How Rudy Gobert Eliminated The Lakers

How Rudy Gobert Eliminated The Lakers

The Timberwolves just put an end to the Lakers season in Los Angeles. And in a closeout game that featured the likes of LeBron James, Luca Donic, and Anthony Edwards, the best player on the floor was none other than Rudy Goar, who completely dominated on both ends from start to finish. The Lakers decided to start this game with their small ball lineup. And a big story throughout the first four games had been Rudy’s lack of offense against this unit. Well, in this one, they made things really simple for him. Every single possession, he’d play out of the dunker spot. Then they’d get into their usual offense. You’ll notice that he wastes no time running to the baseline as the Wolves clear out for Anne. And this is sort of similar to how the Rockets use Steven Adams. His entire role from these spots is to fight as hard as he possibly can to create second chance opportunities. And in this game, he found lots of them. Like Adams, he has a really good understanding of how to position himself. On this one, Ruie standing in the passing lane while LeBron cheats over the block and he flashes to the middle of the floor to make himself a target where Randall finds him for easy offense. With the way the Lakers like to defend, anytime the ball is near the sideline, the low man is going to rotate to that side of the floor to load up on a drive. Then the next man over is supposed to slide down to the dunker, but they simply don’t have the size to handle Gobear down low. So this became a theme throughout the game. Anytime Edwards or Randall looked to isolate, Gobear’s man would be forced into an impossible position where if they wanted to help, they’d risk giving up second chances. And in the second half, he had a field day on these opportunities. Time and time again, those stars applied pressure, drew the help, and nobody was there to keep him off the glass. Remember what I said about his positioning, though? Even if that second guy slid down to box out, he made sure to always establish inside position. And after the rebound, all they can do to prevent a layup is send him to the line. Here’s a great example of how he punished LA’s lack of size. When the ball gets swung to the right side of the floor, he immediately moves to the left block and seals off Luca from the corner. Then, when Dante attempts a three, he’s the only one in position to rebound. This was especially impactful in game five because the Wolves had a historically bad night shooting the ball. As a team, they attempted 47 threes and made seven or less than 15%. Just for some added context, remember when the Rockets missed 27 straight in game seven against the Warriors? Well, they shot seven of 44. So, that’s the type of shooting performance we’re talking about. And Gobear took advantage of that lack of shotmaking by absolutely feasting on the glass, recording nine offensive rebounds, which was more than the Lakers had as a team. And it got to a point where the entire LA defense started to sell out on not letting Rudy grab rebounds. So other guys started to fly in and create those second chances. And as a team, they ended up securing 18 total offensive rebounds. The Lakers tried all sorts of different coverages throughout this game, and Rudy punished every single one of them. One point of emphasis was to not let Ant beat them as a scorer, and they did that by trapping. But the problem with trapping is that it puts the defense in rotation, and once again, there’s nobody to protect the rim. Another thing they tried quite a bit was a zone. With Goar playing from the dunker, though, all the Wolves had to do was find a way to get the ball to the middle of the floor, and they had an automatic advantage. That could mean having one of their wings flash to the middle for an entry pass. It could mean driving from the slot to create that pressure. And all Rudy had to do was go up and get the ball. And because of his ability to get above the rim, he demands attention in these spots. But as soon as the ball gets to the middle and that help defender doesn’t commit, now they’re walking into easy points of their own. And because of Gobear’s positioning, he’s also capable of creating space in these spots. When the ball gets to Jaden on the wing, it’s LeBron who’s supposed to rotate and help on a drive, only for Rudy to completely seal him out of the play, resulting in an open dunk. So, the end result was a dominant performance from Rudy on offense. He played 39 minutes and during that time the Wolves had an offensive rating above 120 while shooting below 14% from three. In addition to those nine offensive rebounds, he recorded 27 points on 80% shooting, making it by far the best individual performance of his playoff career. And the thing about Rudy is that anytime he’s even just good on offense, his impact is huge. Like I said earlier, a big story throughout the first games had been his lack of offensive production. And that’s why some of his minutes were given to Nas Reed, especially down the stretch of games to get an extra shooter on the court. But there seems to be a misconception that Rudy was getting checked out of these games because he couldn’t keep up with the five out offense. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. We saw the entire package in game five. Of course, most of his value comes from his ability to protect the rim. So, anytime he’s defending a spot-up shooter, they’re looking for ways to keep him as close to the basket as possible. He isn’t always blocking or altering a shot, but there’s a subtle impact that comes with having someone of his caliber within vicinity of the paint, and the offense is affected anytime he finds himself down low. Then, the drawback is that due to his size, he simply can’t cover ground in the way a guard or a wing can. So, if he finds himself closing from the paint to the corner, he is vulnerable to these types of attacks that instantly get put on a highlight reel and are used to suggest he can’t stay on the floor. But the Wolves are great at rotating. So, on a play like this where he has to recover to a shooter and gets beat, Ant’s not just there to pick up the drive, he’s also quick to jump back out to Luca in the corner. From that point, everyone else is going to shift one pass over to not give up a catch and shoot three, including Rudy, who starts to close to the opposite corner and gets fouled. The main way they’ve avoided those long recoveries, though, is with X outs. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, that means when Rudy helps in the paint, instead of closing to the corner himself, whoever’s defending the wing is going to make that rotation while he recovers to the wing, forcing the Lakers to make an extra pass as the Wolves get back into their set defense. Here’s another example from the second half. When Luca starts a drive, Rudy drops from the corner to shut off the paint. Then McDaniel slides down to take away the corner. So instead of a layup or a corner three, they end up with a much tougher look from above the break. Something else the Wolves have implemented to keep him near the basket is scram switching. After a ball screen, LeBron has the switch onto Dante. And to avoid that mismatch, Rudy’s going to switch onto LeBron while Dante closes to the corner, which keeps him in the paint and smothering a shot attempt. So it sort of goes without saying, but the Lakers had to find a way to get him away from the baseline. That could mean spotting his man up in the slot instead of in the corner, to which he still helps in the paint, recovers to the perimeter, then forces that guy to play off the catch before containing an attack. LA’s go-to offense in these spots, though, was to put Rudy into pick and pop action. And what the Wolves decided to do was have him play the ball in a high drop, then if necessary, switch onto whoever’s attacking. Here’s an example against Luca. He starts out dropping. Then when Ant gets beat, he calls for a switch. And that way they’re able to avoid a numbers advantage while also not giving up an opening for Ruie to catch and shoot. This is where the biggest misconception with Gobear’s defense lies because there seems to be this idea that he’s a complete liability on switches when that’s never actually been the case. You might remember Luca hitting that gamewinner on him or maybe Steph hitting him with a filthy series of moves in the 2017 playoffs. But over years and years of players trying to isolate him on the perimeter, he hasn’t only held up, he severely overperformed what should be expected from a 7’1 rim protector. Since becoming a candidate for defensive player of the year in 2017, he’s defended 937 isolations that directly led to a shot. So, we’re talking about a massive sample of him defending on the perimeter. And on those 937 plays, he gave up 771 points or 0.82 points per possession. For reference, the league average halfcourt offense since that time has been 0.96 points, meaning that a perimeter isolation against Goar is worth about 14 points below average. That’s probably why the Lakers stopped trying to go at him as much in game five. There were multiple instances of him being switched onto one of LA stars only for them to not even attempt an attack. At least that was until the final minutes. In a lastditch effort to stay alive, they started hunting for the switch every time down. First, it was Luca who couldn’t create any separation, needed a quick reset, then attempted a deep three that didn’t drop. Then it was LeBron. And against him, Rudy’s gonna really overplay the drive because they’re comfortable living with him pulling up for a long range jumper. And then finally, it was Austin Reeds who tried to isolate. And he’s the only one who actually got into the paint, but Rudy stayed attached and forced a miss at the rim. Throughout this series, he defended 20 isolations that led to a shot. The Lakers scored 16 points or 0.8 8 points per possession, right in line with that 9-year sample of these attacks not producing efficient offense. So, he limited LA’s ability to score from the baseline against the pick and pop and even on switches. But in game five, the reason he was especially impactful is because a lot of his minutes lined up with Vanderbilt on the other side. Vando isn’t just a non-shooting threat, he’s a non-scoring threat altogether, which means that Rudy can basically abandon him at all times, overcommitting to the paint. So, whenever Vandal was on the court, the Lakers simply couldn’t score inside. It didn’t matter if it was a drive, a pick and roll, some sort of cut, he was always there, and he completely took the paint out of the game. The Lakers tried to counter by using Vando as a screener, but this is when they had Rudy mix up his coverages. Against LeBron, he was sitting way back in a drop and making him take the jumper. Against Luca, he was doing it all. More times than not, he was blitzing to get the ball out of his hands, to which the Wolves would then get into rotation and try to limit the advantage. But we also saw some drop against Luca in these spots. And you’re able to get away with it when Vando’s rolling because he isn’t a threat to get above the rim on lobs. Every now and then, we even saw Rudy jump out to the ball in a hedge and recover again, forcing the ball out of Luca’s hands and trusting everyone else to rotate behind the play. In game five, there were 14 minutes with both Vando and Rudy on the court. During that time, the Lakers attempted three total shots at the rim and had an offensive rating of just 89.7, getting completely shut down. In Rudy’s 39 minutes overall, they still only attempted 12 shots at the rim, had an offensive rating of 97.3 as he put on an absolute clinic. In totality, the Wolves were plus 18 with Goar on the floor in this game. And that speaks to a larger point about Rudy and why it’s so annoying that there’s been this narrative of him being played off the floor in the past, especially by teams who run five out. In this series alone, the team had a net rating of plus 9.1 with him on the floor and plus 8.2 with him off. That might seem like a small impact, but let’s go back to last year’s Western Conference Finals run. In round one against the Suns, they were plus 22 with him on and negative five with him off. In the second round against the Nuggets, plus 12 on, negative five off. And in the conference finals against the Mavs, they got outscored with him on the floor only to get eviscerated with him off the floor, dropping to -14. And this has been a theme throughout Gobear’s career. This is the ninth straight series where his team was better with him on the floor and he’s building a pretty insane resume as an impact player in the playoffs. That’s why I cannot stand how he’s covered by the media and just talked about in general. No, he doesn’t get played off the floor by small lineups. And no, he doesn’t struggle to defend in space, especially on switches. This is one of the best defensive players in NBA history. And when he finds a way to make an impact on offense like he did in game five, he’s one of the most impactful players in the league. That’s why he was the best player in a closeout game featuring multiple stars. And that’s why the Lakers are headed home early. If you enjoyed this breakdown, make sure to drop a like, subscribe, and turn my post notifications on to be first on more content. If you’re interested in my more in-depth research, make sure to check out the Hoop Venue podcast and my social media profiles. You can find those links in the description. Feel free to let me know down in the comments what you think of Go Bear. As always, I hope you all have a great day and I’ll catch you guys in the next one.

In a closeout game 5 between the Lakers and the Timberwolves that featured multiple superstars, Rudy Gobert was the best player on the floor.

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