Los Angeles Lakers have the best crunch-time five for the playoffs

The Los Angeles Lakers appear to be a lock for the first seed in the Western Conference and among their playoff peers, they have the best crunch-time lineup.

Things have been fairly smooth for the Los Angeles Lakers results-wise this season. The team has been in first place of the Western Conference for practically the entire season and with only 12 losses on the year, the team has faced little hardships on the court.

Barring an uncharacteristic string of losses in the final 25 games, the Lakers essentially seem like a lock for the top seed in the West. Los Angeles has a 5.5 game lead over the second-place Denver Nuggets.

It is clear how talented the Lakers are but there are still some naysayers for once the playoffs roll around. With the narrative of how deep the Los Angeles Clippers are and how good the Milwaukee Bucks have been this year, the Lakers have ironically been overlooked.

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Casual fans might not realize just how good the Lakers are, and in particular, how dang good the team’s potential crunch-time lineup is going to be in the playoffs, which is imperative and will shift the outlook of a series.

Now, the great thing about the Los Angeles Lakers is they can be flexible. They can play bigger when it is warranted but can also run small-ball against a team like the Houston Rockets, at least in the closing moments of the game, without missing a beat.

The ideal five-man closing lineup that we should be seeing out of the Lakers in the playoffs is Avery Bradley, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Danny Green, LeBron James and Anthony Davis. This final five has a little bit of everything, which cannot be said for every team.

First of all, while Avery Bradley is the “point guard,” LeBron would obviously be running the show, leaving Bradley to play more like a two-guard that defends point guards on the defensive end. The best part? Even with his good three-point shooting, Bradley is the fifth scoring option in this final five.

The team then has KCP and Green to knock down three-point shots, with Green playing a hybrid guard-wing role. KCP is shooting 40.7 percent from beyond the arc, Green 38.1 percent. Both are reliable off-ball shooters and in the case of Green, is an off-ball shooter with a lot of playoff experience.

Green is also one of the best defenders in the league and will be tasked with defending the likes of Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden. Bradley is a great defender that can shutdown point guards and KCP is an above-average defender who should not be exposed against George when Green in on Kawhi, and vice versa.

There is not much that needs to be said about LeBron James and Anthony Davis, either. James and Davis present the most unstoppable duo in the league, particularly with the pick and rolls that the duo has predictably excelled in.

LeBron can be masked on the defensive side of the ball, especially in the modern NBA where teams are going smaller, and is still a great help defender. Davis is an elite, Defensive Player of the Year candidate, that will be helpful against the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The most used lineup for the Lakers this season is this iteration with JaVale McGee in for KCP. Ironically, this exact lineup has only played 18 total minutes this season, with the plus-minus at +3.

However, in the playoffs, the Lakers are going to be less likely to use McGee in crunch-time, at all, and it will probably be wiser from a defensive standpoint to include someone such as KCP or Bradley in the final five over Kyle Kuzma for defensive reasons.

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Either way, the Los Angeles Lakers are flexible to match up with whatever the other team is offering in crunch-time. With this five-man lineup as the foundation, head coach Frank Vogel will create something elite to close out games.

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