LOS Angeles – The Lakers entered their series of qualifiers in the first round against the Minnesota Timberwolves with a specific match plan to defend Anthony Edwards.
And that worked during the first two games of the Best Of-Seven series, which is tied 1-1 after the victory of match 2 of the Lakers on Tuesday evening, the all-NBA goalkeeper admitting that the way the Lakers defended it were confusing.
“I do not know – it seemed that each time I attracted the ball, (the Lakers) entered an area in one direction,” replied Edwards when asked about the lack of ball and movement of the players of the Timberwolves in game 2. “It was sometimes confused, but we will watch the film and be ready.”
The Timberwolves collected 14 assists and 13 reversals in match 2, pulling 38% compared to the ground and 20% on a fork of 3 points, against 29 assists and 10 reversals in match 1, when they pulled 51.2% in total and a blister 21 for 42 from the arc.
Edwards did not record a decisive pass and had a pair of reversals in match 2 after finishing with nine assists and a turnover in match 1.
Lakers with the third seeded, which can find the advantage of the field at home by winning match 3 (Friday) or match 4 (Sunday) in Minnesota, say they haven’t changed anything between the first two games.
“We have done the same match plan,” said Luka Doncic about the defensive strategy of the Lakers. “We haven’t really changed much. It was just a question of whether we were going to be more physical or not. And we were for 48 minutes. We learned from the last match. And we stayed there. “
Similar to their regular season match of February 27, the Lakers have shown early help on the insulation of Edwards of the wings by providing a strong blocking assistance to dissuade his readers-a tactic that the Lakers also deployed against colleagues guards all-nba Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City).
The general objective of this aid is to ensure that Edwards’ pipes are obstructed with a defender to prevent him from going to the edge if he led by his main defender.
Timberwolves of sixth seeded sometimes at the Lakers’ strategy in match 1 by having Edwards attack from the ground, which makes it more difficult to show this early help if a minnesta player was at a death of Edwards or in the area on the strong side.
In match 2, the Lakers did a better job to be in the shortcomings when Edwards sought to drive from the ground, in addition to the early help they showed when he operated from the wings.
During the first two games in the series, Edwards is on average 23.5 points (40.9% shooting – 35.3% from the 3 -point range) and 4.5 assists compared to the 27.6 points (44.7% shooting – 39.5% on deep) and 4.5 assists it has on average during the regular season.
“We can watch a movie and see so much that they have done – to try to force ourselves to more ISO and try to force us to (a) slower the game,” said Rudy Gobert, center of Minnesota. “We will be better in match 3. I felt like I did not help my rolls when I was low in the Dunker Spot. But sometimes you have to watch a film and see exactly what’s going on.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
