Walton benches Lakers starters for poor transition D
Near the end of a tight game against the Toronto Raptors on Friday, in which he'd watched his team squander a 17-point first-half lead, Los Angeles Lakers head coach Luke Walton wanted to send a message to his starting lineup.
After those starters failed to hustle back in transition on a couple of occasions, Walton benched them, and opted to close the game with his more energetic reserves.
"I took the starters out a little early in the third because they didn't get back in transition defense. which is our No. 1 key to being a good defensive team," Walton told reporters after the game. according to ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk. "We talked about how important that third quarter was with the momentum of the game changing and them being a playoff team, so we can't afford to give those up so as a teaching lesson we took them out a little earlier than I normally have done.
"Unfortunately, we didn't get back on defense again with four minutes to go in a close winnable game. You can't just give away free points. To let them know how serious we are about transition defense, we pulled them out again. We were going to let the starters see what they can do with the game. But when they didn't get back on the break, they are telling me and each other that they don't really want to finish that game."
The Lakers actually outscored the Raptors 22-12 in fast-break points for the game, but they got burned multiple times by leakouts in the second half, which, if they didn't lead directly to baskets, led to free throws or half-court opportunities against a scrambling defense. The Lakers didn't help themselves by turning the ball over 21 times and shooting 3-of-23 from 3-point range, giving the Raptors ample opportunity to get out and run.
"(The starters) gave up a lot of fast-break points, people not getting back, it was a unit thing so that is why he pulled everybody," said Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball. "We were just ball-watching, to be honest. I was supposed to be back on the point guard, sometimes I go crash (the glass) and I am supposed to get back, and just not talking."
The numbers told the story for the different Lakers lineups. On top of scoring 56 of the team's 92 points and grabbing 26 of their 49 rebounds, all six players who came off the bench had a positive plus-minus in the game. Each starter was a minus-14 or worse.