HOUSTON — Austin Reaves couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it happened.
But he remembered what sparked the Lakers’ defensive turnaround, which has carried over for 3 ½ months, through their first-round playoff series victory over the Rockets, which ended with Friday’s 98-78 Game 6 victory at Toyota Center.
The Lakers’ Deandre Ayton (5) and his teammates stymied the Rockets with their defensive intensity. NBAE via Getty Images Nearly midway through the regular season, the Lakers ranked 26th in defensive rating, performing even worse on the less glamorous end of the floor than even their biggest detractors expected entering the season.
Only a few of the worst teams in the NBA (Kings, Pelicans, Wizards and Jazz) ranked worse than them defensively at the time.
The Lakers knew a change was needed, and it came during their 110-93 win over the Raptors on Jan. 18, when they started playing more zone defense than they had up to that point in the season.
Positive results immediately followed, with the Lakers ranking as an above-average defensive team (13th) in their 14 games leading into the All-Star break en route to ranking 12th in defensive rating over their final 42 games.
“Our voices, we were talking more, we were rotating more — that was like a starter for us to kind of get the feel of what that communication looks like,” Reaves said. “And then we could change defenses, we could throw different schemes.”
Even though the Lakers barely played zone defense against the Rockets, the carryover from what coach JJ Redick and his staff were looking to emphasize was evident.
“When we started first playing zone, it did force everybody to communicate with one another and force guys that other teams probably wouldn’t see as communicators to be able to communicate, which ultimately put them in the right position because now they’re talking,” Marcus Smart said. “Now, they’re keeping their head on a swivel, they’re seeing things. So, I definitely have to agree with [Reaves] on that when we started to play that zone. And obviously we didn’t play that much zone in this series, but it helped us when we did play our man, to understand that everybody out there has to talk, and you don’t want to be the weak link.”
It was a collective defensive effort that got the Lakers their first playoff series victory since 2023, starting with Smart and LeBron James (in Year 23) setting the tone.
“In the NBA, you need to have an openness,” Redick said. “And whether that’s LeBron who’s been an All-Defensive player, arguably should have been Defensive Player of the Year multiple times, Smart’s been Defensive Player of the Year; they just buy into whatever schemes that we come up with. When you get buy-in from those guys, it’s easy to sort of execute because then the accountability piece is there.”
The Rockets’ Tari Eason and his teammates struggled against the Lakers’ defense during the first-round series. NBAE via Getty Images Deandre Ayton controlled the interior, whether it was strong 1-on-1 defense as the primary matchup against Rockets All-Star center Alperen Sengun or closing out possessions with defensive rebounds.
Sengun scored 32 points on 15-of-37 shooting (40.5%) when Ayton was the closest defender to him and only drew one shooting foul, according to the league’s matchup data.
The Lakers were a significantly better defensive rebounding team when Ayton was on the floor, even if he wasn’t the one grabbing the board.
He led the Lakers with 7.3 defensive rebounds per game, including 9.3 in the final three games of the series against the Rockets, who were the best offensive rebounding team in the league.
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“You have to have some type of stop sign where enough is enough,” Ayton said. “You have to match their physicality in a way where it’s contagious to your teammates as well. So I just tried to play as I am, the biggest dude on the court, and just go out and get every damn rebound. It got to a point where I didn’t even know I was hitting guys and giving certain blows, just off boxing out and to where you keep hitting them, hitting them, they eventually break.”
Not just entering the playoffs with Luka Doncic and Reaves sidelined before Reaves played in the last two games of the series.
But even going all the way back to last offseason when the roster was put together.
The Lakers weren’t expected to be the kind of team that could ride their defense to postseason success.
The series against the Rockets showed the progress they made.
“It means everything,” Smart said. “It shows our resilience, and it shows the belief that we have in the next man up. It shows the belief that the coaching staff has in us to be able to, you know, put us in the right position. It just shows that no matter how depleted we are, we’re always going to go out there and compete and give everything we got and our trust in each other.”
