“ Would a game like this against the Celtics…? » « No ! “, straight away cut LeBron James by projecting the question about the scope of this victory. “ Of course not. I can feel the enthusiasm in your voice. I've heard this question far too many times in my career. Absolutely not, it's just a match “, he breaks away.
The latter prefers to put things into perspective, even if he and the Lakers can display more than one reason for satisfaction after this very authoritarian success against the reigning champions. At the end of the meeting, one word comes up a lot in the mouths of the winners: defense.
“ The coaches prepared us well to face these guys. They have a lot of isolation players, capable of scoring. We've been talking about it over the last few days », Reports Anthony Davis on the famous game plan imagined before the meeting.
“ This was one of our best games, if not our best, in terms of executing our defensive game plan. In not overreacting when seeing (Kristaps) Porzingis puts several turnaround jumpers. Because of the way we wanted to defend on them, it also required a lot of presence on the carrier, staying in front, forcing shots off the dribble “, JJ Redick analysis.
His team actually had difficulty containing the Latvian giant opposite in the post in the first minutes of the match, in addition to suffering the long distance address of Jaylen Brown. But by changing a lot on defense, the Lakers disrupted the Celtics who were struggling to generate good shots.
Apart from Porzingis, holders are struggling
“ We were facing the ball forcing them to score us over the top. That was what we wanted to do. It’s a credit to my staff obviously, for having discussed this over the last 24 hours. It's a credit to our guys for following this plan to a high level », continues JJ Redick.
His team held the Celtics below the 100-point mark – only the 4th time this season that they did not reach this bar (four defeats) – with only 38.5% shooting success, their 2nd worst percentage of the season. A hell of a performance when we know that Joe Mazzulla's men were in full force last night.
Only between a clearly diminished Jrue Holiday (3 points at 1/6 on shots), a Derrick White next to his basketball (3 points at 1/5), a Jayson Tatum in poor form (16 points at 5/12) or a Jaylen Brown insisting on 3-points (17 points at 7/19 including 3/9 from afar), the Celtics did not resist the shock.
Even if the start of the second half allowed them to come back to 12 points. “ I didn't like the way we started the third quarter, compared to our half-court pace, it was very slow. But, as we were still defending at a very high level, we were able to maintain this safety cushion that we had », welcomes JJ Redick whose team will end up winning by 21 points.
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| Anthony Davis | 38 | 34.9 | 52.3 | 31.8 | 78.2 | 2.7 | 9.2 | 11.9 | 3.5 | 2.2 | 1.3 | 2.2 | 2.0 | 25.7 |
| LeBron James | 38 | 35.0 | 51.3 | 39.8 | 76.3 | 0.9 | 6.6 | 7.5 | 9.0 | 3.8 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 1.4 | 23.7 |
| Austin Reaves | 36 | 34.9 | 44.0 | 36.2 | 84.1 | 0.9 | 3.3 | 4.1 | 6.1 | 2.5 | 1.1 | 0.2 | 2.1 | 18.3 |
| Angelo Russell | 29 | 26.3 | 41.5 | 33.3 | 84.9 | 0.3 | 2.5 | 2.8 | 4.7 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 1.8 | 12.4 |
| Rui Hachimura | 36 | 32.1 | 49.1 | 41.1 | 76.8 | 1.6 | 3.6 | 5.2 | 1.5 | 1.0 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 1.9 | 12.2 |
| Dalton Knecht | 41 | 21.0 | 45.0 | 34.1 | 80.8 | 0.6 | 2.6 | 3.2 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.3 | 9.1 |
| Max Christie | 40 | 24.2 | 43.9 | 35.6 | 85.2 | 0.6 | 1.9 | 2.5 | 1.3 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 8.3 |
| Dorian Finney Smith | 8 | 23.3 | 46.5 | 41.9 | 80.0 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 2.8 | 1.1 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 2.1 | 7.1 |
| Jaxson Hayes | 20 | 16.5 | 64.1 | 0.0 | 75.0 | 1.4 | 2.5 | 3.9 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 2.2 | 5.3 |
| Gabe Vincent | 37 | 19.7 | 39.3 | 31.2 | 50.0 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 1.9 | 4.6 |
| Cam Reddish | 29 | 18.6 | 42.4 | 28.9 | 61.9 | 0.5 | 1.6 | 2.1 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 1.4 | 3.4 |
| Shake Milton | 6 | 9.7 | 28.6 | 20.0 | 75.0 | 0.2 | 1.5 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 2.2 |
| Christian Koloko | 22 | 9.2 | 58.3 | 0.0 | 75.0 | 1.1 | 1.3 | 2.5 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 2.0 |
| Jalen Hood-schifino | 2 | 7.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 2.0 |
| Armel Traore | 8 | 7.7 | 27.8 | 0.0 | 28.6 | 0.1 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 1.5 |
| Quincy Olivari | 2 | 5.2 | 20.0 | 20.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.5 |
| Maxwell Lewis | 7 | 4.2 | 33.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.6 |
| Trey Jemison | 2 | 8.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 50.0 | 0.5 | 2.5 | 3.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 2.0 | 0.5 |
| Bronny James | 11 | 2.3 | 10.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.4 |
