A lot of people have asserted that Rui cannot play alongside LeBron because LeBron shouldn’t guard 3s at his age. In this post, I will dive into each offensive and defensive possession to analyze defensive coverages and see what is or isn’t working in this lineup.
Context: The players on the floor for the Lakers are Reaves-Reddish-Rui-Bron-Hayes. The players on the floor for the Kings are Fox-Monk-Duarte-Vezenkov-Mcgee. The score is 38-25.
Offensive possession 1:
Lakers run double drag with Bron as the ball handler and Reaves, Hayes as the two screens. Bron drives on Mcgee in drop coverage and draws the foul. He makes both.
Defensive possesion 1:
Let’s look at the matchups. Reddish is guarding Fox, Reaves is on Monk, Rui is on Duarte, Bron is on Sasha, Hayes is on Mcgee. Duarte is the clear 3 between himself and Sasha, and Rui is guarding him.
Duarte cuts towards the hoop, and Monk Mcgee run a pick and roll. Notice here in the screenshot Bron point switches with Rui so that Rui can provide help defense as Sasha cuts to the basket and Duarte spaces to the corner. Reaves dies on the screen and allows Monk to get a full head of steam downhill, and Hayes is playing deep drop. A better player would probably score a midrange jumper or a floater here, but Monk tries to find Duarte in the corner seeing Rui under the basket, not realizing Bron and Rui switched, leading to the steal and bucket on the other end.
Offensive possession 2:
Transition Bron to Reddish score.
Defensive possession 2:
Notice here again Rui is guarding Duarte, as Monk runs pick and roll with Mcgee again. Reaves does really well to stay in front this time, leading to Monk kicking it out to a semi-contested 3 from Sasha. (It actually looked more open on the replay than it did live).
Offensive possesion 3:
LeBron starts by posting up Duarte. The Kings defense is heavily playing off the Lakers shooters.
Five Kings players in the paint, but Bron finds Rui wide open for the three, which he hits. To be clear, this is a defensive mistake on the part of the Kings and Sasha(the guy guarding Rui), and LeBron took full advantage by finding the open shooter.
Defensive possesion 3:
The Kings are attackign the Lakers set defense after a made basket. Since the Monk-Mcgee pick and roll failed twice in a row, they run Fox-Mcgee instead. Cam dies on the screen, Hayes is in a deep drop, and Fox nails the midrange jumper. Rui and LeBron aren’t really a factor here due to the Kings spacing us out with Duarte and Sasha in the corners.
Offensive possesion 4:
The Lakers try to run two man action with Reaves and LeBron. First, I want to point out how well the floor is spaced by Cam and Rui. Cam has been lights out for the last three games, so Monk is glued to him in the corner. Rui just hit a three, so Sasha is also out of the paint. The problem here is Hayes, as he’s standing on the wing acting like he’ll do something. Mcgee is unbothered and ready for LeBron to roll to the basket, and the Kings are essentially able to guard the Reaves-Bron two man action with three players. Doesn’t matter cuz AR just passes the ball to nobody and it ends up being a turnover.
Defensive possesion 4:
In transition, the Lakers match up incorrectly, with Bron on Mcgee and Hayes on Sasha. Fox recognizes this, immediately attacks and McGee gets the lob.
Offensive possession 5:
On the next possesion, Reaves and Hayes run a pick and roll and are able to gain an advantage downhill. Sasha helps off Rui to get in front of Reaves, and Reaves correctly identifies that, but gets the pass stolen.
Defensive possesion 5:
Monk gets the rebound, passes to Duarte open dunk in transition. Lakers Timeout. The Kings sub out Fox, Duarte, Mcgee for Keon Ellis, Barnes, Sabonis.
Offensive possession 6:
What the fuck is going on. Lakers have three dudes in the corner, but the Kings also have three dudes guarding them. Bron and Reaves run a pick and roll which gets Bron downhill.
He gets downhill and engages Rui’s defender Sasha, so he passes out to Rui. Reddish’s defender Monk closes out on Rui, so he passes out to Reddish for the open 3. Reddish just happens to miss, good possession though.
Defensive possession 6:
The Kings now have Monk running point, and Ellis as the 2, Barnes at the 3, Sasha at the 4, Sabonis at center. So in this possession, Rui is actually gaurding a guard and Reaves is guarding a forward. Monk and Sabonis run a pick and roll, and Rui provides help defense, forcing Monk to kick it out to Ellis.
Ellis tries to drive on Rui, and is unsuccessful. He passes it out to Sabonis who runs a DHO with Barnes, and he misses the open 3.
Offensive possesion 7:
The floor is pretty well spaced out for a Rui iso on Barnes. He cooks tf outta Barnes and hits a reverse dunk on him.
Defensive possession 7:
Lakers are well matched up. Rui on Barnes, Bron on Sasha, Cam on Monk. Ellis decides to take a pull up contested 3 pointer (???) and misses.
Offenisve possesion 8:
Reaves and Hayes run a pick and roll, Ellies dies on the screen and Reaves gets downhill. Bron’s defender Barnes tries to help, and Monk tries to rotate out to Bron, leaving Reddish wide open to cut and score. Notice that after Rui hit the 3 earlier, Sasha has stayed out of the paint, allowing for the Lakers to get more open shots at the rim.
Defensive possession 9:
Monk and Sabonis run pick and roll, Cam dies on the screen. Monk lobs it up to Sabonis, and Hayes fouls him on the play. Sabonis makes the free throw. AD comes into the game for Hayes, Dlo comes in for Reaves. Kings sub in Heurter, Murray for Ellis, Sasha. I detailed the last few possessions in my other post https://www.reddit.com/r/lakers/comments/17woyft/lineup_data_vs_the_kings_1115/, I won’t go into it here cuz Reddit won’t allow more than 20 images.
TLDR:
In minutes when Bron and Rui shared the floor, Rui consistently guarded the opposing team’s 3 or even 2. Reddish also being on the floor is key because he can take the primary poa assignment.
Reaves and Reddish are consistently dying on screens and allowing Monk or Fox to go downhill. Monk had several advantages that he would normally convert but just didn’t.
Hayes playing such a deep drop alongside this creates a lot of open shots for the opposing team’s guards.
Reddish and Rui are drawing enough attention away from the defense, but Hayes isn’t, clogging up the paint.
I’m gonna repeat this because it’s important: Rui can play alongside LeBron and AD, and guard the opposing team’s SF. He just plays better with Bron, as Bron just knows how to set him up properly.
Thanks man, I felt so validated watching that game lol.