The Los Angeles Lakers were fighting for their playoff lives every single night after the trade deadline last season due to them digging themselves such a hole being the 13th seed. The team would be able to do this improbable task though, climbing all the way up to the seventh seed.
From there, the Lakers would matchup with the eighth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves in the Play-In Tournament for a date with the two-seed Memphis Grizzlies. In a roller coaster of a game, the L.A. would survive the Play-In and go on to defeat a feisty Grizzlies team in six games.
It did not get any easier from there as L.A. squared off with the then defending champion Golden State Warriors in the second round. The Lakers would have to play as flawless as possible defensively with the scoring punch that guards Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson bring, and the purple and gold would be able to win in six games due to their exceptional defense.
Thompson recently made an appearance on Podcast P with Paul George and gave his thoughts on the series against the Lakers, giving props to Anthony Davis and L.A.:
“That Lakers series was tough. Obviously I didn’t shoot the ball as well as I wanted to. We shot it terribly. It’s tough when Anthony Davis is down there at the rim, that man is like elastic, he just affects so many shots. LeBron still doing his thing. So I give the Lakers credit, they played very well.”
The Warriors are known for their motion offense where there is nonstop movement on and off the ball to get their shooters in Curry and Thompson open. Credit the Lakers defense for playing with intensity and attention to detail, running the Warriors off the 3-point line as much as they could to make things tough.
While Thompson believes he did not shoot the ball well, he shot 38.1% from 3 on 10.5 attempts, which is very respectable on such high volume. Overall from the field though, he shot just 34.3% and that number dropped all the way to 21.4% in the final three games, so the Lakers did a nice job defending one of the greatest shooters the league has every seen.
Curry averaged 26.7 points and 7.5 assists in the series but struggled from beyond-the-arc by his standards, shooting 34.3% on 11.2 attempts. The Splash Brothers aren’t shy to shoot from anywhere and the Lakers were aware of that and did their best to contain them, ultimately winning the series.
D’Angelo Russell believes Warriors struggled to match up with Lakers in postseason
On the other side of things, Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell shared his perspective on the team’s matchup with the Warriors. He felt that the then defending champions did not matchup well against the purple and gold, especially with Davis and LeBron James.
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