Lakers’ transition, pick-and-roll defense remain focus as road trip continues
TORONTO — Coming off their 131-125 win over the Toronto Raptors on Friday, the Lakers brought a defensive focus to Sunday’s practice at Scotiabank Arena before heading to Detroit for a matchup against the Pistons on Monday.
“Our pick-and-roll defense has had some slippage,” coach JJ Redick said. “We talked with the group, we showed a couple of clips from the Toronto game. It’s not singling out any one thing.
“It’s not singling out any one group of players. It’s not the guards on the ball. It’s not the bigs in coverage. It’s not the low man. It’s all of it. We’ve had a little bit of slippage everywhere, so wanted to clean that up.”
The Lakers also focused on their struggling transition defense after allowing 25 fastbreak points despite only having 10 turnovers.
“Transition is definitely a key of emphasis,” Gabe Vincent said. “Especially transition, we can take that away, it’s a whole different ball game.”
The Lakers entered Monday allowing 21.8 fastbreak points per game, the league’s worst mark.
They’ve allowed at least 21 fastbreak points in the last five games.
“Just continuing to work on some transition stuff where we feel like we could be better,” Redick said. “Some stuff is out of your control, obviously. We did a good job of taking care of the ball the other night, but they still got some stuff in transition that we feel like could have been cleaned up in game.
“And we just talked through that, showed a couple clips, and the guys were really good with that.”
Redick added: “What we worked on and what we kind of see as a coaching staff on film is what happens when we are back in terms of getting matched up, loading the basketball, our attention to detail on pick-up points against certain players. That’s really where I think we can have improvement.”
INJURY UPDATES
The Lakers listed Austin Reaves (sprained right ankle) and Anthony Davis (right hip soreness) as probable on the injury report for Monday’s game against the Pistons.
D’Angelo Russell (bruised right foot) is questionable.
Reaves played in the second half against the Raptors after rolling his right ankle in the second quarter and briefly going to the locker room.
“First couple minutes after rolling it I was in some pain,” Reaves said. “But I got to come back here, do a little treatment, move around and I felt good.”
Reaves said he planned on being available on Monday. The Lakers will wrap up the trip against the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday.
“I’m going to pull a LeBron, I plan on playing all 82,” Reaves quipped.
LAKERS at PISTONS
When: Monday, 4:30 p.m.
Where: Little Caesars Arena, Detroit
TV/radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM