbing board, which eventually caused Walsh's layup to hit the lower edge of the basket.

In this game, Christie's performance in one defense is still very remarkable, but unfortunately, because it is the summer league, the coach did not let him fully assume the responsibility of countering Walsh, but always experimented with joint defense and a variety of counterpoint effects, which also gave Walsh the opportunity to break out to a certain extent.

I'm looking forward to what Christie can do when he's really seen as a defensive tip.

On the other hand, Christie hit the "answer ball" in different ways when the Green Army was close to the score several times this game, which I think also reflects his character and qualities as a young man:

The Greens went from 13 points to five in the second half, and Christie responded with a 3-pointer from the outside with a pass from Sifino.

The Green Army played a 2-3 joint defense in the third quarter, the Lakers fell into passivity without the two organizational cores of Xifino and Castleton on the court, and were overtaken by the Green Army by 4 points, Christie stepped up again, and the free throw line landed to catch the ball decisively turned over and jumper, cracking the Green Army joint defense.

The Celtics led by six points in the fourth quarter, and Christie hit the ball from mid-range to stop the bleeding for the Lakers.

We can see the improvement of Christie's confidence in shooting and ball holding ability, at present, he has a certain ability to hold and handle the ball, the next step he should learn is how to handle the ball more calmly and quickly when the opponent plays high-pressure defense and pinching against him.

He didn't do well in this game and we're looking forward to seeing his progress. (But at the same time, the opponent has already begun to pinch Christie with high pressure, which also shows Christie's ability now)

Hood Shifino

Xifino actually played well in the first half of the game, he became more and more comfortable with the ball and began to show his ability to control the defense through tempo changes, but in the second half, Christie's ball carrying attack was limited by Walsh and the assistant defense, which increased the pressure on Xifino sharply, and his offensive choices looked a little "rigid" in the fourth quarter.

Take a look at some of his best performances.

Nice pocket pass to help Christie.

The conversion breakthrough did not have a hard head, but observed the teammates behind him, attracted many people to defend and returned the ball to Castleton, Castleton then shifted the bottom corner, Hodge hit a three-point shot - the summer union Lakers one inside and one outside, the vision and passing ability of the two organizational cores were vividly displayed.

Blocking and shooting punishes the Green Army center forward.

Again with Castleton to launch a block, three changes of direction between marches, with the synchronous change of Castleton's cover direction, forming a triple cover effect, greatly increasing the difficulty of JD Davidson to bypass the cover, using the time difference of JD return to throw a shot - a very rhythmic goal.

Blocking and stepping back for three points — after shooting 1 of 10 in the first three games, the last two games are 3-of-4 from three-point range (in fact, 5-of-6 from the field for two that were blown away due to offensive fouls on teammates) — is very important for himino.

We said on Weibo before, considering that Xifino is a guard who is not strong in attacking the inside, if he cannot hit three points when holding the ball, then his offensive tendency will become more single, easier to be judged by opponents, and if he can hit three-pointers like this, then it will be much more difficult to defend him.

Before half-time, he again used the one-handed change after blocking to "put Azubuke in place" and complete the throw.

Xifino's blocking ability and ability to handle the ball are visible to the naked eye, but in this game, there is another important point about Xifino that is very obvious: Xifino's attack relies heavily on the quality of cover for the cover of the people.

In the first half, when Castleton was acting as a cover man, Xifino could be said to be at ease, and when the cover man was replaced by Fudge, Xifino's offensive effect could be said to plummet.

Since Fuch's cover did not block people at all and did not attract the opposing defense, Shifino threw the cover under the two-man attack.

Fuqi's fake cover was once again ignored by his opponents, and his failure to block people directly led to Xifino's punching frame cover.

Fuqi and Xifino originally planned to do a high-position hand-to-hand cover cooperation, but Fuqi's inexplicable "whole work" operation can be said to have pitted Xifino .....

In these rounds, of course, Fuch's problems are much greater than Xifino's, but we can also see that Xifino lacks explosiveness, difficulty getting rid of defense in one-on-one situations, and relies too much on blocking.

Let's see how he will overcome these problems in the future.

Castleton

In fact, after the resumption of this game, if I had to choose the player who played the best in the game, I would probably have a hard time choosing between Christie and Castleton.

Yes, the Lakers lost to rebounds and frames, and I originally thought that Castleton should be held to some blame for this, but after a detailed review, I overturned the idea - the Lakers' interior points loss really has nothing to do with Castleton.

Not only that, Castleton's frame protection performance in this field is even excellent - he has a high success rate in the first frame protection in positional battles, and his excellent positional sense has greatly interfered with the Green Army's attack, blocking countless attacks from all directions.

I included almost every frame of the Castleton scene, and we knew it at a glance.

In the opening game, Castleton contributed a successful guard. Hodge was left behind by the block, and Castleton interfered with Banton's layup.

This time it was Swede who was completely hung up by the block, but Castleton used perfect positional sense and judgment of the timing of the opponent's combination - directly forced Walsh to stop, and eventually caused the opponent to panic and mistake.

Castleton interfered to the extreme and the defensive selection was beautiful, but Skob still used a difficult high throw to score.

Castleton also interfered as much as possible and showed good defensive habits (vertical jumps and raised arms), but Walsh scored with difficult throws after confrontation.

Castleton's first rim guard, with perfect timing and vertical jumps, interfered with Banton's inevitable rush — but behind him, no one from the Lakers could stand up to Azubuke. And after Azubuke got the front board in a deep position, it was difficult for Castleton's body to interfere with him.

Castleton once again used perfect defensive positioning, interfering with Banton's mid-range jumper.

Walsh used cover to break through and leave Swede completely behind, but Castleton once again managed to interfere with Walsh's rush through excellent defensive standing and height reach.

Chambany blocked the breakaway and was rejected by Castleton Direct.

Banton broke through with the ball, and the diminutive Hodge was powerless to block it, but Castleton under the basket interfered with the rush.

The Lakers' joint defense was chaotic, and the Celtics' 215cm center was misplaced under the basket, and Castleton recovered in time to interfere with this basket shot.

Castleton played as a line-line defender in the United defense, forcing Celtic's pass out of bounds with Christie.

Lakers outside Damien Bowbo was blocked clean, Castleton was forced into a defense, he chose to jam the Green Army center behind him, Banton threw a shot.

Castleton defended the back of the Green Army center from the low post, but the Lakers outside Hodge was distracted, causing No. 26 Baldwin to sneak in and hit the ball.

In the face of Banton's second blocking, Castleton used his position to easily interfere without the need for a defense.

Christie was hung up by the Green Army's double cover, and Castleton was forced to fall into one defense and two defenses, helpless to be caught in the air.

The Lakers' joint defense once again had a hole, Castleton was blocked on the right side, and Swede, who was off the left line, had no ability to stop Azubuyik and was miserably blocked.

In this round, Castleton actually occupied a good defensive position in the face of Banton's blocking, but helplessly the Lakers United Defense leaked from the outside again, Champany cut in, another downline defender Sweed had no frame threat, Castleton was forced to add defense again, and the interference failed.

Castleton even showed in some rounds that he wasn't slow to change defences. (But pay attention to the basket, again Swede has a huge misalignment)

Castleton again managed to guard the frame, interfering with Davidson's layup.

Again successfully guarded the frame, interfering with Banton's layup.

The Lakers outside Hodge leaked again, allowing Walsh to easily cut in, and Castleton fell into a one-defensive three-and-out dilemma, helpless to be scored by the opponent.

In the last round, the Lakers failed to intercept in the front court, and Castleton once again fell into one defense and two defenses, only to watch his opponent dunk.

The above, basically a review of all Castleton's normal frames, we can clearly see two things:

First, Castleton framed rounds that succeed far more than framed failures;

Secondly, most of the failed rounds of Castleton's frame were due to the fact that there were many defenses caused by the leakage of the outside line.

In this case, all I want to do is applaud Castleton.

We need to know that this Lakers team has no backup center, their other position height, athleticism, their joint defense constantly leaking - in this case, you don't see any frustration in Castleton, but from the opening game to the final shot, he has always spared no effort to try to protect the basket under the impact of opponents.

He is a fighter. (In fact, in one of the tennis scouts I read, one of the virtues of Castleton was that "he was never afraid of being caught up by his opponent.") ）

I really hope he stays in the squad and has success.