NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: LAKERS VS. NUGGETS

September 19, 2020

Alex Caruso

Los Angeles Lakers

Practice Day

Q. What's the key for you in screen roll defense?

ALEX CARUSO: Just trying to contain them. Trying to take away their strengths, which for Jamal is a lot of things. He's shooting the ball so well in the playoffs. I think he's shooting almost 50 percent from mid-range shots, and 40-something from three. Just trying to keep a body on him and not let him feel comfortable as much as possible and once we get into a switch situation, trying to throw bodies at him and trying to make sure we're not leaving people on islands to try to cover those guys one-on-one.

Q. How much can you put pressure on the defense and benefit your team by getting to the foul line, and not just obviously to get points on the board, but obviously that can change that position's rotation and stuff like that if guys get in foul trouble. Is that something you consciously think about when you're approaching a game?

ALEX CARUSO: Maybe not consciously, but for me I think it's just about being aggressive. LeBron and Rondo are the two main facilitators because they have the ball most of the time, but any time I can put pressure on the paint whether it's to get to the rim to finish or to draw falls or make the defense collapse and get open shots for teammates, that's a really added benefit for us to have multiple guys out on the court. So whenever I'm out there with Rondo or with LeBron to not have the sole focus be on one of them to create offense for everybody. It makes us a lot more balanced.

Q. Markieff Morris was talking about how much Jared Dudley helped out his transition when he joined the Lakers. How much influence does JD have on players behind the scenes?

ALEX CARUSO: A lot. He doesn't get a lot of credit because he doesn't play a ton of minutes but through the course of the season just being a professional, being a great teammate, just being the veteran that he is, giving insight to different things that he sees and being vocal in team meetings and film sessions and lending his voice whenever it's needed. He's been great for us from that aspect, from a basketball aspect and just from a camaraderie aspect. He's a great person, great teammate and fun guy to be around. He makes everybody else feel welcome.

Q. LeBron had that ankle roll yesterday. Wondering what you went through when initially you saw it, and a play or two later, you throw a lob to him and he leaps and does in pretty convincingly. Were you panicked in that moment and how much did you get over it?

ALEX CARUSO: No, I mean, I saw him go down and kind of wince, but I think I can tell when he's actually hurt or maybe tweaks a little bit, just a normal banging or nick that you get just playing. I saw him tying his shoe and figured he was going to be all right.

Q. Is your default setting LeBron is going to get through whatever you see happen?

ALEX CARUSO: Yeah, it's kind of my default setting in my brain. I kind of have that mind set with myself so I kind of just, until something goes wrong, I'm not going to put negative thoughts or energy into the atmosphere. I'm very much a realist, whatever the facts are of real-life scenarios, that's kind of what I go with. If he's fine, he's fine, and if he's not, then whenever he’s not we'll get to that point.

Q. Curious the last couple weeks from a roll-player perspective, you guys have had a ton of success, great energy. What's your mindset when you come into games; they are not going to run specific plays for you. What are you thinking when you go into the game how to affect the game? Can you walk us through that a little bit?

ALEX CARUSO: For me it's about being focused. I've tried to really simplify that process for me, being in the bubble, there's as little distractions as possible. I've been off social media since the playoffs started and I haven't been on Twitter or Instagram or anything like that, which has been nice for me to block stuff out and focus on the basketball aspect, and then looking and diving into the basketball aspect, series-by-series, just finding different ways that I know I can be effective, watching past games against opponents, just knowing their tendencies. And then just the defense and the effort thing is something I'm always going to have. You can see that in the regular season when I might be more excited on a stop or defensive play than somebody on the rest of the team in game 45 or 50 in the season.

Now that it's heightened and literally everybody is playing every possession like that, it's a lot of fun for me just on that side of the ball. Like I said, offensively, just taking advantage of the defense's mistakes. LeBron and AD get so much attention and everybody game plans for them, and they are supposed to: First Team All-NBA, best-players-in-the-world kind of thing.

So for me it's about trying to find my way to take advantage of how the defense is playing them. That happened been a couple times last night with people showing on ball screens with LeBron where I either hit him on a pocket pass or I drove the lane because there was a crease open. It's about being opportunistic whenever the plays present themselves and I've just got to be ready to take advantage.

Q. I'm sure by now you've probably seen that number floating around that you and LeBron, that you have the highest net rating playing with LeBron of any teammate that he's ever had. What about -- obviously playing with LeBron makes everybody better, but what do you think is it about your particular skills that in the way you play that allows that pairing to work and kind of what you're bringing to the table in that pairing?

ALEX CARUSO: I think we're both very high IQ players. Everybody knows who LeBron is and how he thinks in the game and kind of a legend of how smart he is and seeing plays before they happen and I have a little bit of that in me, too. That's part of my game is anticipating plays and seeing stuff happen before it does. Me and him are just kind of on the same wavelength a lot of times and obviously with the talent he has and you have multiple guys seeing plays happening before they happen, it’s just it's really easy for us to kind of take advantage and cash out on some of those opportunities.