Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Can the Lakers Slow Durant? Are the Rockets Vulnerable, Mentally? Plus, a Luka Update!

Starting point is 00:00:00 We preview Lakers Rockets with Jackson Gatlin of Locked on Rockets. Plus, JJ Reddick updates the health of Luca Donchich and Austin Reeves. That's next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks, everybody for stopping by Locked on Lakers. Brian Komeneski with Andy Komeneski.

Starting point is 00:00:31 We'll get to our two-part Lakers Rockets preview with Lod. with Lockdown Rockets host Jackson Gatlin in just a second. First one to update, though, people on the happenings at practice on Tuesday. The good news, I guess, Andy, is that everyone who is available was able to go and practice, meaning Jackson Hayes was back on the floor. So that is excellent news. He said that his foot was feeling much better from several days off. And he never had any doubt that he would play in the playoffs.

Starting point is 00:01:02 He would have pushed through, but it's good to know he's feeling back. The headliner course update is with Luca Donchich and Austin Reeves. Luca wasn't physically there. Austin was. Both remain out indefinitely. And JJ said there won't even be any more health updates this week on either guy. So with all of that in mind, plenty to dive into, again, a two-part series previewing Lakers Rockets. We start this one by asking Jackson as many questions as we can possibly think of about the

Starting point is 00:01:34 Rockets and get you Lakers fans ready for the series. Let's get down to it, Andy, because this is a first round series that two weeks ago would have looked a lot more intriguing. I think the ESPN poll of its 12 insiders where 11 picked the Rockets. JJ Reddick said before the series that, before the playoffs, I should say that he knew that everybody in the West, all three teams, the theoretical. theoretically could have played the Lakers in the first round, all wanted to. I assume that is true of the Rockets.

Starting point is 00:02:11 It absolutely was. I think that, you know, when you look at the kind of the pecking order of the Western Conference, I actually think that the Lakers and, unfortunately, the Rockets were probably the two teams that looked maybe the weakest of that kind of top six jumble out west, right? So you've got OKC and San Antonio in their own tier, but then that jumble of Denver, L.A., Houston, and Minnesota. Every one of these four teams have inherent flaws, weaknesses, ways that they can be exploited. And even with a healthy Luca and Reeves, right, this Lakers team still had issues, right? And I think you could look at that for all four of those teams.

Starting point is 00:02:47 And I think that a lot of teams were looking at both L.A. and the Rockets as the two kind of easiest outs, not including the eventual whoever claims the seventh and eight spots. When last we, and by we, I mean the Lakers, saw the Rockets. They were struggling at the hands of the Lakers. KD. was openly. grousing a bit about his role, the vibes were not good. You and I actually spoke on my ESPN LACLA, Lakers show, Lakers talk, about how there could be some lingering bad feelings post-Bernergate.

Starting point is 00:03:18 The Rockets have since closed out the season very strong. What changed either on the court, off the court, both? They had, so in addition to the back-to-back Lakers losses, which basically all but guaranteed that they would have zero chance at like leapfrogging the Lakers in the standings. Although the Lakers gave them a run for their money there at the tail end of the season. This almost was an inverse four or five matchup here at the very end. But the Rockets then proceeded to struggle. They lost a game against Chicago.

Starting point is 00:03:51 They lost against Minnesota. And the Minnesota lost, the historic loss was a pretty bitter pill for that team to swallow. The first team in NBA history teams were 180 and O after leading by 10. plus in OT and then the Rockets went on to lose giving up that run at the end of the game to the to the T-Wolves. History, baby. Oh, I love the graphics. Oh, man, okay, I got to up.

Starting point is 00:04:16 I got to, I got to improve over at LOR. That's amazing. Look, so basically on the, before the next game after that Wolves loss, it was a game against the Grizzlies, I believe it was. And Rockets just had, they had a team meeting, right? and they addressed a bunch of things. And sometimes those team meetings, right, those players-only meetings can go one of two ways.

Starting point is 00:04:37 It's a very clear, like, fork in the road inflection point for a team, for an organization. And sometimes it's exactly what the organization needed, right? Sometimes the guys rally, good things start happening. Other times it can be a total disaster, a mess, and things just get worse from that point on out, right? Guys feel called out or frustrated and, you know, they don't take the criticism well, all that good stuff. I think for the Rockets, it clearly worked, right?

Starting point is 00:05:00 They addressed a lot of things. And then internally, we started seeing some pretty sweeping changes. We saw the Rockets introduced Reed Shepherd to the starting lineup officially, right? We saw Aaron Holiday reintroduced into the rotation. We saw the Rockets playing with a lot more ball movement, more spacing, more energy, really being intentional about a lot more things offensively than they had been throughout the season. And it really started to rub off. All the guys started playing a lot better.

Starting point is 00:05:26 And they went on that, you know, Ato run to close out the season, would have potentially been a 10-0 run to close out the year and have all that momentum going to the playoffs. They couldn't quite get it done against a T-Wolves team that was missing a lot of its key contributors. But they really did find something in the aftermath of that really embarrassing loss against the wolves. And the Rockets are playing some of the best basketball that they played all season to close out the year. They're peaking at the right time. So I want to, Andy, and I, the goal, what we're doing here, we're going to kind of grill Jackson about the Rockets. And then Jackson's going to turn around and grill us about the Lakers on a second preview show.

Starting point is 00:06:07 And so content galore for Rockets and Lakers fans. I want to talk a little bit about just KD and how he fits into this team, this culture. Because for a guy who is, you know, obviously, you know, one of the generational players the league has ever seen, there still is this very much kind of lingering belief and I'm not without some cause that he's not like 18 leader. He's not a guy who builds culture. He's not any of that. What is his role with this Houston team, not necessarily on the floor, but where does he fit in off of it? I think that ultimately, and I think one of the incidents that you're probably highlighting here, right, is the whole like Katie Twitter file stuff right, back around.

Starting point is 00:06:58 all-star break. And not a great look, right? Not really a way. And this was something that Kevin Durant and the Rockets chose to, you know, address and handle internally, right? We got kind of a little bit of PR speak about, you know, my teammates know what it is and all this stuff. And unfortunately, we'll never really know the full truth behind it, right? Only those that were actually involved and it will know how severe it actually was, where any of the images actually doctor. Did he really say those things? Like all that stuff, right? But the Rockets. I kind of feel like not denying it is an administrative. mission because I know if I truly had nothing to do with it, I would have stated unequivocally,

Starting point is 00:07:34 I had nothing to do with that. Yeah, but it's also one of those like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't, right? Because you say, I had nothing to do with it. Then it's like, okay, well, he definitely did it, right? Like, no, but at least I would put what I know to be the truth. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, right? Right. So like, what do you do, right?

Starting point is 00:07:54 Right. But at least I'm just saying, you're correct that they're going to be. people be able to don't believe Durant, particularly because he lives online and he's been caught with burners. I understand all that. I'm simply saying that if I know that I did not do this, I would at least say I didn't do it. And if people don't want to believe me, they don't believe me. So I think with Katie, like, you know, leadership styles are so interesting, right? Because there's a ton of different leadership styles. And while Kevin Durant doesn't necessarily have like this, you know, raw, raw, like in your face, like demonstrative leadership style, I do.

Starting point is 00:08:28 really feel like he has done a lot for the members of the Rockets like young core right like throughout this entire season we've really seen you know both on and off the court the way that kevin durand has taken a lot of the young guys under his wing the way that he gets up for their successes the way that he encourages them tries to motivate them you know and i think that that in and of itself that's leadership right now is is kevin durant the same type of leader as a fred van bleat or a dylan brooks who were two of the most two very instrumental pieces of this rocket's turnaround and kind of establishing the culture that Emeo Doka wanted in Houston, not quite, right? They're very different people. They're different human beings. And I think at the

Starting point is 00:09:08 end of the day, it's, there's a lot of gray area when you get into the conversation of Kevin Durant's leadership. I, I certainly shared the similar belief of like, oh, Kevin Durant's not a great leader, right? Like everywhere he goes, his leadership's been in question, all this stuff, drama follows him, things like that. But after seeing and experiencing it firsthand up close here in Houston, I can very confidently say, Kevin Durant is a good leader. Is he a perfect leader? No. Is he a flawed leader at times?

Starting point is 00:09:33 Yes, do you want him to be more vocal or more demonstrative or, you know, things like that? Sure. But he's also very transparent. He's very candid in a lot of his answers and responses with the media. And he's not afraid to share his mind, or at least he wasn't before the KD file stuff came out, right? Because now he's gone almost radio silent on Twitter, unless it's stuff for boardroom or, you know, any of his his business ventures. So I think that Kevin Durant as a leader has been,

Starting point is 00:10:01 I won't say like everything the Rockets could have wanted, but Kevin Durant like in totality has been everything the Rockets could have wanted and more when they made that trade. Where do you suspect his head is that right now in terms of heading into the playoffs? I asked just because he was considered the piece that they were missing heading into the playoffs. And Brian and I have talked in a recent show about how, I would imagine, as much as I know LeBron wants to fuel an upset, he likely recognizes that he's got very little to lose in this series because the ask is so big and the odds are against him.

Starting point is 00:10:38 KD is expected to lead the rockets through the playoffs, but particularly this matchup. And he is aware of the conversations about him. So that's really what, that's specifically why I'm asking. Yeah, the weight, all the weight of this matchup is on Houston, right? And it's, and a lot of it is on Kevin Durant. That being said, right, it's still not, this is not the, the version of the rockets that we were expecting to see this season, right? Obviously, injuries are a part of the game. But Kevin Durant has had to adapt and, you know, change his game substantially to kind of facilitate, you know, as oftentimes the primary initiator for this rocket's.

Starting point is 00:11:21 offense, right? When they went and got him as the, the missing piece, the piece they thought would put them over the top and kind of push them into those championship conversations, you know, that was a different version of this team, a version of this team that doesn't currently exist, right? No Fred Van Fleet, no Stephen Adams. Doreen Phine Smith has been one of the worst free agency signings in Rocket's history. You guys are welcome for that. The ankle surgery did not go over well. He is a shell of his former self. He's not even in the rotation is the problem. And he wasn't good when he was in the rotation. So the Rockets are down, effectively, three of the guys that to be their top six or seven role players in, you know, come the playoff time, but even setting all that aside, right, the expectation, the ask is still, the rocket should win this easily, right? Like, this is a injury riddled Lakers team with two of their top three guys out. And so from that perspective, yeah, there's probably a lot of pressure on KD, but by that same token, I think organizationally, I don't think there's like any internal pressure of like, oh, if something goes sideways or whatever.

Starting point is 00:12:18 this rocket team knows that they should win this series and ideally have a competitive second round series against probably the thunder don't don't write it off yet maybe an upset who knows but um you know their eyes are i think set on just doing what they can this year getting the experience again for the young guys in the playoffs guys who had either you know never been to the playoffs or only you know last year was their first taste of playoff basketball and then resetting and having next season right having a healthy fred having a healthy stephen adams and more or less running the same team back because Kevin Durant has, you know, offset all these losses, right? He comes in and replaces Jalen Green and Dylan Brooks. He's helping to offset the loss of Fredman Vleet and Stephen Adams and DFS and all of that. The Rockets managed to match their win total from last season with all those guys no longer in the picture. And it's not all Katie, right? Some of its internal growth, younger guys getting better, the other additions of Josh Akogi,

Starting point is 00:13:13 Clint Capella. But a lot of it is Kevin Durant. And he has been nothing less than absolutely. outstanding for this organization in his time here. What has changed about the Rockets offense, which went from something that people saw as a potential soft spot and vulnerability into something that has been quite outstanding over the last few weeks. So we'll get into that next.

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Starting point is 00:14:46 The Rockets offense, and Lakers saw it. And those games that they beat, you know, what we call the baseball series, when we're playing two games in Houston. The Lakers made the Rockets offense look gummy. It looked stuck in the mud at different times. And I know that's been the criticism throughout the year that, you know, statistically they haven't necessarily. I just want to clarify the Lakers didn't do that.

Starting point is 00:15:08 The Rockets do that for a chunk of the season. They did that. The Lakers did it to them, Jackson. Because that's what we do or did back when we were going better. So, but like that, that was the basic criticism of the Rockets. It's like it's not that it was statistically, it's not that they were a bad offense. You know, they weren't like a the 24th ranked, you know, offense in the league and stuff like that. They've been, you know, depending on your metrics and all that.

Starting point is 00:15:37 But like the last few weeks, they've not been like better. They've been legit excellent in, you know, things like measured by like offensive rating and things like that. What has changed? Well, it's funny you say 24th because the funny thing is the Rockets offense for basically the entire Emu-Doka era has been a lot of smoke and mirrors. It is an offense that is entirely propped up by second chance points in offensive rebounding because the way that second chance points in offense rebounding are calculated when you look at offensive rating is basically you're double dipping on the same possession. And so you get like a disproportionate benefit when you get multiple offense rebounds on one possession. and then you eventually score the bucket. And so the Rockets were managed to offset what was,

Starting point is 00:16:23 I believe it might still be there. I don't have the numbers right in front of me. Their half-court offense was bottom five in the NBA for most of the season. Like, we're talking about teams like the Grizzlies and Jazz had better half-court offensive ratings than this Rockets team throughout most of this NBA season. So when we say the Rockets offense has been a problem and has historically been a problem under IMA Udoca, it is no laughing matter. it has been an issue.

Starting point is 00:16:49 But because of their elite ability to crash the offensive glass, the running joke with the Rockets broadcast team and amongst Rocket fans and sometimes just like, put it up. That's the best offense. Put it up. Get it all in the glass and then get an offense to rebound and get a putback, right? Here's the problem. The Rockets had like an identity, right, of like a possession maxing identity

Starting point is 00:17:10 with Fred Van Bleet, limiting turnovers, taking care of the basketball, and they were one of the best assisted turnover ratio teams in the association with him. and then Adams, best offensive rebounder in the NBA, all those second chance opportunities. They were just winning the possession battle against everybody. You lose both of those guys. That's a huge chunk of that identity. And the Rockets never pivoted from that identity.

Starting point is 00:17:31 And when you don't have two of your best weapons to make that identity come true, you get what we got for most of this season. The pivot came when we started to see the Rockets actually embracing some creativity on offense. And this has been my biggest scribe. I think E. Mayo Doak is a great coach. but I think he's at times very limited and unimaginative on offense. His, I joke sometimes that Embe Odoca's ideal outcome of a game would be winning two to one, right?

Starting point is 00:17:57 Just the most low-scoring, ridiculous game ever, right? He wants to win with defense so much so that I think sometimes it blinds him to what could be possible offensively, right? It's so much so that we see, you know, Reed Shepard has had incredible flashes this season for the Rockets. He wins the minutes that he's on the floor. He's a net rating monster. And yet sometimes he gets benched, because he's a defensive liability. But if you're,

Starting point is 00:18:20 if the minutes that you play and you're a net positive, then like, you should play more minutes. And so that was part of it, right, is Reed Shepherd in the starting lineup. And then suddenly everything else just starts to fall back into place, right?

Starting point is 00:18:32 You've got an actual point guard and a floor spacer in the starting lineup. Kevin Durant doesn't have to handle the ball as much. He gets to play off ball. Suddenly the gravity is better for KD and Shingoon and a men Thompson. It opens up driving lanes. You get a men Thompson playing off ball more where he's in the dunker spot,

Starting point is 00:18:47 where he is absolutely lethal, roaming the baseline like a shark, just waiting to catch lobs or cutting to the rim or attacking the offensive glass. And watching all these pieces kind of settle back into place was both very exciting and fun. And we witnessed the offensive explosion and how good this team could look over that eight-game win streak. But it was doubly frustrating because it's like, where was this all season? Why did it take 70-some-odd games to have the realization that, man, we should put these guys in better positions to be successful and play to their strengths. basically playing to the strengths of the players you have

Starting point is 00:19:20 rather than trying to fit square pegs into a round hole is what it kind of felt like a lot of this rocket season boiled down to, unfortunately. With that being said, the playoffs raises the stakes. Do you think IMA Adoka will actually trust the best version of the rockets if it involves the players that he trusts the least? Will he do trust maxing? You use the maxing before. Trust maxing. Wow, look at you.

Starting point is 00:19:47 I'm just so. proud of you guys. That's amazing. Look, I... You want him to do creativity maugging. I don't know if I did that right. That was that was 10 out of 10 no notes. That was incredible, Brian. Look, I wish I could say, I wish that I could say with confidence that he would. But I do worry that his default mode is to try to win with defense. We have seen it play out countless times throughout the season. We're at the end of a game.

Starting point is 00:20:15 This Rockets offense will grind. to a standstill. And his goal would be to win with defense at all costs and just grind it out. I've jokingly called it like prison hoops at times, you know, watching this team play. It's not fun basketball. And when you have the right personnel, you can play that way. But the Rockets have not been this season. They have not been the same dominant defense that they were last year where they had a smothering,

Starting point is 00:20:40 suffocating defense where they could, they could force you into four, five, six-minute stretches, scoring droughts because they were just that impovered. posing on the defensive side of the ball. They don't have that this year. They're still a good defense. They're still a top 10 defense, and they've got great defensive specialists, and guys like Amin Thompson and Jabari Smid Jr.

Starting point is 00:20:57 And Tari Isan, a plethora of wings that they can throw out there. But they're not the same. And that adaptability, that ability to change your approach to the game of basketball as a head coach, you need to be adaptable as a head coach. And that inflexibility is something that you can go back to, and a lot of Celtics fans took exception to when he was the head coach there. A lot of Rockets fans have had his. choose with it in Houston.

Starting point is 00:21:19 And that might be, it could potentially be a little bit of a death knell for the Rockets in the playoffs. Because one thing that I do think that the Lakers have an advantage on here in the series is the coaching battle. I do worry about Eme O'Doka's ability to handle JJ Redick in a head-to-head coaching matchup over the course of a seven game series. All right. So we'll get into a few more of the individual matchups, places where maybe Jackson

Starting point is 00:21:46 and thinks the Lakers might be able to exploit some potential weaknesses, despite, as you may have heard, not having Luca Dantridge and Austin Reeves available. And that is not breaking news. That is something that most people are aware of. We'll get to all of it next. Locked on Lakers and Locked on Rockets, brought to you by Fandul. The NBA playoffs are here where every possession matters, every matchup magnified. Every game can swing a series.

Starting point is 00:22:15 As of this recording, our friends at Fandul have the Lakers at 100. 75 to 1 odds to win the title. The Rocket 60 to 1, the Thunder. Not surprisingly, they are the favorites. FanDuel has them at slightly better than even money. And right now, FanDuel, giving new customers a great way to get in on the action. Here's what I like about it. You can bet just $5, $5.5.

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Starting point is 00:23:40 you would like to have fewer commercials. So this is a way to do it. Jackson, where do you see, given what we're looking at here with the lake? Obviously no Luca, obviously no AR. Yes, LeBron has played quite well. He is also 41 and the supporting cast is not necessarily built for this. Where do you see potential vulnerabilities that the Lakers, as they're constructed right now, might be able to poke at? I think that the biggest one, and this is actually something that I'm glad we're kind of broaching this topic because I do wonder,

Starting point is 00:24:21 Is there anything to the idea that without Luca and AR out there, obviously, you know, those guys are not the best defenders being political about it or being polite about it. But like, is there something of the idea that the Lakers might just be a, might be able to close some of the gap? Obviously, they're better with those guys for sure. But by playing better defensive pieces in their stead, could they close some of that gap? right, because I do worry about the Rockets ability. Turnovers have been their Achilles' heel all season long.

Starting point is 00:24:53 They don't have a legitimate floor general. Reed Shepherd has moments where he looks awesome and the flashes are there, but he does. He's still incredibly young. He will struggle with ball pressure, things of that nature. Rockets don't have a legitimate safeguard that they can give the ball to to make sure they can initiate cleanly in and out of sets. And turnover is going to be a big thing.

Starting point is 00:25:11 So I do wonder if the Lakers are really able to just dial up that defensive pressure, that can be a way to kind of close some of that talent. gap, if you will. I think it depends on how you're looking at this. If you're talking about pure personnel and having to lean on more defensive guys or more of a defensive identity enhancing, you know, or emphasizing defense more, the answer could be yes simply because the Lakers are going to have no other choice. And they've actually shown during this period without Luca and Austin, albeit against some weaker competition, but still in terms of trying to crank up an identity.

Starting point is 00:25:49 And really, actually, even since the All-Star break, they've been pretty disruptive defensively, when they've really put their minds to it, when they've really, you know, they get a lot of deflections. They've been, over the last 10 games, they were top 10 in the league for steals per game. They draw a lot. I mean, granted, some of this was Luca and Austin, so they're going to have to find other ways, but they've drawn a lot of charges. They can do certain things like that, and they're likely going to lean into it because they're going to have no other choice. That being said, though, one of the big defensive disadvantages that they're going to

Starting point is 00:26:23 have without Luca and Austin beyond the charges drawn that I just mentioned, and Luca actually has really quick hands, and he's been terrific this season at getting steals and creating turnovers, is the idea that if their offense doesn't run as well, they're going to give Houston more opportunities to run off misses and not have as much of an opportunity just to set their own defense and to try to do some of the things that they were doing against Houston in the two wins in that baseball series, you know, the type of pressure that they were putting on Katie and other ball handlers, that is much harder to do if Houston's not taking the ball out of their own basket. So again, it depends on how you look at this.

Starting point is 00:27:12 There's no way heading into this series. I think you can think about anything that becomes an advantage because they don't have Luca and Austin, if we're really being real about it. But I do think they are going to lean more into defense. But again, it's more out of survival mode than glass half full. Where would you? Because I think Andy's point about, and by the way, I looked it up,

Starting point is 00:27:36 I don't think I used mugging correctly. So apologies to the news out there. where do you think like the the the lakers show me whether it's you know the limiting the offensive rebounds like because as any points out like they don't have the you know to maximize the offense you have to do things like you know you're giving you're giving Luke canard for example it's been a great you know addition to the team but you're giving them an uncomfortable amount of minutes you know teams are if you thought you know people picked on Austin Reeves defensively um

Starting point is 00:28:10 they really pick on Kennard. And you're just, you're exposing him to too many opportunities to get, to get used that way. I, the hard part, I think for me in trying to find ways to really feel confident the Lakers have a good chance to do something special here is just figuring out how you, you use enough players without Houston kind of taking advantage of them. but there's Ruby can score a little bit Kinnard can score a little bit I mean guys are going to have to play above their station what are the

Starting point is 00:28:46 but ultimately too LeBron's is going to have to be like just I think insanely good throughout the whole series what do you think the rockets are going to do there is it a matter of

Starting point is 00:28:59 throw a bunch of bodies out I mean if we shut down LeBron the whole thing falls apart or let LeBron get his 35, you know, 12 and 7, and everybody else has eight when each game by 25. You know, it's funny because we've seen over the years, Eme O'Doka approached this, you know, a couple different ways when it comes to like superstar level players, right?

Starting point is 00:29:23 You can either let the star get theirs, right, and shut everybody else down or load up on the star and try and like prevent, prevent that star from getting themselves going. I think within aged LeBron James and the. the, again, like menagerie of wings that the rockets can throw out there. You know, it's, I think that it's going to be a lot of, I think I could see a world where actually the rockets elect to maybe mix it up a little bit where they start with,

Starting point is 00:29:55 stay, keep everybody at home, right? Or, sorry, I apologize, let me flip that. Go aggressive on LeBron early, right? Trying to keep him, you know, out of rhythm, what have you. And then as the game progresses, you know, we've seen Imeodoka switch up defensive. coverage is mid-game, like just out of nowhere. And even though, even if something feels like it's working, right, keeping the opposing team

Starting point is 00:30:13 on its toes by then switching and then you're like, okay, well, what's coming next? And I think that the fear, right, of the worry is LeBron is so gifted when it comes to dissecting and breaking down a defense that I think a bigger fear of mine would be letting other guys get hot. LeBron can get his when he wants to get his. He can get his against two defenders, three defenders, whatever. even at his current age, he's still LeBron James. And there's a part of me that thinks there might be a game or two this series

Starting point is 00:30:40 that the Lakers just win just because LeBron is LeBron. If he's got enough left in the tank to do it, right? But if you start letting other guys get confident, get hot, right, see the ball go in the net a couple times, getting some open shots, that becomes a problem. And there's really no world where the Rockets shouldn't, I guess, be able to at least make LeBron's life difficult given their availability of their wings, their overall defensive aptitude while also still, while not just like giving up wide open

Starting point is 00:31:13 opportunities for the other guys, right? Because you look at like the way that the Lakers have defended Kevin Durant in the past. All right, well, you want to take Katie out of the game, send two to the ball? Great. Well, it's going to, it's a four on three power play for Alperin Schengoon and a men Thompson, right? And that's a, that should be a field day for those guys. For LeBron, like if you send two to the ball, right, like who's the three? outside of LeBron, right? Like, Lakers have talent, but like, that's where you're desperately missing, right? Luka and Reeves, except in those scenarios, right, it's like Luca with the ball, and then you're outletting it to Reeves or LeBron.

Starting point is 00:31:41 Right. You have blitz, and now LeBron's got the ball in his hands with a power play. Exactly. And so I think that from the defense, from, from the Rockets defensive standpoint, I could see it turning into like a, maybe not like a war of attrition type thing, but just really trying to gas LeBron James as much as possible because he is going to be doing, as we've already alluded to a lot, right? He has to do so much heavy lifting for the Lakers to have even a remote chance in this series. It feels like an almost insurmountable task. I won't say, I won't say completely insurmountable because against LeBron, it's JJ Reddick.

Starting point is 00:32:15 Like, there's still, there are reasons that this Lakers team could and possibly might still win this series. But I just, I think that defensively, it's going to be a lot for LeBron have to deal with. And again, he's going to be checked by a men Thompson. primarily. And that's going to be like, we've seen him in Thompson put clamps on some of the league's best. He's one of the top five defenders. You don't need to throw a lot of bodies at him. You theoretically, you can accomplish both things at once. Potentially, yeah. Yeah, you can lock up the other guys while also not allowing LeBron to completely go nuts. With that in mind, the last

Starting point is 00:32:50 question I would have for you, Jackson, who is somebody not named LeBron James Sr., leaving obviously open the possibility of Brony, that you think on the last, Lakers could swing the series in either direction or that you think could be pivotal in terms of, as you mentioned, the other guys or other guy potentially getting hot. Who's keeping you up at night? I feel like it's got to be Rui, right? Like, I feel like he becomes the most, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, guys, but is he not the most dynamic offensive player not named LeBron James now on the roster that's

Starting point is 00:33:25 readily available? Depends on which version of DeAndre Aitin you're getting. If you're getting a fully engaged. DeAndre Aiton, or I guess if the Lakers can really find a way to utilize Jackson Hayes for some just easy, simple points. He hasn't missed a three-pointer all year. It's worth noting. And he's shooting like 75% or something this season. Like when Jackson can utilize himself as a role man, he is actually pretty effective. But I think from a, what are you talking about? I'm a terrible skill set.

Starting point is 00:33:58 Me being able to do more than one thing. I think Rui is the answer to that question. Well, Rui, Rui or Aiton, I think Aiton at his best could be it. But why do you think it's Rue in any event, Jackson? I just think when you look at this team, it's, I guess my question, and this is something that we're going to certainly be covering when I grill you guys on the other end of that. So that's a not so subtle tease for the following episode in this little mini preview series ahead of this first round matchup. You know, I think of like what do the lake, how do the Lakers survive the non-Lebron men?

Starting point is 00:34:29 right and I think that like Rui is the guy that my mind immediately goes to like they're going to have to rely on him for some offensive production in those probably very sparing you know LeBron you know on the bench moments and you know how does their two-man game look together right does he can he get going offensively early if he's a no show then like is there going to be any offense from anybody else right he's the one guy and I do think that from the Rockets perspective not that like Ruby's like a I don't want to say like like a matchup problem, but just I wonder, you know, the rockets don't have, I guess, they've got a ton of wings. I don't know if they have somebody that's like specifically built to stop Rui in particular. You know, Jabari is long and lanky. Tari Isan's probably like the best like individual one-on-one matchup for Rui or even to like a lesser degree. Like Shingoon has had some success against those like weird like six eight, six nine kind of tweener

Starting point is 00:35:24 forwards at times in the past defensively. So that's the one where I'm just like, how are they going to hold? him who's going to be the primary defensive assignment on Rui and is there anything that can be exploited there? He's the name that immediately comes to mind. Okay. Locked on Lakers,

Starting point is 00:35:41 locked on rockets, both found on YouTube. Make sure you check them out. Make sure you check each show. And of course, we back with the opposite, the bizarre version of this show where Jackson's going to grill us about the Lakers. So that is coming up next. So make sure you

Starting point is 00:35:57 are watching out for that. We'll see everyone next. time.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Can the Lakers Slow Durant? Are the Rockets Vulnerable, Mentally? Plus, a Luka Update!

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