Is Rui Hachimura a reliable small ball five defensively?

Rui Hachimura showed flashes of being able to contribute as a small ball five on defense during the regular season, but his weaknesses on that end were taken advantage of in the playoffs.

Teams across the league have benefited from acquiring multi-positional forwards to boost their chances of real contention. Players like Aaron Gordon and Pascal Siakam, for instance, shift between defensive wing and big man roles depending on the situation.

The Lakers also had their own player, acquired in 2023, who was used similarly in Rui Hachimura, albeit with less successful results.

The rotation following the trade for Luka Dončić introduced heavy doses of “small ball”, where Hachimura was tasked with filling the big man role on defense. LA’s only center, Jaxson Hayes, quickly fell out of favor in head coach J.J. Redick’s rotation.

A forward triplet of LeBron James, Dorian Finney-Smith and Hachimura rotated the defensive responsibilities. Against certain teams, Hachimura proved effective in this role.

Per the NBA’s tracking data, the overall sample of the Lakers most used lineup, their small ball group, finished a plus 18.6 in net rating. He showed real improvement on his timing, verticality and contests at the basket without fouling.

Watch him come over and deny Max Christie at the rim as the low man helper.

These blocks were predicated on the offensive player showing his intentions early and Hachimura getting some running start. Even still, the willingness to come over and contest proved useful on a team bereft of rim protection.

Listed at 6’8″ and 230 pounds, his real defensive strengths stem from having a low center of gravity. It enables him to defend against even the league’s best big men, such as Nikola Jokić. Watch below as he’s given the primary assignment, battling for position and forcing a tough pass.

He is by no means the Jokic stopper; no one on the planet is, as evidenced by multiple playoff matchups. However, he provided some of the most significant resistance that LA had to contend with against the three-time MVP.

These ground battles are extremely valuable, as they not only help with overall physicality but also allow LeBron to share this responsibility across all 82 games, a separate war of attrition that the Lakers fight with an older superstar.

In the regular season, you can get away with unconventional styles of play. Facing a different opponent night after night introduces an element of surprise that is absent in the playoffs.

Hachimura’s most significant weakness on the defensive end is his lateral quickness. In addition, he’s not a quick leaper off the ground either, as battles in the air are out of his reach.

These versatile skills and athletic tools are crucial in any lineup that includes players of similar heights. It makes all switching defenses difficult, along with protecting the rim effectively and securing defensive rebounds.

The playoff matchup against Minnesota demonstrated those disadvantages.

Hachimura constantly matched up against Anthony Edwards, with his job being to contain enough for help to arrive. His foot speed makes that an almost impossible task. Watch below as Edwards glides right by him for the easy finish.

With no center on the floor, there’s no resistance at the basket, compounding the issues.

Edward led the league in both 3-point makes and attempts this season, and leveraged his ability against Hachimura’s lateral movements to get off his patented step-back jumpers, as demonstrated below in an isolation possession.

This shot looks contested, but once Edwards has you shuffling your feet, it’s over.

Now, believing Hachimura can stop Edwards one-on-one is a far-fetched pipe dream. Still, lineups without a true rim protector lead to very few avenues for defensive schemes, where the weakest link can be continuously targeted without any real repercussions.

The defensive issues become even more apparent when the rest of the lineup has similar foot speed. Dončić, Reaves, Finney-Smith and LeBron, at this stage of their careers, don’t provide enough of a baseline athleticism on the floor to justify continuing to play Hachimura as a small-ball five against more-sized lineups.

In addition to taking advantage of the Lakers’ lack of athletic perimeter defense, Minnesota dominated the Lakers on the offensive boards, scoring an 18-8 advantage in the series-clinching Game 5, with Rudy Gobert grabbing nine on his own.

Watch below as Hachimura comes over to help on a Julius Randle drive, and can only watch as Gobert puts back the slam.

Following the final game of the season, Hachimura spoke on the struggles of playing small all year.

“The coaches trust me to put me in that situation.” Hachimura said. “I try to fight through that, but there’s a limit to it. Like I said, that’s all I can do is literally facing up [Gobert] and maybe I can tap [the ball]. I can’t just go get rebounds like that. So it’s tough, but that was our team situation this year and it is what it is.”

That team situation is hopefully rectified this summer, where the Lakers will undoubtedly look for a playable big man. The notion that the small ball card didn’t work isn’t true, it just can’t be the only card to play.

Hachimura demonstrated improvements as a small ball five, but it’s a role that both the team, and he, would prefer not to play as much as he was forced to this season.