WEARY FROM A winless road trip that dropped the Los Angeles Lakers from second to fifth in the Western Conference standings, the team's homecoming reward was a Sunday matinee tipoff against the Phoenix Suns.
L.A.'s four-game skid -- with three of those losses coming without LeBron James after the 40-year-old was sidelined by a left groin strain -- could hardly match the Suns on the hardship scale. Heading into the game, Phoenix had gone 6-14 since Feb. 1, compared to the Lakers' 13-6 mark in that span.
Phoenix still presented a challenge. For all of the struggles, the Suns brought with them Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and the 10th-best offense in the league. The Suns' offense had singed the Lakers twice this season, including in a 127-100 drubbing on Nov. 26, and Durant and Booker combined for 63 points in a win on Oct. 28.
This time, the Lakers' defense -- an outfit that has improved on the fly despite trading perennial Defensive Player of the Year contender Anthony Davis for Luka Doncic and relying on big minutes from two-way players -- dictated the terms. L.A. built a 31-15 lead through the first quarter, smothering the Suns into 6-for-22 shooting (27.3%), including a 3-for-13 combined start for their big three (23.1%).
"It started with our physicality and just making catches tough. And then we were shifting off the right guys," Lakers coach JJ Redick said after his team's 107-96 win. "We were making it tough for them to generate the shots. And then when they generated the shots, we had a great contest."
Suns coach Mike Budenholzer said he noticed an obvious change from a couple of months ago. "They look like they're connected," Budenholzer said. "It looks like they're covering for each other, a commitment to that end of the court. It looks to be improved."
L.A.'s offensive prowess, manned by maestros in James and Doncic who create shots from seemingly any angle, has catapulted the Lakers into the contender conversation. But their defense has fueled their ascent since the trade deadline. The Lakers are one game behind the third-seeded Denver Nuggets heading into Wednesday's matchup (10 p.m. ET, ESPN).
From Jan. 30 to March 6 -- right after Davis' last game played with the team through just before their four-game slide -- the Lakers led the NBA in defensive efficiency. They ranked first in opponent 3-point percentage allowed, second in transition defense and third in field goal percentage allowed on layups and dunks, according to Second Spectrum tracking.
But with every game amplified by seeding battles in the regular season's final month and into the playoffs, can the Lakers rely on their new-look defense when it matters most?
WHEN NATE McMILLAN interviewed for a spot on Redick's staff last summer, the defense-minded coach knew the Lakers were coming off a season ranked No. 17 defensively under Darvin Ham. But McMillan scanned the roster and saw room for growth.
Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent combined to play only 40 games in 2023-24, leaving L.A. without its point-of-attack defensive capabilities the bulk of the time. McMillan knew firsthand how impactful Vincent could be. McMillan joked to Redick, sources told ESPN, that if it wasn't for Vincent's performance in the 2022 playoffs when he helped hold Trae Young to just 15.4 points on 31.9% shooting with 6.2 turnovers per game in a first-round win for the Miami Heat, he wouldn't need to be interviewing in L.A. because he'd still have a job coaching the Atlanta Hawks.
Vincent returned from a knee procedure to be able to contribute by the end of last season. Vanderbilt was sidelined from last February until late January this season, undergoing offseason procedures on both feet.
Under Redick, Vanderbilt and Vincent were asked to be "banshees." In Irish mythology, a banshee is a female spirit that wails to warn of coming death. Redick sends his banshees out to signal doom for opposing offenses, charging them, "to be maniacs and guard and crash and be disruptive and create pace."
The term was foreign to Vincent but not the concept.
"I didn't really know exactly what to make of it, to be honest with you, using that specific phrase," Vincent told ESPN. "But I understood the overall message he was trying to have. And it's the kind of intensity and focus and effort that he needed us to play with and he needed guys to kind of lead that charge with."
About a month before Vanderbilt returned, the Lakers added another banshee in Dorian Finney-Smith through a trade with the Brooklyn Nets, giving Redick another 6-foot-7, 220-pound wing to throw into his defensive schemes.
"Coach JJ made it simple: He told me to be a communicator, be a leader, use my voice and shoot the ball when I'm open," Finney-Smith said when asked about his onboarding conversations when he joined midseason. "I try to come in and be who I am and try not to be who I ain't. That's come in, give energy and play hard."
Before Finney-Smith played in L.A., the Lakers ranked 21st in defensive efficiency. Since he debuted for the Lakers on Dec. 31, they have ranked fourth, according to ESPN Research.
The band of banshees cannot completely cover up the fact that L.A. replaced a player praised for being able to switch 1 through 5 in Davis for Doncic, who can appear slow footed on that end (or even worse, take himself out of defensive plays completely while quibbling with an official). Part of Redick's strategy to limit the exposure of Doncic, James and Austin Reaves is to have them sag off the perimeter and pack the paint, so they're not beat off the dribble.
"Even their biggest defensive liabilities in Reaves, LeBron and Luka, who is only so-so, are playing well above their defensive standards," a Western Conference scout told ESPN.
The numbers back up the scout's assessment of Doncic. Since Feb. 10 with the Lakers, he has given up only 0.81 points per direct isolation against him, which is the third-best mark among 23 players to defend at least 40 iso possessions over that stretch, according to Second Spectrum.
The Lakers' scheme cedes 3-point shots, many of them wide open. When teams miss, it's extremely effective. From Jan. 19 to March 8, L.A. held its opponent below 40% from 3 for 23 straight games -- the second-longest streak within a season in NBA history, per ESPN Research. But right after that stretch ended, the Nets, Milwaukee Bucks and Nuggets all shot at least 40% from deep against L.A. and the Lakers lost all three games.
They also fortified their defense by adding players who excel at getting stops -- signing another big in January in the burly Trey Jemison III and another banshee in Jordan Goodwin last month, who stands 6-3 but plays much bigger than his height as evidenced by the double-digit rebounds he averaged his junior and senior seasons at Saint Louis.
While both have been a boon, their additions come with a hitch. Two-way players can only be active for 50 games a season. Goodwin has only five games left going into Wednesday against Denver; Jemison has only nine. (When Jemison sat out recently because of an illness, Redick acknowledged, "obviously him being sick the last couple games in some ways, like, helps us [manage his remaining availability]. I hate to say that -- it doesn't help us on the court -- because he's been great for us.")
And as both of those two-way signees become more entrenched in Redick's rotation with the postseason approaching, they will present a challenge to more than just opposing offenses. The Lakers' front office will have to maneuver its roster to keep them.
GOODWIN SIGNED A two-way deal on Feb. 7, but it might have happened in October had it not been for the strained right hamstring he sustained during training camp. "The coaching staff was all fighting for him," Redick said.
When he did join, he heard a similar speech from Redick that Finney-Smith did. "JJ at first told me I was going to play, so be myself," Goodwin told ESPN. "Expect no limits on defense. He said I'm going to fly around and cause chaos and offense, just play the right way, pretty much."
Goodwin has followed the marching orders. After the win over Phoenix on Sunday -- when Goodwin got one of the three starts he has had for L.A. -- Redick credited him for "setting the tone" for the team.
"Now, I'm just trying to find any way possible just to keep the job, keep being here. It's going to be doing the little things," Goodwin told ESPN. "We already got our stars so we need guys to come in and be the role players, do the dirty work. So, I'm cool with doing that if that's what's going to keep me in the NBA."
A player on a two-way contract is ineligible for the playoffs. L.A. has until April 13, the last day of the regular season, to convert Goodwin or Jemison's contract to a standard NBA deal to have them available for the postseason. But the Lakers already have all 15 roster spots filled, so it would involve waiving a player to make it happen.
Cam Reddish would be an obvious choice after falling out of the rotation, even with Rui Hachimura sitting out weeks because of a knee injury. He was already traded to the Charlotte Hornets this season before the Mark Williams deal was rescinded.
Freeing up the other spot is trickier. L.A. signed 7-footer Alex Len to its final roster spot last month, and Len turned down interest from the Indiana Pacers to come, sources told ESPN. Thus far, he has been used sparingly by Redick, with the coach turning to Jemison in backup center minutes behind Jaxson Hayes during L.A.'s recent eight-game winning streak.
A source with knowledge of the Lakers' thinking told ESPN that having to make decisions about the back end of the roster because the two-way players are standing out is a "good problem to have" and said L.A. would not be in any rush to make a change, using the final weeks of the regular season to continue to gather data points on every player involved.
Before then, the Lakers have 15 games left before the playoffs with five of them against top-10 offenses (Wednesday against Denver, one against the Memphis Grizzlies, one against the Pacers and two against the Oklahoma City Thunder).
"We can beat any team in the league when we keep them close to 100 points," Finney-Smith said. "We're going to get good looks playing with great guys: AR, Luka, especially when Bron comes back. All we got to do is play defense."
