LOS ANGELES – Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Los Angeles Lakers’ 110-97 win against the New York Knicks on Sunday was the defense. The Knicks came into the game third in the NBA in offensive rating at 119.5. They’ve been scoring 117.2 points per game, good enough for ninth in the league. But they ran into an inspired Lakers defense, a performance that Luka Doncic would like to see more of.
Following the Lakers’ win against the Knicks, Luka Doncic spoke about how the team has shown the ability to be an impactful defensive team, they just have not done so consistently.
“I think we just talked about it during the season a lot, that we definitely need to be a better defensive team,” Doncic said during his postgame press conference. “I think we’re showing that we can do it. We’re telling on ourselves. So we just got to keep doing that.”
One area in particular where they have done well is drawing offensives fouls. The Lakers have three players in hovering around the top-10 in the league in taking charges in Austin Reaves (3rd), Chris Mañon (4th), Marcus Smart (6th) and Doncic (11th), as per NBA.com For Mañon it’s a very small sample size, but for the others it’s been consistent.
Against the Knicks, Doncic took a single charge, while Smart drew two. Overall, the Lakers are leading the NBA in charges drawn at 0.83 per game, as per NBA.com. For Doncic, it’s just something he’s worked to improve on since the beginning of the season.
“JJ [Redick] mentioned it before the season. We’re No. 1 in charges which is pretty awesome,” Doncic said. “So it’s just trying to copy that.”
In terms of their overall defense, the Lakers held the Knicks to 42.7 percent shooting from the field and 23.5 percent shooting from the 3-point line. In comparison, the Knicks are shooting 47.3 percent from the field and 37.3 percent from 3-point range on the season.
Doncic in particular has been engaged on the defensive end this season, something he feels like isn’t getting talked about enough. In terms of the Lakers’ regular rotation players, he is second behind only Jarred Vanderbilt in defensive rating at 114.2, as per StatMuse.
Prior to the game, Lakers head coach JJ Redick spoke about how Doncic is a convenient target when it comes to defensive criticism.
“I think it’s easy to create a montage of clips of any player,” Redick said. “We can create the same montage of good clips of containing the basketball. I know that it’s easy to pick on him right now, but his defense has been good.”
And for Doncic, the win against the Knicks was the blueprint for how the defense needs to look for the rest of the season.
“It was great since the start of the game. I think everybody was real locked in especially on the defensive end,” Doncic said. “We did a great job against a team like New York. . .it’s very amazing for us.”
