Rui Hachimura roasted Julius Randle’s defense after Lakers win over Wolves
After helping the Lakers to a win to open the season against the Wolves, Rui Hachimura casually roasted Julius Randle’s defense as a reason for his success.
There are certain things that often go unsaid publicly by players in the NBA. For example, behind closed doors, teams might identify a weakness or a player they feel they can attack, but, most of the time, they don’t often reveal that to the media.
Tuesday was not one of those times.
The Lakers opened their season with a victory over the Wolves behind an MVP-caliber performance from Anthony Davis. LeBron James and Bronny took the headlines after making history in the game, sharing the court together in the second quarter to become the first father-son duo to do so in an NBA game.
Flying under the radar, then, was Rui Hachimura. The forward had a strong showing to kick off the season. He tallied 18 points on 7-14 shooting and had a huge dunk on Rudy Gobert in the first half.
RUI to the RIM
— NBA (@NBA) October 23, 2024
He's got the first 5 points of the Lakers season!#KiaTipOff24 on TNT pic.twitter.com/nFU1leABrS
After catching a body during the game, he went to his postgame presser and caught another one. Asked about his scoring and production on the night, Rui just casually dunked all over Julius Randle out of nowhere.
“For me, I was just trying to be more aggressive,” Hachimura said. “We talked about Julius Randle, He sometimes is just standing and stuff. So we talked about, we got to kind of use that. I know I can be the screener. I can be in the corner to kind of attack the rim and stuff.”
Well, damn!
Was he wrong? No. Is that something players typically freely admit? Nope! But the tape matches Rui’s words, which isn’t going to do Randle any favors.
he's not wrong, hachimura kept diving to the rim with randle as his off-ball defender to positive results.
— ben pfeifer (@bjpf_) October 23, 2024
LA's screening with guards helped to keep randle on the back line and rui capitalized https://t.co/MtxUosdj4d pic.twitter.com/r0dZWXqoHy
Did Rui mean anything malicious by this? Probably not. I don’t imagine he has a vendetta against Randle. And I imagine Randle will be quite a bit more engaged next time he plays the Lakers.
But this is one of the funniest quotes a player has had after a game in some time. Just casually saying you were so good on offense because the guy defending you is just standing around like prime James Harden is incredible.
By my count, that’s two poster dunks for Rui this season.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.