Lakers News: Patrick Beverley Talks Defensive Challenges Of Guarding Kevin Durant

Los Angeles Lakers point guard Patrick Beverley hasn't retained the team's starting gig this year for his offense. The 34-year-old is averaging a career-low 4.6 points per game on a terrible 27.8% shooting from the floor, including 23.5% from the three-point line. At least he's been fairly reliable from the charity stripe, converting 86.7% of his looks. Not that his 1.4 attempts a night are much to write home about.

But we digress. Patrick Beverley is serving as the Lakers' starting point guard (and before, that their 6'1" starting shooting guard alongside Russell Westbrook at lead guard) because he remains one of the better defenders on the team's roster.

The three-time All-Defensive Teamer was given a heck of a coverage assignment for Lakers' exciting 116-103 victory over the Brooklyn Nets last night at Crypto.com Arena: guarding Brooklyn's best player, All-NBA forward Kevin Durant. KD is listed at 6'10", but he sure seems taller to this writer.

He spoke at length to gathered reporters following the win. Dan Woike of The Los Angeles Times transcribed Beverley's insights.

When asked by the gathered scrum about what the most important element of L.A.'s defensive effort was, Beverley was anything but modest. "S***, me guarding KD," he remarked. "Y'all didn't see that? That was the key. From the beginning. I set the tone; the team responded."

Beverley apparently requested the opportunity to cover Durant from head coach Darvin Ham and his bench. "I love those matchups," Beverley said. "That's how I made my name in the NBA, those matchups. But my teammates, they did a helluva job having my back. It wasn't a one man, wasn't just one person guarding him. AD had my back. We doubled him. We kinda threw a lot of things, threw the whole boatload at him today. And we were just fortunate."

It's not like Durant had a poor game. He scored 31 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the floor (and a high-volume 13-of-15 from the free-throw line), pulled down nine rebounds, dished out seven assists, and had two blocks. But Pat Bev played him much better than one could reasonably expect out of someone ceding nine or ten inches and 60 pounds.