The Lakers Have Gone Small, Look the F*** Out
After the Lakers wire to wire dismantling of the Houston Rockets there was a lot of noise about how size matters in the NBA. The talk was about how the Lakers sheer size overpowered the micro ball Rockets to the brink of playoff elimination. This is only a half-truth though, the Lakers are bigger, but they won Game 4 because they played small ball better than the Rockets did.
This is where I get upset and go on a mini-rant, but trust me it’ll be well worth it. When people call it small ball, I just roll my eyes and seeth in anger. I hate it because it’s inaccurate. It’s not small ball. It’s fast wide-open basketball and just because smaller players tend to have the necessary skill set to pull it off doesn’t make it small ball. It just means, due to the current talent pool, you usually can’t find tall guys that can play fast and on the perimeter in this way. You want an example, okay here are some examples. Hello, Golden State Warriors dynasty. Hello, this year’s Lakers.
The Warriors death lineup was famously small and didn’t feature a true center. Except that it did. Draymond Green was their center and while he wasn’t a behemoth, he was able to shut down opposing big men in the paint like centers do and that’s all that matters in the end. That lineup won a title and won 73 regular-season games. The Warriors became even more deadly when they added Kevin Durant a 7-foot perimeter scorer. That Warriors lineup featured a 6’3 point guard, a 6’6 shooting guard, a 6’6 small forward, a 6’6 forward, and a 7’0 forward. Based upon height this team wasn’t small in any sense. They played fast and spread out defenses with perimeter shooting. Their defense was smothering. They won two titles. The speed and spacing was the crucial component. Now, let’s talk about the Lakers.
The Lakers rarely played “small” this year and it hardly mattered. They won the most games in the far stiffer western conference and used a time-share of Javale McGee and Dwight Howard at center to great effect. The Lakers' usual starting lineup was massive but, once again, small ball isn’t about height, it’s about speed. The Lakers started Javale McGee in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series against the Rockets and lost comprehensively. Each game they played McGee less and their results improved. It wasn’t that the Lakers decided they needed to downsize; they simply needed to speed up.
In Game 4, the Lakers decided to play “small”, except they weren’t really that small when you look at it. Their Game 4 starting lineup featured a 6’10 Anthony Davis, a 6’9 LeBron James, a 6’8 Markieff Morris, a 6’6 Danny Green, and a 6’5 Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. The key is, the Lakers' two tallest players, LeBron and Davis, are incredibly athletic and skilled players that can succeed on the perimeter. The Lakers didn’t really go small, they went fast and barely gave up any height in the process, which is exactly what you dream of if you’re in the business of winning basketball games.
This is what is so scary about the Lakers going forward. They were an incredible team all season without ever really utilizing their best lineups. Per basketball-reference Davis only played 40% of his minutes at Center. That number should be closer to 100% than 50% as the postseason continues. The Lakers lineup that featured Davis, LeBron, Pope, Green, and Kyle Kuzma had a net rating of +30.5 in only 42:21 regular-season minutes. The Lakers had a “small ball” lineup in their back pocket and basically didn’t use it until they absolutely had to. Which is exactly what the Warriors did with their death lineup.
If last night is any indication the Lakers possess something that no team, outside of the Miami Heat, possess. They have the ability to play fast spread-out basketball without sacrificing any interior fortitude and rebounding. LeBron James and Anthony Davis can both be elite rebounders and rim protectors, while also hounding players on the perimeter. The one area where the Lakers are lacking, compared to the Warriors death lineup, is their three-point shooting isn’t elite. However, that’s less of a concern when they let Davis play center because it means they can have three spot-up shooters on the court. Teams have to respect the Lakers' ability to get into the paint and finish which means anyone waiting on the three-point line will have oodles of time. Markieff Morris is no Steph Curry but he isn’t being asked to hit 40 percent of his off dribble threes he just needs to hit the wide-open catch and shoot variety. The Warriors opened up the court through three-point shooting, this Lakers team does it through dominating at the rim.
The Rockets micro ball might have unleashed the NBA’s most dangerous lineup, unfortunately, it isn’t their lineup that’s unstoppable. The Lakers deciding to play small fast is the cheat code the NBA isn’t ready for. It perfectly marries the traditional concepts of height and length to protect the interior while also allowing for the spacing, speed and shooting that elite modern NBA offenses need to thrive. Small ball was never actually a thing, it was always just space and pace. Being tall is, and will always be, an advantage in basketball. The Lakers just happen to have both and when a team does it usually results in a championship.
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