The formula for success imo is one of reaves/Dlo, two athletic wings (one of which needs to have good poa defense), lebron and AD.

Between Dlo and AR, im always going to trust AR more due to the way he played in the postseason.

For the two wings, I think RUI is our best spot up player, but shouldn’t be our best point of attack defender. Cam Reddish can be that poa defender without having the offensive liabilities that Vanderbilt has. So I think our 2 should be Cam and our 3 to be RUI.

So ideally we would have AR-Cam-RUI-Bron-AD

I think it’s a mix of our scheme forcing a lot of three point attempts, which leads to more long rebounds, as well as our guards not being long or athletic enough to grab them.

Ion mena like it’s up to chance, but like professional basketball players don’t just fumble the bal like that often, probably won’t be consistent trend in the future.

Oh wait sorry, they did run Dlo-Reaves-Rui-Bron-AD last year in the playoffs. They were a +34 in 32:04 of playing time. Tied for our best lineup, but better per 100 possessions due to shorter time.

No Dlo-Reaves-Rui-Bron-AD. Closest thing to it is Dlo-Reaves-Wood-Bron-AD, which was a +8 in ten minutes.

I think the problem with the Dlo-Reddish-Prince-Rui-AD lineup (and I haven’t gone back and watched the film btw so could totally be wrong) is that it’s a little small. I think taking Reddish or Prince out for Wood for example may make things better.

[{‘Anthony Davis’, ‘LeBron James’, ‘Taurean Prince’, ‘Austin Reaves’, ‘Rui Hachimura’}, -1, ‘01:14’]

Only 1:14 of playing time. I think it could work but I personally prefer Cam.

Thanks man, I felt so validated watching that game lol.

No, Vando and RUI are historically horrible together on the court. Having Reddish to guard the poa and RUI and Bron to guard forwards is enough for now.

I don’t like Dlo Austin together, so if Austin is gonna get more minutes he’s gonna have to show he’s playing better than Dlo, which he wasnt

I agree, I think RUI plays very well within the offense. I saw someone describe him as a ball stopper, and he couldn’t be any father from that in this game. I would’ve liked the Lakers to try and feed him more isos especially when Bron and AD we’re out, but they kept playing through AR.

I also think RUI played great defense on Grant. Grant hit a few tough shots in his face, which will happen but I agree I think he did well defensively.

Man and I was going to war in this subreddit for the past few days for it

I’ve been defending Rui’s defense on this sub to death, glad to see some numbers backing it up. I’ve thought that he contested shots overall well, but ends up in some highlight plays jsut cuz great players are making shots over him. He’s also our best three point shooter right now, so I am once again beggin Darvin Ham to run him more with Bron and AD.

My argument for trading for Caruso is that I don’t trust Vanderbilt in the playoffs. Although he is absolutely ELITE on the defensive end, he provides a lot of problems for us offensively. Caruso would solve the missing piece that Dennis left, as our point-of-attack defender, while being able to play better off ball as well. I would argue that having Caruso would allow for us to roll out a AC-AR-Rui-Bron-AD lineup, which is just a supercharged version of our best lineup in the playoffs last year, Dennis-AR-Rui-Bron-AD. (This is not saying AC > Dennis, but what we need out of that role along the other four guys, he does it better than Dennis or Gabe).

This is exactly what I was thinking about, i like our chances