NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: LAKERS VS. NUGGETS

September 19, 2020

Frank Vogel

Los Angeles Lakers

Practice Day

Q. In the analytics era, obviously shots at the rim and three-point shots has kind of been celebrated and also shots to the rim can often lead to free throws, so how do you coach guys to get shots that could create free throws, regardless of what the referee would call?

FRANK VOGEL: Not sure I exactly understand your question, but we coach our guys to attack the basket. But if we see a crowd, to think extra pass.

Obviously the free throw is the number one percentage play in the game, so if you can attack the basket, you have a good angle, you can either get a high percentage look for a layup and get a foul, that's always a top priority. But we just don't want guys forcing; if there's a crowd there, that's when we teach them to play extra-pass basketball.

Q. Obviously Jokic and Murray both had the foul trouble, when they were on the court together, what did you think of the defense, the way that you guys tried to deal with their screen roll action, and I’m sure you expect them to be on the floor more in Game 2?

FRANK VOGEL: We do expect that, and we did a few of things well but we have a lot of room for improvement in terms of their guarding their screen roll, their pass and cut action, the way they force mismatches. We can do a lot better in Game 2, hopefully, than we did in Game 1 in those areas, but I thought we did some good things.

Q. There was a point in the second quarter, I believe, that LeBron looked like he tweaked his ankle, and then he left the court a little early at the end of the game, I assume to get some treatment on it. Can you give us an update on how that is, if it's been bothering him, and what kind of attention he's needed to give to that?

FRANK VOGEL: He rolled it but he shook it off very quickly. He should be good to go for tomorrow, yes.

Q. LeBron's shot chart in these playoffs has been very much like at the rim or three-pointers, and obviously in his career, he's had a pretty fearsome mid-range game. But that sort of gravitation to maybe what we call analytics-driven approach, has that been driven by him? Has it been a coaching point? Some combination of would the two?

FRANK VOGEL: It is definitely a coaching point. You know, we want to have an analytics-based shot selection mindset with our team. You know, in that priority: It's the free throw No. 1; layup dunk No. 2; corner three No. 3; arc three, No. 4, and mid-range is the fifth priority shot we could have.

But I will not ever tell my team not to take mid-range shots if they are open shots. The No. 1 analytic for me is are open or are you guarded? That applies to shots at the rim, applies to three-point line and applies to mid-range. I'll take an open shot over any zone that you can put up the shot from, and we want to work for open shots.

Q. Have you decided whether or not your family is going to come and what does that look like in terms of the quarantine and all that stuff?

FRANK VOGEL: It's still up in the air.

Q. What are the considerations?

FRANK VOGEL: It's not easy to do. That's the No. 1 thing, because I believe there's a lot of layers to it, starting with the seven-day quarantine, which is difficult for families with kids during school, sports, those types of things. It's difficult to do but something we'll continue to measure.

Q. Coach Malone had a few things to say about the officiating in the first half. Objectively when you looked at the film, what did you think?

FRANK VOGEL: We were definitely the aggressors in the game, and box score I have right here has us with 28. We got called for 28 fouls. They got called for 26.

Q. You started Dwight Howard in the second half, and he played I would say exceptionally well. How much consideration have you given to starting him?

FRANK VOGEL: I'm considering that. But I won't release our starting lineup until tomorrow night 30 minutes before the game.

Q. From Game 1 to Game 2, is that typically where the most adjustments and changes are made on both sides, just because you've got your first look at Denver and Denver gets their first look at the Lakers? Is that where most of the adjustments come or is it game-to-game?

FRANK VOGEL: It changes game-to-game. Both teams in a playoff series, not our playoff series, but in a playoff series, coaches typically look at what they did and for the most part measure can they do what they did better, as opposed to massive changes. But you do see it from Game 1 to Game 2. You know, I don't know how that applies to the series, but particularly I feel like it's more into Game 3 and Game 4 before you see major shifts.

Q. The adjustments that you expect Denver to be making heading into Game 2, as a coach, do you tend to try to anticipate them in terms of -- I guess in terms of planning for them before they actually happen, or do you tend to make the players aware of them but tell them to wait to see it happen? Do you understand what I'm asking in terms of how proactively….?

FRANK VOGEL: Yeah, I fully understand it, and we definitely do that. After each game, we watch the tape and we come in as we're watching tape and saying, you know, hey, Game 2, this is probably what Denver is going to do. We go through that list, so our guys have thought about it, prepared, if they do this, we'll do that, those types of things.

You know, it's conversational, and it's something we do talk about in between every playoff game.

Q. Following up about the centers, how hard is it when the stakes are so high and you don't want to give up one game -- you might want to make a change but maybe it’s a case of somebody had a bad game, how do you balance those factors?

FRANK VOGEL: Yeah, case-by-case. You measure how quickly you want to make a move. You always want to have moves to make in terms of you don't want to just start with your Plan C or D. You try Plan A first and see how that works and how that plays out, and then it's a case-by-case, game-by-game, series-by-series type of evaluation. I won't submit any decisions until the morning of game day. We'll have a postgame feeling of where we are at, how I feel about it. We'll watch the tape, measure it again the next day. Have an idea of where we are going without putting it in cement, and then sleep on that next night and wake up the next morning with a plan.