Everything You Need To Know For Day 38 Of The NBA Playoffs
After last night's exciting Game 4, we're right back at it tonight with another massive showdown in the Western Conference. The Nuggets regained their mojo and found themselves a sliver of life after taking Game 3, and while it stings that if Anthony Davis didn't make that game winner they'd actually be up 2-1 in this series, they have to feel pretty confident heading into tonight. They seem to have solved this Lakers defense when it comes to getting their star players going. As we saw in the East, there's a huge difference in 2-2 compared to 3-1, even with the Nuggets maybe being the best 3-1 team of all time. The Lakers are not the Clippers or the Jazz. So with that said let's get you ready for tonight's tip
Los Angeles Lakers (2-1) vs Denver Nuggets (1-2) 9:00pm ET
I'll keep saying it. I get that these late starts are for people on the West Coast but at the same time fuck those people (sorry if this offends). Everyone that's in LA or CO is going to be watching this game no matter what time you put it at so frankly I find it inexcusable that this isn't like a 7:30pm or even 8pm ET tip. Waiting all day is hard enough, waiting until 9pm just feels criminal.
When it comes to the Lakers and what they have to do to take a commanding 3-1 lead, it's pretty simple in my mind. First you keep riding both LeBron and AD, two guys that have pretty much had their way with the Nuggets defense. I would be slightly concerned as a Nuggets fan about the whistle LeBron gets tonight after the Lakers pulled this move
This has at least 15 FTA written all over it. Remember Game 1? Would it surprise anyone if the Lakers had another 20+ FTA quarter? They also are going to need a much better effort from Anthony Davis on the glass. I still cannot believe that dude only had 2 rebounds in 42 minutes in Game 3. They only had 25 as a team! The Nuggets had 9 OREB which led to 11 second chance points and that has to get a whole lot better. The last thing you want to give a desperate team like DEN is more chances. That's how guys find a rhythm.
Then there's the outside shooting issue. It's starting to rear its ugly head again after the 23% performance in Game 3. The Lakers are shooting just 34% from deep as a team, and you go through their "best shooters" and it's pretty ugly
Danny Green: 29%
Kyle Kuzma: 28%
LeBron James: 28%
Anthony Davis: 27%
KCP has really been the only one that has shown up from behind the arc at 52% through three games. The Lakers don't need something crazy like 16+ 3PM to win, but they need to make their big momentum timely threes. That was the big thing in their loss in Game 3. Both KCP and Kuzma missed wide open looks that would have given the Lakers the momentum they needed to finish off their comeback.
On the Nuggets side, you know what you're going to get from Murray/Jokic. Both have been great all series, Jamal Murray has his legs back and the Lakers don't really have a defender that can stay with him. For them it comes down to two things really.
1. Take care of the basketball
The reason their 20 point lead basically evaporated was because they couldn't stop turning the ball over. As we just saw last night, you turn it over against a good team and you are probably not going to win. They had 8 in the fourth quarter including 5 straight, and that happened because they stopped playing. They stopped being aggressive, Rondo turned it up a level, and they were very fortunate to recover. I can't imagine Jokic will have 5 TOs again, but when he and Murray combine for 9 of the 18, that's playing with fire.
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2. Who will be the secondary scorer?
In Game 3 it was Jerami Grant with a huge 26. That was huge because it allowed MPJ/Morris to not have as much pressure to score off the bench. Both have been great in their limited minutes offensively, but someone in the starting lineup needs to be that efficient secondary scorer next to Murray/Jokic. Doesn't matter if it's Grant/Millsap/Harris, someone just needs to fill that role.
I'm also interested to see how Millsap reacts to any adjustments the Lakers try with AD. Millsap has owned that matchup defensively and the Nuggets are going to need another stellar performance on that end if they want to even the series.
We know the Nuggets won't panic if they get down double digits tonight, but if they play smart and take care of the ball, they've shown their skill/depth is good enough to hang with this Lakers team. This has the look of a matchup that could go the distance, but to me it all comes down to tonight. Maybe I'm wrong and the Nuggets will pull off their third straight comeback down 3-1, but with LeBron on the other side I figure it's best to avoid that at all costs.