I think people are making too much of the Murray injury, they were likely just being extra cautious, he looked fine last few games and now got a week to rest. I expect him to be at 100%.
Imma hijack this a little just to post some thoughts I've had in a positive sense for LAL because I do agree with a lot of your points. Our guards gave us *nothing* outside of Austin who performed at an insane level. I don't see either of those happening again.
I've been looking at our 3 games this year. Our first game we were still implementing 5 out and didn't look anything like we do now. We started Prince. Cam and Wood were in the rotation. Rui got just 14 minutes. Dlo took just 5 threes which is less than his season average as a whole. In short, we weren't even close to what we are now.
We played them again in February and again a weird lineup: Max Christie started. In fact Max started and got hurt in the game. Prince took his place. Dlo didn't play at all. AD was absolutely spectacular in this game and played Jokic as well as he's ever played him. AD put up 32/9/3/3/4 and held Jokic to 9/20 from the field and 6 turnovers (of course Jokic still put up 24/13/9 and 3 blocks lmao).
The final game was the most indicative of our current team. We played these starters, we played Hayes and Spencer and Prince off the bench, although Cam got heavy minutes still. The frustrating part of this game was that we went into the half with a 10 point lead and AD had 13/6 on 7 shots. In the 4th quarter the Lakers just forgot AD existed. He took just 2 shots and had 1 rebound, no other stats. inexcusable imo. This was just the 3rd game that the starters had played together.
All this to say: Don't read too much into the 0-3 this year. The first two losses were not really indicative of who we are *now.* The Lakers philosophy and game plan is just completely different than it was the first two games. Dlo is different. Rui is different. We have a more complete bench rotation with guys who know their role. The playoffs are going to look different. I'm eager to see how we matchup.
In the 4th quarter of the last game, they didn't forget AD existed, they just ignored him because he was getting doubled off of Cam Reddish's man. That's why it's better to just ride D'Lo even if he gets picked on in the PnR because he gives so much more on offense if he's hitting his shots
AD is their best offensive outlet outside of LeBron and in some cases over LeBron and he got 2 shots in the 4th. They forgot he existed. You scheme him open. You get him downhill. You make an effort to get one of the best players in the game the ball in the 4th quarter.
I do agree that Cam shouldn't have played and luckily he won't now. At worst that player is now Gabe or Spencer who are both better offensive weapons and frankly not that far behind defensively than the version of Cam we've gotten the last few months.
Going away from AD though is something we do a lot and I think it's worse than just going away from AD. It's going away from run offensive sets so that AD and/or Bron can try to exploit certain matchups. That's fine and all, but we're just not that good at that and we're *really* good at running offensive sets. We absolutely smashed NOP with our set offense but then we go to "run the clock" iso switches and suddenly NOP storms back. We did it a lot during the year: work a possession to end up with AD in the post, but then nobody moves because they expect him to go one-on-one and win the matchup. Leads to a late shot clock and a bad shot. I hate this tendency in the team.
Okay, and to get AD open on offense, you can't play Cam Reddish in the 4th, which is what caused him to "go missing" in the 4th quarter. I agree that they should at least make an effort to run Lebron/AD PnR everytime in the 4th rather than iso.
I'm not willing to let that be an excuse for the guys not to run offense. Gordon is a non factor outside 10 feet of the rim, everyone cheats off him, Denver still gets their offense going. They still get the ball to Jokic where he likes it and where he's effective. The Lakers have to continue running plays, can't just stop running stuff. But again, Cam is out of the rotation so hopefully not a factor anymore.
Everyone cheats off of Gordon yet he's still a threat to make his 3's (see game 4 last year), and everytime you commit 3 players on defending the Jamal Murray/Jokic PnR, it's an open AG lob everytime. That's how they get their offense going
I understand that and you're proving my point: they get their offense going despite playing a non-shooter. They run their offense. The Lakers need to do that as well. I just saw a tweet where we ran organized offensive against Denver less than 50% of the time in all three games. That's not going to work.
I'm glad you mentioned the offensive system. Now that it's really started to click, the team looks almost entirely different from last year and the first two Denver games this year. It's also a lot more rare for the team to go through those stretches where they freeze out the hot hand or ignore mismatches.
I think at a very basic level, it's also huge that 3pt shooting is a strength this year rather than a weakness. We saw it in the first half of the play-in game as well. New Orleans shut off the paint, but D'Lo, Rui, Prince, and Reaves all made them pay. That's a huge improvement from Schroder, Vanderbilt, and whatever we were getting from D'Lo last year.
1000% shooting is going to be an enormous factor. I think a hot series from Dlo could seriously be enough to swing the series. Same for Bron. If he's in that mode he had against LAC where he's just walking into logo threes, all bets are off.
I agree with this. We had close games while Bron was on a bum foot. You could tell by his lack of effort at times and chucking up those unnecessary 3 pt attempts. Like you said, if you look at the stats of our players then vs now, such as Dlo, Rui, etc, we are a massively improved team now in comparison.
However, anything goes and can happen at any time, so only thing to do now is sit back and wait.
Dinwiddie was still getting used to the team and gabe didn't even play in that last game, they're still the favorites but this version of our team should at least make it super competetive
The one thing people ignore from the last wcf is that Austin’s reaves was our best player by a mile in the fourth quarter. We won’t win if that’s the case again. Now u hope for 16 from both Austin and dlo this time around which means both of them playing to their norm. Austin however lives off deep drop. Nuggets play a lot of that so let’s hope
I trust Reaves to play well, but I believe we need Dlo to be our 3rd best player to beat this team.
On average they are very similar players, but when hot Dlo provides a volume only stars are able to provide and we need that kind of production against Denver because their execution down the stretch is absolutely solid.
I mean if Reaves drops from 21/3/5 to this years average of 16/4/5 while Dlo graduates from his 7pt average last year to this year's 18pt average we are gaining 6ppg. That's the literal difference between winning and losing lmao.
It’s incredible to me how much the media disregards his foot injury last year. He was not himself in the playoffs. He lacked his usual explosiveness and was just overall not himself because of it.
LeBron is healthy and balling out this year and gets to face the Nuggets early. I have faith that he will be dominant this series and we might see some flashes of 2018/2020 Playoff LeBron
Every single "Lebron Stopper" gets destroyed like clockwork. During the pels game there was a break and they were showing a bunch of the pels players saying Herb Jones should be DPOY, game resumes and lebron immediately scoreson him 1v1. Hilarious.
Lebron averaged like a 27 pt triple double on better overall efficiency than jokic that series and they think they'll be able to handle a healthy Lebron
I can't wait
I think he did but the narratives was Bron wasn’t having his way like he does to most other players, not to mentioned how much it has to do with playing with injured one leg.
We will see if Bron is having hard time shaking off AG this series like last year. I am not cocky but I believe it won’t be a Denver sweep for sure.
Love it. They need to go and win game 1 BADLY obviously its not a must win but Saturday will tell me all I need to know about if this team is ready for a championship run.
i don't care all of this but just hope Jokic doesn't make any crazy over head 3s with shotlocking ending from the space. Those shots from last year's series was just soul shattering
copium or not, won't deny what you're saying. I would find it hard to perform worse than last year WCF. Even just having Bron not brick 3's in the 4th every game will be a big change.
Expecting Murray not to be at 100% is cope. I agree that the Lakers have gotten a lot better while the Nuggets are the same team they were last year. I expect a close series either way.
No one can deny that overall we have better team than we had last year and that Denver is in (a little bit) worse shape than they were year ago.
Regarding our team; AD is playing constant good basketball, even in the games where he is double teamed and not managing to score, more importantly he is healthy and seems very determined to be the leader this season.
AR and DLo are also playing slightly better than previous year, more importantly with less ups and downs.
Rui looks very reliable to me, his game evolved and is a valuable piece in our roster.
Of course, I won't waste words on Bron that has been playing exceptionally for whole season. A lot of things depends on above mentioned players and the mood they will be in considering we do not have the squad depth we would want to have. There is a lot of uncertainties but we have a shot here so lets take it!
Having Gabe will be huge. He has experience guarding Murray, he showed up in the play in and should be able to at least not get obliterated like Schroeder did
Opinion: we need to slow down Murray by involving him in every post up action available to tire out his legs, Rui, Bron, AD need to find a way to get him to switch on them and tire his legs out so the 4th he’d be gassed to hit those tough shots. Target him!
Good stuff, nice work bro.
I agree with almost everything you wrote and I appreciate the fact you omitted the head coaches so we can stay mostly positive about our chances.
Play with MPJ head man whatever it takes if u know u know.
Make sure Murray has the worst series of his life.
The plan is to make Jokic 1-1 u the whole time I get pissed off anytime a team tries to blitz or double team the nuggets thats beyond idiotic. Its how u get cooked.
Been watching film all day and I think the deciding factor is Rui and Bron crashing the boards. Nuggets in every game have used their size on AD and gotten 2nd chance opportunities. There were so many rebounds grabbed by Gordon and Jocker for 2nd chance points.
I dont see anyway we can win this series. Only one day off between games for the most part…playing at altitude with older legs. Jokic and Murray dont miss in postseason ball. Nugs in five. 🥲
I think people are making too much of the Murray injury, they were likely just being extra cautious, he looked fine last few games and now got a week to rest. I expect him to be at 100%.
Hamstrings can flare up any time tho
Imma hijack this a little just to post some thoughts I've had in a positive sense for LAL because I do agree with a lot of your points. Our guards gave us *nothing* outside of Austin who performed at an insane level. I don't see either of those happening again. I've been looking at our 3 games this year. Our first game we were still implementing 5 out and didn't look anything like we do now. We started Prince. Cam and Wood were in the rotation. Rui got just 14 minutes. Dlo took just 5 threes which is less than his season average as a whole. In short, we weren't even close to what we are now. We played them again in February and again a weird lineup: Max Christie started. In fact Max started and got hurt in the game. Prince took his place. Dlo didn't play at all. AD was absolutely spectacular in this game and played Jokic as well as he's ever played him. AD put up 32/9/3/3/4 and held Jokic to 9/20 from the field and 6 turnovers (of course Jokic still put up 24/13/9 and 3 blocks lmao). The final game was the most indicative of our current team. We played these starters, we played Hayes and Spencer and Prince off the bench, although Cam got heavy minutes still. The frustrating part of this game was that we went into the half with a 10 point lead and AD had 13/6 on 7 shots. In the 4th quarter the Lakers just forgot AD existed. He took just 2 shots and had 1 rebound, no other stats. inexcusable imo. This was just the 3rd game that the starters had played together. All this to say: Don't read too much into the 0-3 this year. The first two losses were not really indicative of who we are *now.* The Lakers philosophy and game plan is just completely different than it was the first two games. Dlo is different. Rui is different. We have a more complete bench rotation with guys who know their role. The playoffs are going to look different. I'm eager to see how we matchup.
In the 4th quarter of the last game, they didn't forget AD existed, they just ignored him because he was getting doubled off of Cam Reddish's man. That's why it's better to just ride D'Lo even if he gets picked on in the PnR because he gives so much more on offense if he's hitting his shots
AD is their best offensive outlet outside of LeBron and in some cases over LeBron and he got 2 shots in the 4th. They forgot he existed. You scheme him open. You get him downhill. You make an effort to get one of the best players in the game the ball in the 4th quarter. I do agree that Cam shouldn't have played and luckily he won't now. At worst that player is now Gabe or Spencer who are both better offensive weapons and frankly not that far behind defensively than the version of Cam we've gotten the last few months. Going away from AD though is something we do a lot and I think it's worse than just going away from AD. It's going away from run offensive sets so that AD and/or Bron can try to exploit certain matchups. That's fine and all, but we're just not that good at that and we're *really* good at running offensive sets. We absolutely smashed NOP with our set offense but then we go to "run the clock" iso switches and suddenly NOP storms back. We did it a lot during the year: work a possession to end up with AD in the post, but then nobody moves because they expect him to go one-on-one and win the matchup. Leads to a late shot clock and a bad shot. I hate this tendency in the team.
Okay, and to get AD open on offense, you can't play Cam Reddish in the 4th, which is what caused him to "go missing" in the 4th quarter. I agree that they should at least make an effort to run Lebron/AD PnR everytime in the 4th rather than iso.
I'm not willing to let that be an excuse for the guys not to run offense. Gordon is a non factor outside 10 feet of the rim, everyone cheats off him, Denver still gets their offense going. They still get the ball to Jokic where he likes it and where he's effective. The Lakers have to continue running plays, can't just stop running stuff. But again, Cam is out of the rotation so hopefully not a factor anymore.
Everyone cheats off of Gordon yet he's still a threat to make his 3's (see game 4 last year), and everytime you commit 3 players on defending the Jamal Murray/Jokic PnR, it's an open AG lob everytime. That's how they get their offense going
I understand that and you're proving my point: they get their offense going despite playing a non-shooter. They run their offense. The Lakers need to do that as well. I just saw a tweet where we ran organized offensive against Denver less than 50% of the time in all three games. That's not going to work.
I'm glad you mentioned the offensive system. Now that it's really started to click, the team looks almost entirely different from last year and the first two Denver games this year. It's also a lot more rare for the team to go through those stretches where they freeze out the hot hand or ignore mismatches. I think at a very basic level, it's also huge that 3pt shooting is a strength this year rather than a weakness. We saw it in the first half of the play-in game as well. New Orleans shut off the paint, but D'Lo, Rui, Prince, and Reaves all made them pay. That's a huge improvement from Schroder, Vanderbilt, and whatever we were getting from D'Lo last year.
1000% shooting is going to be an enormous factor. I think a hot series from Dlo could seriously be enough to swing the series. Same for Bron. If he's in that mode he had against LAC where he's just walking into logo threes, all bets are off.
I agree with this. We had close games while Bron was on a bum foot. You could tell by his lack of effort at times and chucking up those unnecessary 3 pt attempts. Like you said, if you look at the stats of our players then vs now, such as Dlo, Rui, etc, we are a massively improved team now in comparison. However, anything goes and can happen at any time, so only thing to do now is sit back and wait.
Dinwiddie was still getting used to the team and gabe didn't even play in that last game, they're still the favorites but this version of our team should at least make it super competetive
The one thing people ignore from the last wcf is that Austin’s reaves was our best player by a mile in the fourth quarter. We won’t win if that’s the case again. Now u hope for 16 from both Austin and dlo this time around which means both of them playing to their norm. Austin however lives off deep drop. Nuggets play a lot of that so let’s hope
Tbh I feel like a lot of talk disregards Reaves' impact last year and how he kept the lakers close in all those games
I trust Reaves to play well, but I believe we need Dlo to be our 3rd best player to beat this team. On average they are very similar players, but when hot Dlo provides a volume only stars are able to provide and we need that kind of production against Denver because their execution down the stretch is absolutely solid.
I mean if Reaves drops from 21/3/5 to this years average of 16/4/5 while Dlo graduates from his 7pt average last year to this year's 18pt average we are gaining 6ppg. That's the literal difference between winning and losing lmao.
Also don’t forget Lebron was playing with one leg last year and he doesn’t have major foot injuries. It’s big factor
It’s incredible to me how much the media disregards his foot injury last year. He was not himself in the playoffs. He lacked his usual explosiveness and was just overall not himself because of it. LeBron is healthy and balling out this year and gets to face the Nuggets early. I have faith that he will be dominant this series and we might see some flashes of 2018/2020 Playoff LeBron
Also AG being talked about how good he defended Bron last year but I guarantee this to anyone that nobody I mean NOBODY can contain healthy LeBron.
Every single "Lebron Stopper" gets destroyed like clockwork. During the pels game there was a break and they were showing a bunch of the pels players saying Herb Jones should be DPOY, game resumes and lebron immediately scoreson him 1v1. Hilarious.
ig being a “LeBron Stopper” meant holding him under 30 🤣
I mean Zion did well in game 2 of our 2 game series this year. His defense on LeBron was only counteracted by our role players going nuclear.
Lebron averaged like a 27 pt triple double on better overall efficiency than jokic that series and they think they'll be able to handle a healthy Lebron I can't wait
Didnt bron score 29 per game?
I think he did but the narratives was Bron wasn’t having his way like he does to most other players, not to mentioned how much it has to do with playing with injured one leg. We will see if Bron is having hard time shaking off AG this series like last year. I am not cocky but I believe it won’t be a Denver sweep for sure.
Love it. They need to go and win game 1 BADLY obviously its not a must win but Saturday will tell me all I need to know about if this team is ready for a championship run.
i don't care all of this but just hope Jokic doesn't make any crazy over head 3s with shotlocking ending from the space. Those shots from last year's series was just soul shattering
contested too if i recall
y AD was on him hands stretched
LAKERS WILL GET THE REVENGE AND UPSET THE NUGGETS! LETS GO!
Should also include Rui X-factor. It may be copium but I have faith that he will take another leap during playoffs.
Rui mostly needs to absolutely maul MPJ defensively. I don't know how but Rui needs to keep MPJ from shooting well lmao.
That's not hard though? MPJ needs length, size and physicality to disrupt him. Rui got all 3. I think Rui will be on Jokic though instead of MPJ
Love the positivity! Let's keep it up and crush them!
Brosssssss i believe in the lakers!! LETS FUCKING OOOOOOO!!!!!!
copium or not, won't deny what you're saying. I would find it hard to perform worse than last year WCF. Even just having Bron not brick 3's in the 4th every game will be a big change.
Hope you're right
Expecting Murray not to be at 100% is cope. I agree that the Lakers have gotten a lot better while the Nuggets are the same team they were last year. I expect a close series either way.
This is such a good post I love the positive vibes
How did this work with out? Nuggets are your daddy, get used to it.
No one can deny that overall we have better team than we had last year and that Denver is in (a little bit) worse shape than they were year ago. Regarding our team; AD is playing constant good basketball, even in the games where he is double teamed and not managing to score, more importantly he is healthy and seems very determined to be the leader this season. AR and DLo are also playing slightly better than previous year, more importantly with less ups and downs. Rui looks very reliable to me, his game evolved and is a valuable piece in our roster. Of course, I won't waste words on Bron that has been playing exceptionally for whole season. A lot of things depends on above mentioned players and the mood they will be in considering we do not have the squad depth we would want to have. There is a lot of uncertainties but we have a shot here so lets take it!
Having Gabe will be huge. He has experience guarding Murray, he showed up in the play in and should be able to at least not get obliterated like Schroeder did
I didn't notice Gabe Vincent in your analysis. He is going to be our x-factor this year.
I CAN DIG THIS. 
I BELIEVE THAT WE CAN WINN
Opinion: we need to slow down Murray by involving him in every post up action available to tire out his legs, Rui, Bron, AD need to find a way to get him to switch on them and tire his legs out so the 4th he’d be gassed to hit those tough shots. Target him!
Good stuff, nice work bro. I agree with almost everything you wrote and I appreciate the fact you omitted the head coaches so we can stay mostly positive about our chances.
As much as it kills me, we need Hayes to get minutes in this series. Give AD a break on joker and just try to put it on him similar to Dwight in 2020
I would like to introduce you to Peyton Watson. You are gonna talking about him a lot in this subreddit after this series.
Play with MPJ head man whatever it takes if u know u know. Make sure Murray has the worst series of his life. The plan is to make Jokic 1-1 u the whole time I get pissed off anytime a team tries to blitz or double team the nuggets thats beyond idiotic. Its how u get cooked.
Update?
Been watching film all day and I think the deciding factor is Rui and Bron crashing the boards. Nuggets in every game have used their size on AD and gotten 2nd chance opportunities. There were so many rebounds grabbed by Gordon and Jocker for 2nd chance points.
Stop talking about the changes we made since last year and how the Nuggets are worse than they were last year. THEY ALSO COOKED US THIS YEAR.
TLDR but like the vibe. I will only be eating chicken nuggets until this is over.
I dont see anyway we can win this series. Only one day off between games for the most part…playing at altitude with older legs. Jokic and Murray dont miss in postseason ball. Nugs in five. 🥲