I think the narrative is off. The most popular discussion, is about how are the Lakers, going to defend Jokic and the Nuggets? The thing is, the Nuggets are the worst defensive team left in the playoffs. Their two best players aren't known for their defense, and they are running 6 deep. We have 4 guys, besides Lebron and AD, that have scored at least 20 pts in these playoffs. This doesn't include Dennis (19) and Lonnie (15). The question should be, how are the Nuggets going to defend the Lakers?
It's funny how in most of those predictions AD is barely being mentioned, and if he is, it's mainly as the guy who could potentially, maybe slow down Jokic a little. People still don't get it.
Feel good about tonight. As usual, Cranjis did a really nice breakdown of the matchups and tactics for the series. We don’t want AD guarding Jokic 1-on-1 in the post; it’s not that he can’t do it, it’s that Jokic’s foul-drawing rate in 1-on-1 post ups is much higher than when double-teamed. Murray, KCP and Porter are all great shooters but Gordon, Brown, Braun and Green all kind of suck as shooters. They’ll always have a guy to help off of, so if Jokic is posting bring a quick double or stunt and trust the backside to rotate correctly. If Aaron Gordon goes 6/8 from three so be it. As for the Jokic/Murray pick and roll, it sounds like we should (and have) guarded it similarly to what we did with Curry/Draymond at the beginning of the last series. Force Murray to pull up from midrange, he’s too good at pull-up threes. Their PPP on Murray kick outs off the P&R is pretty low, so force him to make the midrange/kick out decision rather than giving up the pull-up three.
going on record as not liking going small against a large denver team from the outset. hope i look dumb later.
outrebounded 20 - 3 to start the game. Ham really dropped the ball on this one, and it might have cost us the game.
there are no moral victories on this franchise guys, they played a near perfect shooting game, and we showed that we can beat them, but at the end of the day we took the L mainly due to a horrendous lineup and first half performance.
Dennis/AR/LeBron/Rui/AD. That is the group to go with in Game 2, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they still start DLo. They can do what the Warriors did and adjust by being AD into the ball screens, but Murray is not Curry. This team is going to angry on Thursday and knows what to do.
It was a mistake for sure, but I won’t lambast Ham for starting the same lineup that just blew the doors off the defending champion. Not starting Vando was the right call but he didn’t choose the right replacement. It seems like the know Rui is the guy for this series now.
Should’ve lost by 40 but made it close. Hopefully we can carry that second half energy into the next game.
