After the Los Angeles Lakers ranked dead-last in defensive rating over the past two seasons and were in the bottom three in the NBA for the past four, there wasn’t much optimism that head coach Luke Walton could get the team to improve much beyond getting out of the bottom five prior to the season.
The Lakers have soared over those modest expectations, however, using the league’s 12th-best defense to fuel an unexpected run towards the outside fringes of the playoff race and their most wins since the 2012-13 season.
According to Walton, that improvement started with the players.