In what has been a season filled with runs and slides for the Los Angeles Lakers, they are in the midst of peraps their best stretch of team basketball. Despite LeBron James missing his first two games of the season, L.A. is 4-1 in their last five games. And in a remarkable change of pace, the wins have happened on the back of the team’s defense.
The Lakers have the best defense in the NBA over the last five games, with an incredibly elite 99.2 defensive. That includes two hard-fought victories over the Sacramento Kings in which virtually no one — not even LeBron himself — shot efficiently from the field.