New and Improved: The Los Angeles Lakers Defense

During the first two games of the season, the Los Angeles Lakers have showed off a new and improved defensive scheme that has shut their opponents down to less than 80 points per game and less than 40% shooting. So what is the secret behind the Lakers defense this year?

The basic principle behind their defense is helping one another and disrupting the offensive player with the ball to force him to make bad plays. Nobody should ever be guarding someone without help, which is achieved by schemes that swarm/clog the offensive player with the ball.

A lot of the schemes are similar to the Amoeba defense that was developed and used by UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, which is a gambling defense that maximizes steals and forces fast breaks. The Amoeba defense looks to trap players near the sidelines and at the high post while playing the passing lanes that the trapped player will likely throw to under pressure. A more detailed explanation can be found here:

More simply, the Lakers basically run a man to man/loose 1-2-2 defense when the ball is at the top and overload the strong side as the ball swings to the side. Once this happens, hard doubles and funneling towards the baseline occurs. A lot of scrambling results from all the help defense and switching against pick and rolls, but the negative effects are largely negated by the length of the Lakers who take up space and block shots.

As with every defense, however, there are weak spots that an offense can attack. Against the Lakers defense, if opponents can rotate the ball fast enough, they can get an open three pointer on the weakside of the floor. It is up to the Lakers to perfect their defensive rotations to minimize the time the weakside three point shooter has for an open shot.

Please feel free to discuss the topic in the comments section.