NBA Playoffs 2020: ‘Playoff Rondo’ Is Real, And It’s A Key Component To The Los Angeles Lakers Title Race | NBA.com India

Los Angeles Lakers fans, and the growing NBA fan base as a whole, were highly critical of veteran guard Rajon Rondo’s play during the regular season.

Although the Lakers held the best record in the Western Conference for most of the season, every time they suffered a loss, it became routine to fall into the supporting cast of superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Rondo always seemed to be one of the biggest recipients of slander from the public.

His regular season numbers made him a worthy goal – averaging 7.1 points, 5.0 assists, 3.0 rebounds and less than one steal while shooting 32.8% from 3-point range in 20 minutes per game isn’t exactly a commendable statistic. But somewhere between the harsh comments and the jokes, the keyboard warriors should have realized why Rondo is so valuable to Los Angeles.

There are 82 players and 16 players; At this point in his career, Rajon Rondo is a 16-game beast.

Former NBA champion with a spectacular resume in the playoffs, it’s not just a fallacy that Rondo improves his game in the postseason. It has been dubbed “Playoff Rondo” for a reason.

In terms of Player Efficiency Rating (PER), or “a measure of production per minute standardized such that the league average is 15,” according to Basketball-Reference, Rondo has taken his game to another level in six of the eight playoffs he has played. He participated. Check it out:

By now, you know how vital Rondo was to those deep playoff streaks of the Celtics’ Big 3 era. Boston fans also remember his performance in the first round of the playoffs in 2017 as a member of the Chicago Bulls very well.

If it weren’t for a thumb injury like the one he sustained this season before the NBA restart, Rondo looked poised to lead the eighth-seeded Bulls to a loss over the No.1 Celtics, leading 2-0 in the series. with a pair. of road wins in Boston.

Playoff Rondo was activated once more in 2018 when the New Orleans Pelicans managed a four-game sweep of the top-seeded Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. He was incredible on both sides of the ball in that series, helping to block Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum while averaging 12.2 assists per game, leading in the playoffs, for the postseason.

Now, in just five games with the Lakers, we’re seeing that same version of Rondo again.

Averaging 10.6 points, 7.0 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, Rondo has improved every statistic mentioned compared to his regular season production. Even more impressive, he’s shooting 44.4% from beyond the arc, well above his regular season conversion rate (or any career conversion rate, for that matter), and possesses an assist-to-loss ratio of 2.69 , one of the best of the 2020 NBA Playoffs.

But its impact goes far beyond the statistics in front of you.

Rondo’s presence takes a lot of pressure off LeBron as a playmaker, allowing the superstar to look to score off the ball as a cutter or shooter from time to time – a nightmare for opposing defenses.

Not even from the point of view of the actual score. The attention James attracts leaves plenty of room for Rondo to work to find other teammates. See for yourself:

This clip from Game 2 shows James just putting a screen on Rondo. Just having those two guys working on one side of the court gets the attention of all five Rockets defenders. Rondo uses that to his advantage without even using LeBron’s “screen”, attacking the Houston defense to find a Markieff Morris wide open for 3.

In Game 4, we saw it again when Rondo had Austin Rivers on the job while the Lakers ran a set of screens (I use that term loosely) for James. Even with LeBron making the moves toward Rondo on the perimeter, it required the Rockets’ attention as Morris cuts through the back door for an easy two.

In Game 3, you see something very similar on another screen (barely), this time from Davis.

With all eyes on Rondo and AD, no one picked up the cutting Kyle Kuzma for a beautiful pass and spike.

If the opposing team is too focused on LeBron or Davis and falls asleep for even half a second, Rondo will blow that up and make him an easy bucket for his teammates. When he’s in command of the offense, every player on the court becomes that much more dangerous due to how surgical he can be.

And even though he’s been years away from the four-time Defensive Team player he once was, Rondo is still willing to take on tough defensive tasks when playoff time comes. The Lakers will likely ask him to do it to defend Jamal Murray at times in the Western Conference Finals, something he would consider a difficult task for older statesmen, until we saw that he did a decent job with players like James Harden and Russell Westbrook.

“It’s real. Playoff Rondo is real,” teammate Davis said after the Lakers took a 2-1 series lead in the Semifinals. “His intensity increases, he wants to mark the best guy on the perimeter; you saw that sometimes he protects James (Harden) and Russ (Westbrook). He wants to facilitate on the court, he is throwing the ball very well, making the right passes. His IQ it’s on another level. “

Davis is also seeing some of the same things mentioned above on the track in real time.

“We have two of the best IQ players in the game with him and LeBron on the court at the same time, which is tough for defenses. Playoff Rondo is real and it was featured tonight.”

That’s why they rehired him last offseason in the first place … the Lakers knew that Playoff Rondo would become a linchpin in helping them pursue their first NBA title since 2010. This is just the first chance they’ve had. to see how it comes true.

Los Angeles will need it to keep their game high if they want to fend off a relentless Denver Nuggets team to reach the NBA Finals.

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