How Ant carved up the Lakers radical scheme

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How good is Anthony Edwards? How much has he improved as a playmaker in 2025? This detailed film breakdown & scouting report explores how the Lakers tried to defend them in their playoff series, and how Ant’s improved decision-making and growth allowed him to outplay Luka Doncic and LeBron James en route to just 6 turnovers in a Timberwolves win.

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Anthony Edwards might have been the best player in a series that involved Luca Donuch and LeBron James, and it was entirely because of his growth as a playmaker and decision maker. Last year, tons of fans were buzzing about Edward’s two-way athleticism. Then, during the regular season, he exploded as a pull-up shooter from deep, leading the league in three-pointers made. And in the playoffs, we’re seeing that critical development as a playmaker to complement all his scoring pressure. That scoring pressure is where Edward’s decision-making begins because the Lakers just couldn’t stay in front of him in this series. And you might be thinking, it’s just weaker defenders like Luca, but he did unspeakable things to Rui Hachimura out in space. Not just there, but in game four when he was on an island with Ant, that huge deceleration left him in the dust again. And even one of LA’s best on ball defenders, Dorian Finny Smith, had a hard time containing Ant’s driving game. So, the Lakers personnel lacked the agility to stay with Ant’s burst off the bounce. Austin Reeves doesn’t exactly have quick feet, and Edwards goes by him like he’s standing still here. And so when Reeves has him in isolation like that, he’s freaking out about the drive, gets put on skates, and then Ant can bomb away. One way to solve this problem is with a rim protector behind the play to help the onball defender. And there were brief moments with Jackson Hayes out there where finishing was a little bit harder for Edwards. But LA’s answer for much of this series was to go small and try to throw a ton of bodies in front of Ant and clog up his driving lanes. So on the sideline here, LeBron James is sitting on his left hand and tells Reeves to stay and overload the side and they’re hoping Edwards tries to shoot into all that pressure. And this is where the decision-making comes in because when Ant sees that overload, he needs to skip the ball to the other side so his teammates can attack against a recovering defense. And he missed a few of these passes, but when he saw multiple bodies, he also made his fair share of skip passes. That was high, but it was enough to exploit the defense and get something inside. This cat and mouse game was really fun with Edwards at the top of the floor where LA slid the corner defenders way up into his driving lanes. And watch Luca here. He’s going to slide up and sit on his right hand. And when Dante Dvenenzo cuts to pull him out of the way, the Lakers just switch it. So Austin Reeves takes Devontenzo. Luca’s on the corner now, but like LeBron, he slid way up to help on Ant. That makes it harder for Edwards to just blow by his defender. And even with that help, Minnesota never creates an advantage and ends up with a contested late clock shot. Normally, when Edwards has the ball in this spot, the defense would stick closer to each of their matchups, and that would give Ant large driving gaps to attack on either side. But the Lakers slid up to clog those gaps, even coming way up off the corner like this. So, when the Wolves reposition their players on offense, instead of Finny Smith following his man, LeBron just takes him. And now Dorian’s actually guarding the corner. So he slides back up toward Ant. And he’s there to throw off the drive when Edwards goes by Ruie. And this can all look very confusing. Listen to Mike Breen when Finny Smith doesn’t follow his man down to the baseline. Again, the zone defense from LA, but it’s not a zone. And this actually confused Ant a little when he saw it in game two. Yeah, this was the first time I’ve seen this one. Like every time I caught the ball at the top, it was kind of like they was in the zone. Even when we cut guys through, they just stayed. Um, so I got to be ready to make those reads. LeBron was really messing with him off that corner, acting like he might all out double him, which here caused Ant to move it elsewhere and let someone else attack with more space. And on this one, he was practically taunting Ant to throw the ball to the corner, just hopping back and forth like he was ready to blitz, only to just deter any possible drive. But remember, Edwards led the league in pull-up threes this year, making 39% of them, so setting up that shot isn’t a bad alternative. He was only 8 for 35 in this series, and the Lakers did make them a little harder. But most importantly, he didn’t turn it over in these spots. Ant finished with just six turnovers all series, our third lowest percentage among all volume players in the first round. So even though he never threw that pass over the top to the corner, he also never forced it there either. Basic passes can go a long way against an overloading scheme. So here, LeBron is slid up and Ant just makes a simple little pass to the corner that frees Connley and now they can get it to the other side and the defense can’t keep up. And that’s all it takes sometimes when they load up on the ball. He sees Luca helping, just moves it to Julius Randall who can attack Donic as he recovers. More help has to come and that’s what unlocks the corner shooter. And this is actually a big area of growth for Edwards. Last year, he wasn’t making these simple ones frequently. And in the conference finals, when Dallas loaded up on his drives, he would rarely make this basic pass that can be so valuable and instead would often force the issue into traffic. But he put up a 5:1 assist ratio versus the Lakers by making these basic passes against defensive pressure. And this is a conservative yet powerful way to leverage his scoring threat because it’s not always easy for the defense to recover. That one was night and day compared to a similar spot in transition last year where Nas Reed is wide open. He could attack himself or then hit the corner shooter, but instead Edwards played one into traffic and ended up with a turnover. It’s the same thing in pick and roll. If the defense sends multiple defenders, a simple pass sets up a wide open shot. Or if he’s trapped like he is on this play, a quick early pass to the roller causes issues for a small defense. Compare that to last year where some of these basic pick and roll passes were a bit of an adventure for Ant, either because of how he read the play or because of his deliveries. Edward still doesn’t have great vision, per se. He’s not snapping layup passes to his roller and he’s rarely hitting them for lob opportunities in these kinds of spots. And on this play, he is trapped after the ball screen and his teammates telling him to hit Mike Connley up top, but he doesn’t always map the court out like that. Although the brief double team still created an opening for Connley to attack. Another subtle improvement is how he’s keeping his dribble alive against pressure. So, he doesn’t hit the shooter on the pop here, but when he hits traffic, he keeps the dribble alive and suddenly there’s space to attack and he leaves a Laker in his wake. And last year, I thought he was way too quick to pick up the dribble against pressure or even in just basic passing spots. But in this series, just keeping it alive until the moment he passes really helped his turnover percentages and created advantages for the Minnesota offense. One of the most important plays of the entire series came when Edwards was trapped, kept his dribble alive to really stretch out the defense to find a teammate and then it’s a huge and one to swing game four. And finally, he’s been more patient this season. This can be general patience like keeping the dribble alive and then spotting an opening and blowing by the defense for an easy layup. Or it can be keeping the dribble alive as he reaches pressure. Multiple defenders are in front of him here. And that little hesitation to slow down and then go basically creates a layup. And he does the same thing here. As Luca is moving into his driving space, Ant pauses to see if he commits. He doesn’t, so he bursts through to the next level and creates another wide open triple. He’s even patient at the end of his drives approaching the rim. He slows up just a little here to survey the situation. The lob to Rudy’s there, but it doesn’t even matter sometimes. And a key benefit to slowing down a bit on the approach is that it is easier to spot those high value dimes. Compare that to last season where he would often kamicazi toward the rim once he had an opening and he was essentially playing at one speed on the entire drive which makes it harder to playmake and easier to time him up defensively. The play that really hammered this home for me was this drive against the Lakers where he keeps the dribble going. Finally gets free and then Reeves steps up thinking he’s taking a charge, but Ant never comes close to him. And in real time, you can really see the control he has approaching the rim. Now, the Lakers were probably an ideal opponent for Edwards to showcase this kind of growth. Almost like he’s training with the computer set to easy mode. But look at this critical play at the end of game two verse Dallas last year where Edwards is driving left, has one shooter in the far corner, but more importantly has a wideopen shooter to his right, either doesn’t trust it or doesn’t see it, and the result is a disastrous turnover. But this season, he’s flying down the lane headed to his left. bodies are in the paint and he knows that corner options there and that creates a warm-up shot. So at just 23, Ant has demonstrated a clear improvement in a number of areas related to his decision-m and the big questions moving forward are how much more can he grow as a passer and how much better will these improvements make him against the best defenses in the game. If you want to work in basketball, patreon.com/thinkingbasket. That’s where we have proprietary stats on teams and players throughout the year. We also have a Discord community and you can get all of our extra video content over there. Or sign up on YouTube as a member where we also live stream the podcast. Thanks for watching all the way to the end on this one. Hope you enjoyed it and that you are having a great day now. Make your next step now. Come on. All right. Good. Okay. Hit me. Yes, sir.