It’s been a season of swings for Derek Fisher and the Lakers, who thanks to their defense, are back on an uptick.
The Lakers won two games over the weekend, besting the New Orleans Hornets, 101-97, in a tight affair, then following that up with a thrashing of the New York Knicks, 109-87. LA has now won four straight games.
Much of what the Lakers did over the weekend was tied to their defense and Derek was prominent in that regard.
Faced with the task of defending two point guards enjoying All-Star caliber seasons, Chris Paul of New Orleans and Ray Felton of New York, Derek kept both in check.
On Friday against the Hornets, Fish stalled Paul, who averages nearly 17 points per game, holding him to just 12, the result of denying Paul his shots and forcing him to pass off. The New Orleans point guard doled out 10 assists but took just six shots, five fewer than his per game average.
Meanwhile, on the offensive end Derek led the way for LA, notching six assists in the win. He helped the Lakers early, with four first quarter assists to three different players, and a bucket. Fish did the rest of his complimentary work in the third, with assists to Ron Artest on back-to-back plays.
Then, after the Hornets tightened the game late in the fourth, Derek sealed the game on the defensive end with a steal from Emeka Okafor with 30 seconds left to play.
No. 2 and the Lakers carried the momentum of a three-game winning streak into Sunday’s game against the New York Knicks. Derek was challenged by Knicks point guard Ray Felton, who is averaging career-highs in points (18.2) and assists (8.7) per game this season and has been tough to handle all year.
But D-Fish stymied him too.
Felton scored just 12 points on a miserable 4-of-14 (28.6 percent) from the field, as the Lakers cruised to a 109-87 win over New York.
The defensive effort marked the 10th time this season that LA has held an opponent under 90 points, which is known at Staples Center as "taco territory." LA is 9-1 in those games. The Lakers have credited their heightened defense over the last few weeks to assistant coach Chuck Person, who, as Mike Bresnahan wrote for the LA Times, has changed up the team’s defensive philosophy:
"Lately we’ve been paying more attention to details," Person said. "We’ve given some rules to our defense to hold guys more accountable for their defensive responsibility."
The Lakers used to welcome middle penetration. Now they abhor it.
"The basic principle is to make sure we keep the ball out of the middle of the floor," Person said. "We want to make sure we influence the ball down the sideline and then to the baseline. It’s not a total departure from what we’ve done, but we just tweaked it a bit."
Despite solid recent results, Jackson said the defense was still not flawless.
"We’re trying to break habits more than anything else," he said. "We’ve been playing a form of defense that has been pretty good for us the last four years, but I’m trying to make some adjustments and to break those habits takes some time."
To go along with his defensive efforts on Sunday, Fish shot 50 percent from the field and 1-of-2 from the three-point line. The one three he hit was, as usual, a big shot late in the game, as Darius Soriano of Forum Blue and Gold wrote:
One of the bigger 3’s of the night was a dagger from (guess who) Derek Fisher who pushed the Lakers’ lead to 17 with 5 minutes left to play and effectively ended the game. Up until that point there was still a feel that the Knicks were within reach, but after that shot the game seemed over.
No. 2 also chipped in two assists and a block in the victory.
NEXT UP
Derek and the Lakers take on the Cleveland Cavaliers for the first time this season on Tuesday night at the Staples Center.
In two games against the Cavs last season, Fish averaged 6.5 points and 3.5 boards.
The game tips off at 7:30 and will be televised on Fox West.
RELATED ARTICLES