Lakers News: Dorian Finney-Smith Wants To Use His Voice More On Defense
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When the Los Angeles Lakers have had their best success this season, it has often been due to their defense being stellar. They have, at times, been able to stifle some of the league’s best offenses and the addition of forward Dorian Finney-Smith should only improve the Lakers on that end of the court.
Finney-Smith is a versatile and reliable defender and gives the Lakers more options on that end of the court. However, that didn’t play out in the Lakers loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday. The Lakers were destroyed by a Mavericks team without All-Star guards Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
Finney-Smith was solid offensively and is beginning to get more comfortable with his new team. But one area he does feel he can help defensively is vocally as the forward feels he can use his voice more on that end to help the Lakers, as seen on Spectrum SportsNet:
“It’s been good here and there. We still gotta get better as a team, get to know each other. Definitely probably gotta use my voice a little bit more defensively. But as a team, we gotta be better prepared. I know they didn’t have their guys but we knew they were a deep team. Quentin Grimes took 17 shots, probably hasn’t taken as many shots over the last couple games since guys been hurt. So different guys gotta take different roles and they look like they were playing free and fun today.”
Communication is so important on defense with players needing to be on a string. Being on a new team, Finney-Smith is likely still a bit hesitant to speak up too much as he is still getting comfortable with the Lakers, but his voice is so important and he understands that.
It won’t be easy to integrate at this point in the season with practice time sparse, but Finney-Smith still feels the Lakers can use the time they do have to better come together, and is looking forward to the upcoming homestand to hopefully get some wins:
“I’m just trying to be me. It’s hard to practice at this time in the league, you play every other day and you’re a veteran team. So we probably won’t practice much, but we’ll get on the court together. That’s better than nothing. But we get two weeks at home, we definitely gotta take advantage of it and get some wins. We feel like we should’ve won this road trip but we didn’t so we gotta fight and get wins at home."
The pieces are there for the Lakers to be a good team, they just have to put it all together consistently and Finney-Smith believes they will ultimately do that.
Lakers game vs. Hornets postponed due to California wildfires
Unfortunately for the Lakers, their first chance to get back in the win column has been pushed back due to the tragic wildfires spreading throughout Southern California.
With things still not under control and thousands of people in danger and being forced to evacuate their homes, the NBA has decided to postpone the Lakers’ Thursday night game against the Charlotte Hornets. No reschedule date for the game has been announced yet.
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