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Alex Caruso will begin his first playoff game in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Friday, according to a report from Shams Charania of Athletic. Dwight Howard, who has started the past seven games for the Los Angeles Lakers, will be benched.
Howard’s demotion to the bench shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. While he was helpful against Nikola Jokic in the Western Conference Finals, he hasn’t been a factor against the Heat in the Finals, with a team-worst 126.3 defensive rating in the 70 minutes he’s played. The Lakers are 17.6 points better on defense per 100 possessions with Howard on the bench. On offense, he is almost net neutral (+0.6).
What’s a bit surprising is who starts off instead of Howard.
With Caruso in the starting lineup, the Lakers will play with three guards alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean Caruso will have to make more triples than he has done all season. That’s especially true if the Heat decide he’s the type they want to give in, which wouldn’t be such a bad idea given Caruso shot 28.8% from 3-point range in the postseason and 32.7% in the Finals. .
It’s also surprising because Caruso has been a clear negative for the Lakers in the Finals despite how well he has done with Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn. In the last five games, Caruso posted a net rating of -2.1, which is the second worst net rating of any team member who has played at least 10 minutes in the Finals.
This is probably the first time the numbers have not matched the visual test with Caruso, so it will be interesting to see what he looks like with this group. Caruso’s five-man unit Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Danny Green, LeBron James and Anthony Davis have posted a net rating of + 51.9 in the 12 minutes they have played together so far, but none of those minutes have come against the heat (h / t Aaron Larsuel of Lakers.com).
We’ll see how it goes when the Lakers and Heat come out tonight at 4:30 pm on ABC.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast at iTunes, Spotify, Stapler or Google podcasts. You can follow this author on Twitter at @RadRivas.
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