肥强 | 虽战胜尼克斯，但湖人新首发阵容真的奏效了吗？

In Sunday's win over the Knicks, the Lakers made changes to their starting lineup: Torrion Prince was removed from the starting lineup for the first time this season while healthy, and was replaced by Hachimura as a starter for the eighth time this season.

Davin Ham explained: "We just want to start with a bigger frame up front. I think Prince came off the bench to not only strengthen our bench defense, but also to allow him to score some points. ”

The Lakers did win the game in the end, but it wasn't the credit of the starting set — the Knicks led the Lakers 86-80 at the end of the third quarter. So in the fourth quarter, the Lakers took the initiative to give up the start, DNP Hachimura and Russell, relying on the five-man group of Reaves + Prince + Christie + Zhan Mei, taking advantage of the lack of shooting points in the Knicks lineup, crazy Brunson, and finally won the game 33:19 in a single quarter.

Victory is welcome, but it also masks a lot of problems.

Let's take a look back at the performance of the Lakers' new starting lineup in this game:

Let's start with the first offense in the opening game, and talk about why the Lakers should adopt this starting lineup for this game. Here's my opinion:

Reason 1: The Knicks' three-guard lineup.

In the absence of OG, Randle, and Grimes, the Knicks' forward line was stretched and had to take the starting three-guard of Brunson + DiVincenzo + Hart - the Lakers wanted to take advantage of this to create a mismatch advantage in the frontcourt and better deal with the Knicks' offensive rebounds (second in the league), so they took Hachimura.

Reason two: Davis' injury.

Davis missed the game against the Celtics because of another groin injury against the Warriors, and it was also clear against the Knicks that Davis was not at his best - it was obviously unwise to let the injured Davis participate heavily in the pick-and-roll to make the next kill, and James also had some minor injuries, so the Lakers chose to let Hachimura take on this part of the work.

From the above round, we can see that the Lakers' first offense is to let Russell and Hachimura block and dismantle, and let Hachimura go down to score - while paying attention to the Lakers' movements in the left bottom corner, there are more variations of this tactic: James and Davis in the bottom corner can use the opponent's cover to cut from the baseline at any time, this tactic is called "Elbow".

The tactics of the first round were quite successful, so let's look at the defensive end:

The Lakers took a very aggressive and strong delay to Brunson's pick-and-roll in the first round - James completely pounced to interfere with Brunson's blocking, preventing him from getting a shooting opportunity with the help of the pick-and-roll - which is correct, after the Lakers took this set of starters, there was no qualified leader in the lineup, and in the face of Brunson's ball-handler who was "far beyond the All-Star level", he could only adopt such an aggressive frontal defensive approach.

It can be seen that although Brunson's route was blocked in this round, Brunson attracted three people to give his teammates in the bottom corner a big vacancy.

It's just that this Knicks three-point is really inaccurate. (Achiuwa is shooting 23% from three-point range this season)

Go on.

In the next round, the Lakers gave the ball to Hachimura again, trying to get him to eat DiVincenzo in the low post. Brunson hurried up to cover the clip, but Hachimura's passing vision could not see the empty space in the bottom corner, and James could only cut in to respond, and the round turned into a difficult turn-over mid-range.

(Hachimura's weak vision and passing ability are a big reason why his misplaced threat is difficult to improve.) ）

Defensively, the Lakers continued to force a two-man siege of Brunson—a round in which Brunson's vision contrasted with Hachimura's (though that comparison was unfair):

Instead of immediately hitting the ball when the bag arrived, he continued to patiently dribble to the right side, pulling the Lakers' defensive center of gravity completely to the right side to open up space for the left side, and waiting for his teammates to move to the shooting position before passing the ball — man to ball.

But again, the problem: the Knicks are really not allowed.

Looking back, the Lakers continued to look for Hachimura, but Hachimura did not do well in this round in terms of the quality of coverage or the ball protection after the downturn.

On the defensive end, Reaves pestered Brunson to defend the ball, and the strategy was correct and the execution was very good - the Lakers really gave Brunson the highest level of "respect" in this game.

Brunson didn't get the ball in this round — but the Knicks' subsequent changes found another weak link in the Lakers' defense: Hachimura.

We need to know that Hachimura is a relatively "pure" No. 4 position, and he has almost no ability to lead the defense and defender, so when he hits others on the offensive end, it is also misplaced when others hit him on the defensive end - this round Hart borrowed a hand to cover and easily got rid of him, and thick eyebrows were forced to be scored with one defense and two points.

Round exposing Lakers' problems: Brunson forced Reaves to score. 185cm mill 196cm......

On the offensive end, Russell continued to find Hachimura to block and dismantle.

This time, the Knicks chose to go down the line and retreat, not allowing Hachimura to get a chance to catch the ball, and Russell missed a three-point shot.

Brunson realized that he couldn't get in to find an inside line to block and dismantle the outside line, so he changed to find an outside line to block and dismantle - Hart made the Lakers a strong delay after blocking and dismantling it immediately, Brunson gave the ball to Hart, and used the characteristics of the outside player's strong ability to handle the ball to let Hart go down and then do a second treatment - Hart attracted DiVincenzo who broke through the bottom corner of the ball defensively, attacked close out and broke through, Hachimura was easily passed, and the Lakers' defensive formation was completely torn apart, but fortunately, there was Davis under the basket to cover Hatten's throw.

"When you know you're in the back, it's easier and more confident for your teammates to go to the bag." Davis' post-race answer was quite "emotionally intelligent".

If Davis is a "low EQ": "You are stepped over every day on the outside, but fortunately there is Lao Tzu to wipe your ass." ”

The Knicks played a "bull's horn", and Brunson chose Harden's cover, which was a little "unwise" - Davis's delay reassured Russell, and he didn't shrink the defense too much, so he easily interfered with the three-point shot.

Then the Knicks also began to try to "change the way" - they let DiVincenzo run without the ball, catch and shoot, and try to punish Russell, but Russell defended well this round.

Davis switched to find Hachimura to eat the mismatch and succeeded.

The Knicks tried a lap and found that it was Brunson who found the guard to block and dismantle and quickly hit the ball for the guard to deal with the trick - this round was played again.

The difficulty of the Lakers' defense tactic is that Hachimura is too slow - slow to move and react, and looking at this round, James quickly read that after Davis went to make up for Divane, Harden would try to cut in and catch the ball, and quickly blocked the line. Hachimura, on the other hand, was stunned on the weak side, staring straight at the Knicks bursting in, not realizing that he should go to make up for Achiuwa's cut in the bottom corner.

This round was another meritorious contribution to James's defensive awareness - Davis stood in the defensive position to prevent Reaves from being eaten by Brunson again, James was keenly aware of Brunson's intention to shoot the ball and complete the cut and steal in the wrong defensive state.

But Brunson gradually began to adapt to the Lakers' defense - this round, pretending to use the cover to go on the left side, but in fact, he changed direction and turned to cover the other side, deceived Reaves and Davis, and threw in.

The Lakers continued to force a delay in the front, and the front was well defended, but in the end, Russell's off-ball concentration went wrong.

This happens when you have too many players in your squad who are "not good at defensiveness" – there will always be some "unplanned" points conceded.

Then the Lakers replaced Prince, and the "starting period" ended. To sum it up:

Although during this time, the score was not pulled away by the Knicks, but 10:10 between the two teams in 6 minutes is not a normal score - the Knicks can't score because the lineup is too absent, and the players other than Brunson are too poor in response (which is why they ultimately lost);

Obviously, Hachimura + Larry is not the answer to the Lakers' starters.

As the trade deadline approaches, what will happen to the Lakers?