It was Mike Brown’s vision for this Lakers offense, as long as Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol were playing together, to mimic the old San Antonio offense with dual big men Tim Duncan and David Robinson, which ran with the Spurs when Brown assisted head coach Gregg Popovich. As I discussed in my column about the Lakers’ limitations on offense and Kobe Bryant citing a “very small margin for error,” Brown knows the post position is the easiest for defenses to double-team.
“Hands down,” he reiterated Friday.
Brown acknowledged there will be minor changes to help Bryant, Bynum and Gasol dodge double teams, but said there’s no way to play Derrick Rose-style pick-and-roll or transition game — or Kevin Durant coming off screens or pick-and-rolls to shoot over people. But he also pointed out the Lakers are ninth in field-goal percentage in the NBA for the season — and fifth over the past 10 games.
“We’ve got to keep tweaking the stuff you have to see if you can help guys out,” Brown said. “But I’ve been around the game a long time, and I’ve been fortunate enough to coach some post-up players. The one problem that we had in San Antonio when we had Tim and David: We felt like we were easy to defend, because they’re low-post players.”
The best solution, Brown said, will be for the Lakers’ supporting cast to nail open shots, especially 3-pointers.
“We’ve got to make them pay on the back side, so teams are hesitant about doubling because they’re getting hurt on the weak side,” Brown said. “We’re shooting 30 percent from 3(-point range) right now, so that doesn’t quite help the cause, because teams stay in the double team longer and they really come aggressively.
“If we were halfway decent in that (3-point) area, where we’re getting great looks because guys are getting doubled, we’d be even better and more efficient offensively. But it’s going to continue to be a struggle for our guys on the block, because, shoot, I know if I’m playing us, I would double those guys. I don’t know who wouldn’t.”
— Reporting from Minneapolis
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