Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 8:51 pm Post subject: LAKERS -at- NUGGETS – 4-20-24 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings -UPDATED
Not Dialed In... Ready or not, the playoffs are here. The Lakers did not look ready.
The Lakers took an early 20-13 lead with Bron getting off to a good start, and the Lakers executing their offensive schemes well. Defensively, in the first half, they were doubling Jokic and rotating from the weakside. This was largely successful as they pulled out to a 12-point lead midway through the second quarter, forcing a timeout.
Out of that timeout, the Lakers had three straight turnovers. Their defensive glass allowed for putbacks. The Nuggets took advantage as they were able to put together a 10-0 run and reel in L.A. A deep pull-up three at the end of the half, gave Bron 19 points and the Lakers a 60-57 lead.
The third quarter was a great example of how good the Lakers can be when they run their set plays and how bad they can be when they don’t. Ham called a timeout early and the Lakers ran set plays on the same sequence, scoring both times. They went away from it, the offense floundered. Back to it again, scored again. Then, they improvised and the offense turned into AD attempts from three or passes out of bounds.
Meanwhile, KCP hit threes on the other end. Jokic found mismatches as the Laker D doesn’t get set. Denver rattled off a 13-0 run. The broadcasters focused on a bad pass Russell (who played awful in the third) made in transition where LeBron got mad at him. But the problem was systemic versus a single miscue, and the Lakers trailed 89-78 heading into the fourth.
After that 32-18 third quarter, the two teams played even in the fourth. AD was aggressive scoring in the post against Jokic. Reaves got more aggressive, as well, but the offense continued to come and go with purposeful execution. L.A. paid the price with that poor execution as the Nuggets. Any time they threatened to reel that lead in, they usually shot themselves in the foot with miscues or second chances. Nuggets take game one, 114-103.
LeBron -- -- I’m sorry. I know the broadcast crew and everyone will sing his praises. Yes, he had an efficient shooting game, but, wow, there was a lot not to like. Too many miscues from Bron on both ends to be happy with this game when he looks at the tape. The good was good, but the bad was pretty destructive. He had 8 assists with 7 turnovers. Some were loud late in the game like telegraphing a perimeter pass that Jokic took for a rumbling pick six. Others were quieter but equally destructive, like in the second quarter when the Nuggets made a run and Bron had a moving pick and a bad pass, and Denver got the crowd going and the offense flowing. Defensively, he had some stretches where his man got offensive boards or where Bron didn’t make a rotation. Those won’t go down in the stat sheet. I expect some of those every game. Good news is, however, that the poor parts of his game were very much something he most likely cleans up. He almost always does. Offensively, he had a strong shooting game early, making 3-3 from three in the first half, including a deep three near the buzzer. When he ran some of our sets with purpose, he was able to get to the rim for scores or find AD for some of his easiest buckets of the game. Really good moments there. It killed me, though, when we’d run a play with success a couple of times, then we’d not go back to it and settle for low-percentage offense. That’s on both him and the coaching. We’ve seen it all season, so it’s something to be concerned about. But usually, the team showed they do a good job making adjustments in the playoffs. The Stats: He scored 27 points on 10-16 shooting (3-5 from three, 4-5 from the line) to go with 6 boards, 8 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 7 turnovers and 1 foul in 47 minutes. He was a -9.
Davis -- -- We ran AD 45 minutes in this game. He had a great kick in the fourth quarter, scoring in the post and battling on D against Jokic. By the end of the fourth, there was a play where he and Bron were tapped on the offensive glass and AD didn’t get down court. Hands on knees, tired, and Bron got beat by Jokic for a dunk changing ends. A lot of minutes, high-altitude. That’s tough. AD went 0-4 from three. Sometimes, that’s a sign of being tired as you settle. To me, it was more the offense floundering and not running proper set plays to play to strengths. We aren’t going to win a battle with AD missing threes, the Nuggets getting up court quickly with mismatches that allow Jokic against smalls or shooters like KCP open. Five out with Jokic in drop, you need to make that extra dribble handoff or screen to free up a shooter or get into a two-on-one. The set plays worked really well for AD. He had a dunk off the Chicago series handoff early where the ball went from Russell to Bron to AD quickly. We ran some horns actions that got Bron downhill with AD rolling that turned into good things. Late in the game, AD just went at Jokic on iso for multiple scores. Defensively, it looks like the Lakers will let Rui do the heavy lifting early and then AD on Jokic later. This allows AD to zone up weakside. He needs to make sure he puts in some better challenges on three shooters, though. Although, AD picked up a couple fouls early on in the game on iso on Jokic trying to push him out of post position. The Stats: He scored 32 points on 12-23 shooting (0-4 from three, 8-9 from the line) to go with 14 boards (3 offensive), 5 assists, 4 blocks, 2 turnovers and 3 fouls in 45 minutes. He was a -12.
Russell -- -- We can beat a Nugget team that scores 114 points. We are going to struggle defensively with Murray and Jokic. But to beat them, we’ve got to have our offense doing what it can do. The 1-9 from Russell from three left a lot on the table. A choked layup or missing a couple chippies he usually gets, hurt. Yes, defensively, he’ll have moments getting overpowered (once on the break, a couple times on the defensive glass early where he took fouls). But he needs to do what he does offensively. He has a better matchup this year against the Nuggets. He has a full season-plus now of running offense with the team. Getting him into his sweet spots with consistency is something this team can now do. So, he’s simply got to give us that third scorer so we can out-score the Nuggets. Much was made about bad pass in the third quarter Russell made in transition where Bron yelled at him. That whole second half was a disaster after a strong start. After that, he choked a layup and Denver hit a three the other way. He missed a couple floaters, missed a defensive assignment, missed wide open threes, was blocked on a drive. The Lakers scored just 18 in that third and he missed a lot. I expect adjustments from Bron in the next game. I hope for regular season Russell to show up. Defensively, he led the team with 2 of our 3 steals. The Stats: He scored 13 points on 6-20 shooting (1-9 from three) to go with 3 boards, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 turnover and 3 fouls in 41 minutes. He was a +2.
Reaves -- -- He was the primary assignment on Murray defensively. Murray scored 22 on 9-24 shooting, but had 10 assists without a turnover. The Nuggets had 4 individual turnovers. This is probably where you miss Vando mixing things up a little. Overall, though, I think I’d take that game. Reaves had some moments, blocking Murrary in the post, bothering him from behind on another. Late in the game, I don’t like how we gave up middle to Murray, but it almost seemed by design. So, keep an eye on that. Some good help D rotations. At times, that meant taking Jokic and getting help from doubles. He had one play where Jokic might have lost the handle because Reaves was on the backline about to come over and take a charge. So, overall, a reasonable job mixing it up. I do want to see more from him getting into the paint offensively. Late in the game, we saw more of that and usually good things came from it, including Russell’s one three on the night. Reaves and Russell only had 3 assists each. Usually, those two are at that 5-6 range. Not a consistent number of paint touches off screens for Reaves. He had a late And-1 pull-up in the paint that cut the lead to 7. Reaves sank a couple of threes, one of those was a play setup for him out of a timeout to come off a screen to his right. Another, he just saw a little daylight and fired. The Stats: He scored 13 points on 5-9 shooting (2-6 from three, 1-1 from the line) to go with 4 boards, 3 assists, 1 block and 1 foul in 37 minutes. He was a -12.
Hachimura -- -- Rui was the first line defensively against Jokic. A lot of work there trying to play with enough physicality and not get overwhelmed. The Lakers did really well with doubling Jokic and rotating over from the weakside. That’s typically how we want to work that as we were able to force some misses and also recover well. Early on, we had some major breakdowns with how we wanted to do things. A lot of finger pointing on what should have been done, but the team seemed to clean that up. His one foul was the first possession of the game trying to body Jokic on the perimeter. It’s a tough ask for Rui on the defensive glass, so the Lakers need to make sure their team rebounding is active. It felt like Bron was kind of an issue there at times in this one, but we can’t lose that battle 15-6 like we did. Too many extra possessions. Offensively, not a lot of involvement with Rui. We didn’t see any of those off-ball cuts. He hit 1-2 from three, not a lot of touches there. His one make was wide open from three. His other was an iso pull-up midrange after our offense had went dry for a stretch. The Stats: He scored 13 points on 2-4 shooting (1-2 from three, 2-2 from the line) to go with 3 boards, 1 assist, 1 turnover and 1 foul in 31 minutes. He was a -10.
Dinwiddie -- -- We’ve got a couple guys in the mix in Vincent and Dinwiddie that give us some different looks defensively. They didn’t play to play Spencer as much as they did, but Gabe got three quick fouls and our rotation changed. Dinwiddie had one nice moment nearly blocking Jackson after staying his jersey after a probe and forcing a turnaround. But he also had some sagging D that gave up too much space. He was annoyed with Murray getting away with pushing off (a lot of push-offs by the Nuggets today to get space…it was not being called). Offensively, he was not a threat. We had too many guards who were not a threat today. That allowed the Nuggets to recover defensively better. We need more aggressiveness. The Stats: He didn’t shoot or score to go with 2 boards, 1 assist and 1 foul in 13 minutes. He was a -12.
Prince -- -- This is what we want from him. This should be one of our differences from last year as we struggled to get any kind of production from our roles players in Prince’s spot last year against Denver. He attacked off the three line or in transition for scores. Where our guards didn’t have the instant aggression, Prince was quick to make a decision. That allowed for some of those buckets we didn’t get last year. He also sank a three in semi-transition. He forced it once, getting too deep in penetration with a crowd, but I’ll take the aggression. He had some moments on D, blocking a drive and getting to loose balls/boards. Everyone but Bron, AD and Prince seemed like they were feeling things out too much offensively. The Stats: He scored 11 points on 4-7 shooting (1-3 from three, 2-2 from the line) to go with 4 boards, 1 block and no fouls in 20 minutes. He was a +0.
Hayes -- -- Just 4 minutes in this game in the first half. We played him alongside AD. The Lakers threw aggressive traps at Murray while Jokic sat. Hayes was big, aggressive and forced him out on the perimeter to give up the ball. I’m not exactly sure why they didn’t go back to it later. Hayes did pick up a couple fouls, so I think they might have been worried about giving up some FTs either late in the third or getting in the bonus earlier in the fourth. Not exactly sure other than maybe they were just feeling out different looks. Hayes was a +2 in those 4 minutes. The Stats: He didn’t shoot or score and had 3 boards and 2 fouls in 4 minutes. He was a +2.
Vincent -- -- I think we wanted to run Gabe with the starters while Russell sat. It was a deliberate rotation in the first half. Unfortunately, Gabe wrecked that by picking up 3 fouls and getting benched just a possession or so into that particular rotation. Vincent picked up his first foul on the offensive end with a bad screen early on as we were running the Russell/Vincent backcourt. Got to execute that clean. Later, as we went to that non-Russell starter lineup, Gabe picked up his second and third fouls on a single defensive stand and that was that. Dinwiddie in and Vincent’s minutes cut. Very little from Gabe in this one. The Stats: He didn’t shoot or score and had 1 board, 1 assist, 1 turnover and 3 fouls in 8 minutes. He was a -4.
Ham -- -- Key Moment: What I was hoping for with the Lakers was a more scripted close against the Nuggets, where we are running our plays at a high clip instead of freelancing. As the game went along, we ran our offense less and less. That started in the third quarter. Ham called a timeout and the team executed some plays well, but then went away from it. This drives me nuts. And this is where we lost ground. In that second quarter when the Nuggets reeled the Lakers in, L.A. had a series of turnovers that hurt them. In the third quarter, it was process and poor leadership (on the floor and on the bench).
Key Substitution: Prince did a great job playing with purpose. He was a change of speeds and gears that the Nuggets weren’t ready for. He was our entire bench scoring, unfortunately.
Key Stats: Bron 3-3 from three in first half, rest of players were 1-10 from three. The Lakers as a team shot 8-29 (27.6%). They’ve got to do a much better job here. The Nuggets made 15-42 (35.7%). We had too big a differential there. We had too big a differential on the offensive glass (15-6). The Nuggets won the turnover battle 12-6, but only 4 of those were individual turnovers. The Lakers had just 3 steals. The Nuggets won the break 21-14, but probably did more damage than that just by getting a lot of mismatches by getting down court quickly.
Last edited by DancingBarry on Sun Apr 21, 2024 12:49 pm; edited 2 times in total
Joined: 03 Oct 2003 Posts: 8351 Location: Santa Monica
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 9:00 pm Post subject:
Our offense was arguably a bigger reason than our defense why we lost. Poor shot selection, lack of ball movement, turnovers and few transition opportunities allowed Denver to get easy looks early in in the shot clock and bury us.
Game 2 is do or die for us. DLo may be auditioning for a role on the Lakers past this season on Monday. _________________ Lakers 49ers Chargers Dodgers
Our offense was arguably a bigger reason than our defense why we lost. Poor shot selection, lack of ball movement, turnovers and few transition opportunities allowed Denver to get easy looks early in in the shot clock and bury us.
Game 2 is do or die for us. DLo may be auditioning for a role on the Lakers past this season on Monday.
Game 2 is important, not do or die. We need to show we can win a game first. I have high hopes of them winning 1-2 games this year (most likely 3/4).
Our offense was arguably a bigger reason than our defense why we lost. Poor shot selection, lack of ball movement, turnovers and few transition opportunities allowed Denver to get easy looks early in in the shot clock and bury us.
Game 2 is do or die for us. DLo may be auditioning for a role on the Lakers past this season on Monday.
Game 2 is important, not do or die. We need to show we can win a game first. I have high hopes of them winning 1-2 games this year (most likely 3/4).
Jokic is not losing to these bums. Unless he gets injured we are cooked.
Our offense was arguably a bigger reason than our defense why we lost. Poor shot selection, lack of ball movement, turnovers and few transition opportunities allowed Denver to get easy looks early in in the shot clock and bury us.
Game 2 is do or die for us. DLo may be auditioning for a role on the Lakers past this season on Monday.
Game 2 is important, not do or die. We need to show we can win a game first. I have high hopes of them winning 1-2 games this year (most likely 3/4).
Jokic is not losing to these bums. Unless he gets injured we are cooked.
I kept saying throughout the game thread that I was extremely pissed at only Bron for this game. An example of why I said Bron was mentally disengaged and why only this aspect of the game pissed me off can be seen when the score was 92-98 after AD scores twice on Jokic and Denver misses two threes. This was our chance to make a comeback. Watch Jokic, who is surrounded by Bron and AD. AD is knocked down and out of the play but watch Bron.....ball watching. Now imagine what a fully engaged Bron would have done. One of 2 things. 1. Either box out Jokic like his life depended on it. 2 Go towards the rim to aggressively rebound. Not ball-watching. Jokic grabs the board easily and lays it up. Back to an 8 pt lead. Momentum lost....and our last real chance of a comeback
Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 35854 Location: Santa Clarita, CA (Hell) ->>>>>Ithaca, NY -≥≥≥≥≥Berkeley, CA
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 10:51 pm Post subject:
This is why I think it’s weird that people claim last year’s series was actually close, even though it was a sweep. All of the “close” games in that series were the same as this one. _________________ Damian Lillard shatters Dwight Coward's championship dreams:
Our offense was arguably a bigger reason than our defense why we lost. Poor shot selection, lack of ball movement, turnovers and few transition opportunities allowed Denver to get easy looks early in in the shot clock and bury us.
Game 2 is do or die for us. DLo may be auditioning for a role on the Lakers past this season on Monday.
Poor shot selection. Lack of ball movement, turnovers are a result of Denver imposing their will on us. Losing 9 straight isn’t beating ourselves…we are simply the inferior team.
Joined: 13 Sep 2008 Posts: 5735 Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 11:52 pm Post subject:
Much of the same again. Even with the 10-point lead, you had a feeling Denver was waiting to put it into another gear. And surely they did, with an immediate 8-0 run.
They put up a good fight and I think that is admirable. But Denver is a champion and contender, while we are not. No shame in admitting that.
Joined: 30 Jul 2001 Posts: 381 Location: Portland, OR
Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2024 12:00 am Post subject:
The lakers started the game well and had the proper focus. They executed the game plan of playing Jokic straight up with Rui, letting him get his while stopping the others. Lebron’s threes were hitting. Despite a number of ridiculous undeserved foul calls against the lakers, they built a nice 12 point lead halfway through the 2nd quarter. Malone took a timeout. Out of that timeout the Nuggets scored a few times while the Lakers stalled out, Lebron turning it over and Russell missing open shots and floaters. I think this was when Russell had an airball on a wide open three which was a little unnerving and inauspicious. The game was tied until Lebron hit a ridiculous near half court three to put the Lakers up three at halftime.
The third quarter began tight with the teams trading scores, until halfway through the third quarter when Lebron missed an and-one free throw to tie it up again. The Lakers then started making mental errors and compounding mistakes. It was reminiscent of late fourth quarter moments in the recent nuggets games, only it was happening in the third quarter. Russell missing a layup and several open shots, and he and Lebron turning it over, while the nuggets hit a few shots, their home crowd got into it and all of the sudden it was a 14 point game. That was the ball game as they were held at arms length the rest of the way.
AD really battled. I think he had 22 points in the first half or something. But I noticed he was still on 22 after this 3rd quarter stretch when Denver built their lead. During this stretch AD was out on the perimeter on offense a little too much. He and the Lakers got going again but couldn’t get reasonably close.
It just seems the team couldn’t keep the necessary focus, and Ham’s timeouts came a little too late when the Nuggets went on their runs. The outside shooting wasn’t there, Reaves and Russell unfortunately 3/15 on threes between them, which just won’t get it done against the champs.
Bron completely checked out in the 3rd and 4th quarters. I believe it started with his frustration over multiple mistakes and poor shooting from DLO. At this stage LeBron only has about two good quarters in him (usually one in each half), but he used them both in the first half of this game.
Maybe we’ll win one, but i really don’t see how. We just can’t sustain the effort required for a whole game. If it were any other series I wouldn’t be too worried about losing the first game, but in this one I feel like that game was us giving everything we had, and we still lost. Not a good sign.
Refs set the tone with calls or lack of calls because the NBA is rigged and you are a dotard if you think otherwise...Vega$ always wins.
# tim Donaghey _________________ Creatures crawl in search of blood, To terrorize y'alls neighborhood.
If we don't cash in Denver's 3pts miss, this series is gone. Denver can always rely on Jokic for offensive rebound, Rui is just too small to guard him. We could have won game, DLO went MIA on offense, miss layup and turnover really hurts us. When LBJ is tired, he will start throwing brick. Why is AD shooting B2B 3s? Ham has got to drop DLO back to the bench away at Denver and play him in home games.
Our defense was "good". Jokic did his thing but Murray was kept in check for the most part.
During the 2nd half, our offense became stagnant and disorganized.
Lots of ball watching, bad shot selection, DLO missing open looks, Ham with (bleep) rotations.
Apologies for sounding like a broken record but I’m amazed by Jokic. If he has the ball inside 15 ft, he scores. AD does as well as anyone and yet Jokic hooks one off the top of the glass no matter how difficult the angle.
It’s crazy that we were only up 3 after how well AD/Lebron played the 1st half. As soon as it was clear we weren’t getting the same Lebron in the 2nd half I should’ve known that was ball game. Everyone has to redline for 4 quarters against this team.
Jokic is so far and away better than ANT or the other more charismatic players this board likes to anoint as the MVP lol
Last edited by PenG_ on Sun Apr 21, 2024 5:17 am; edited 2 times in total
The Nuggets are deeper, smarter, fitter, and far better coached.
When it comes down to it, it's hard to win a series in which your third option continually craps the bed when you're already starting at a disadvantage with Ham as your coach.
Just a shame we wasted a great AD night because I doubt he is that effective in G2.
Apologies for sounding like a broken record but I’m amazed by Jokic. If he has the ball inside 15 ft, he scores. AD does as well as anyone and yet Jokic hooks one off the top of the glass no matter how difficult the angle.
It’s crazy that we were only up 3 after how well AD/Lebron played the 1st half. As soon as it was clear we weren’t getting the same Lebron in the 2nd half I should’ve known that was ball game. Everyone has to redline for 4 quarters against this team.
Jokic is so far and away better than ANT or the other more charismatic players this board likes to anoint as the MVP lol
Truly one of the all time greats. Simply amazing basketball, with real skills.
Apologies for sounding like a broken record but I’m amazed by Jokic. If he has the ball inside 15 ft, he scores. AD does as well as anyone and yet Jokic hooks one off the top of the glass no matter how difficult the angle.
It’s crazy that we were only up 3 after how well AD/Lebron played the 1st half. As soon as it was clear we weren’t getting the same Lebron in the 2nd half I should’ve known that was ball game. Everyone has to redline for 4 quarters against this team.
Jokic is so far and away better than ANT or the other more charismatic players this board likes to anoint as the MVP lol
Truly one of the all time greats. Simply amazing basketball, with real skills.
Can we try to steal him from Denver when he’s a free agent
Like Lebron said, no room for error. Several missed chip in layups led to open transition Denver 3s. A couple of 5 point swings was the difference. Pros (and Champions) don’t miss layups in the Playoffs.
Our offense was arguably a bigger reason than our defense why we lost. Poor shot selection, lack of ball movement, turnovers and few transition opportunities allowed Denver to get easy looks early in in the shot clock and bury us.
Game 2 is do or die for us. DLo may be auditioning for a role on the Lakers past this season on Monday.
Poor shot selection. Lack of ball movement, turnovers are a result of Denver imposing their will on us. Losing 9 straight isn’t beating ourselves…we are simply the inferior team.
They are bigger and better than us on both ends.
pretty much. We also had 12 more free points than them from, the line. it doesn't help that the nuggs take every game like they are in a hole. tough matchup but we are here. _________________ Kobe.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Clw9scopegx/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Refs set the tone with calls or lack of calls because the NBA is rigged and you are a dotard if you think otherwise...Vega$ always wins.
# tim Donaghey
Lakers shot 13 more free throws but it's the refs fault?
Also if you believe what you say, why would you even get mad if you know all games are script.Wouldnt you watch the game knowing beforehand it's been already decided and not worry about it?
Last edited by Lucky_Shot on Sun Apr 21, 2024 9:25 am; edited 1 time in total
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-- I’m sorry. I know the broadcast crew and everyone will sing his praises. Yes, he had an efficient shooting game, but, wow, there was a lot not to like. Too many miscues from Bron on both ends to be happy with this game when he looks at the tape. The good was good, but the bad was pretty destructive. He had 8 assists with 7 turnovers. Some were loud late in the game like telegraphing a perimeter pass that Jokic took for a rumbling pick six. Others were quieter but equally destructive, like in the second quarter when the Nuggets made a run and Bron had a moving pick and a bad pass, and Denver got the crowd going and the offense flowing. Defensively, he had some stretches where his man got offensive boards or where Bron didn’t make a rotation. Those won’t go down in the stat sheet. I expect some of those every game. Good news is, however, that the poor parts of his game were very much something he most likely cleans up. He almost always does. Offensively, he had a strong shooting game early, making 3-3 from three in the first half, including a deep three near the buzzer. When he ran some of our sets with purpose, he was able to get to the rim for scores or find AD for some of his easiest buckets of the game. Really good moments there. It killed me, though, when we’d run a play with success a couple of times, then we’d not go back to it and settle for low-percentage offense. That’s on both him and the coaching. We’ve seen it all season, so it’s something to be concerned about. But usually, the team showed they do a good job making adjustments in the playoffs. 
-- We ran AD 45 minutes in this game. He had a great kick in the fourth quarter, scoring in the post and battling on D against Jokic. By the end of the fourth, there was a play where he and Bron were tapped on the offensive glass and AD didn’t get down court. Hands on knees, tired, and Bron got beat by Jokic for a dunk changing ends. A lot of minutes, high-altitude. That’s tough. AD went 0-4 from three. Sometimes, that’s a sign of being tired as you settle. To me, it was more the offense floundering and not running proper set plays to play to strengths. We aren’t going to win a battle with AD missing threes, the Nuggets getting up court quickly with mismatches that allow Jokic against smalls or shooters like KCP open. Five out with Jokic in drop, you need to make that extra dribble handoff or screen to free up a shooter or get into a two-on-one. The set plays worked really well for AD. He had a dunk off the Chicago series handoff early where the ball went from Russell to Bron to AD quickly. We ran some horns actions that got Bron downhill with AD rolling that turned into good things. Late in the game, AD just went at Jokic on iso for multiple scores. Defensively, it looks like the Lakers will let Rui do the heavy lifting early and then AD on Jokic later. This allows AD to zone up weakside. He needs to make sure he puts in some better challenges on three shooters, though. Although, AD picked up a couple fouls early on in the game on iso on Jokic trying to push him out of post position. 
-- We can beat a Nugget team that scores 114 points. We are going to struggle defensively with Murray and Jokic. But to beat them, we’ve got to have our offense doing what it can do. The 1-9 from Russell from three left a lot on the table. A choked layup or missing a couple chippies he usually gets, hurt. Yes, defensively, he’ll have moments getting overpowered (once on the break, a couple times on the defensive glass early where he took fouls). But he needs to do what he does offensively. He has a better matchup this year against the Nuggets. He has a full season-plus now of running offense with the team. Getting him into his sweet spots with consistency is something this team can now do. So, he’s simply got to give us that third scorer so we can out-score the Nuggets. Much was made about bad pass in the third quarter Russell made in transition where Bron yelled at him. That whole second half was a disaster after a strong start. After that, he choked a layup and Denver hit a three the other way. He missed a couple floaters, missed a defensive assignment, missed wide open threes, was blocked on a drive. The Lakers scored just 18 in that third and he missed a lot. I expect adjustments from Bron in the next game. I hope for regular season Russell to show up. Defensively, he led the team with 2 of our 3 steals. 
-- He was the primary assignment on Murray defensively. Murray scored 22 on 9-24 shooting, but had 10 assists without a turnover. The Nuggets had 4 individual turnovers. This is probably where you miss Vando mixing things up a little. Overall, though, I think I’d take that game. Reaves had some moments, blocking Murrary in the post, bothering him from behind on another. Late in the game, I don’t like how we gave up middle to Murray, but it almost seemed by design. So, keep an eye on that. Some good help D rotations. At times, that meant taking Jokic and getting help from doubles. He had one play where Jokic might have lost the handle because Reaves was on the backline about to come over and take a charge. So, overall, a reasonable job mixing it up. I do want to see more from him getting into the paint offensively. Late in the game, we saw more of that and usually good things came from it, including Russell’s one three on the night. Reaves and Russell only had 3 assists each. Usually, those two are at that 5-6 range. Not a consistent number of paint touches off screens for Reaves. He had a late And-1 pull-up in the paint that cut the lead to 7. Reaves sank a couple of threes, one of those was a play setup for him out of a timeout to come off a screen to his right. Another, he just saw a little daylight and fired. 
-- Rui was the first line defensively against Jokic. A lot of work there trying to play with enough physicality and not get overwhelmed. The Lakers did really well with doubling Jokic and rotating over from the weakside. That’s typically how we want to work that as we were able to force some misses and also recover well. Early on, we had some major breakdowns with how we wanted to do things. A lot of finger pointing on what should have been done, but the team seemed to clean that up. His one foul was the first possession of the game trying to body Jokic on the perimeter. It’s a tough ask for Rui on the defensive glass, so the Lakers need to make sure their team rebounding is active. It felt like Bron was kind of an issue there at times in this one, but we can’t lose that battle 15-6 like we did. Too many extra possessions. Offensively, not a lot of involvement with Rui. We didn’t see any of those off-ball cuts. He hit 1-2 from three, not a lot of touches there. His one make was wide open from three. His other was an iso pull-up midrange after our offense had went dry for a stretch. 
-- We’ve got a couple guys in the mix in Vincent and Dinwiddie that give us some different looks defensively. They didn’t play to play Spencer as much as they did, but Gabe got three quick fouls and our rotation changed. Dinwiddie had one nice moment nearly blocking Jackson after staying his jersey after a probe and forcing a turnaround. But he also had some sagging D that gave up too much space. He was annoyed with Murray getting away with pushing off (a lot of push-offs by the Nuggets today to get space…it was not being called). Offensively, he was not a threat. We had too many guards who were not a threat today. That allowed the Nuggets to recover defensively better. We need more aggressiveness. 
-- This is what we want from him. This should be one of our differences from last year as we struggled to get any kind of production from our roles players in Prince’s spot last year against Denver. He attacked off the three line or in transition for scores. Where our guards didn’t have the instant aggression, Prince was quick to make a decision. That allowed for some of those buckets we didn’t get last year. He also sank a three in semi-transition. He forced it once, getting too deep in penetration with a crowd, but I’ll take the aggression. He had some moments on D, blocking a drive and getting to loose balls/boards. Everyone but Bron, AD and Prince seemed like they were feeling things out too much offensively. 
-- Just 4 minutes in this game in the first half. We played him alongside AD. The Lakers threw aggressive traps at Murray while Jokic sat. Hayes was big, aggressive and forced him out on the perimeter to give up the ball. I’m not exactly sure why they didn’t go back to it later. Hayes did pick up a couple fouls, so I think they might have been worried about giving up some FTs either late in the third or getting in the bonus earlier in the fourth. Not exactly sure other than maybe they were just feeling out different looks. Hayes was a +2 in those 4 minutes. 
-- I think we wanted to run Gabe with the starters while Russell sat. It was a deliberate rotation in the first half. Unfortunately, Gabe wrecked that by picking up 3 fouls and getting benched just a possession or so into that particular rotation. Vincent picked up his first foul on the offensive end with a bad screen early on as we were running the Russell/Vincent backcourt. Got to execute that clean. Later, as we went to that non-Russell starter lineup, Gabe picked up his second and third fouls on a single defensive stand and that was that. Dinwiddie in and Vincent’s minutes cut. Very little from Gabe in this one. 
-- Key Moment: What I was hoping for with the Lakers was a more scripted close against the Nuggets, where we are running our plays at a high clip instead of freelancing. As the game went along, we ran our offense less and less. That started in the third quarter. Ham called a timeout and the team executed some plays well, but then went away from it. This drives me nuts. And this is where we lost ground. In that second quarter when the Nuggets reeled the Lakers in, L.A. had a series of turnovers that hurt them. In the third quarter, it was process and poor leadership (on the floor and on the bench).
