Apr 22, 2024, 4:55 p.m. ET
The Lakers put their trust in Anthony Davis for the second game of the series against the Nuggets.
Nikola Jokic is the best player in the world. The awards don’t matter, the rankings don’t matter, absolutely nothing matters. It’s something we all know. And in that premise, the Los Angeles Lakers are no exception.
The Lakers put their trust in Anthony Davis (photo) for the second game of the series against the Nuggets. Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images
Es frustrating what happened in Game 1 with LeBron James and company. Because for a large part of the series’ debut match it looked like they could win the game. They did a good job, they made an effort to be up to par, but it is impossible to cover the sun with a finger: The Nuggets are better and it will be almost a sporting miracle if they manage to turn this tie around.
Jokic is a true basketball wildcard. There has never – reinforcement: NEVER – been a player like him. Dress me slowly because I’m in a hurry: he has the finesse of a surgeon and the reaction of a Formula One driver. From above, he controls absolutely everything. The Big Brother of the NBA is capable of finding advantages with surreal and other unshowy plays that achieve the most precious objective of this sport: crossing a metal circle with a leather ball.
Editorial Selections
2 Related
The Lakers have already lost nine consecutive games against the Denver Nuggets in the NBA. They’ve tried absolutely everything, but they still can’t. It’s Coyote vs. Roadrunner over and over again: first they tried Anthony Davis, then Rui Hachimura. But the problem, the indecipherable theorem in the mission against Nuggets, is that the solution to winning is not only in Jokic. It is a deep team of multiple variants. Playing against them is facing the short blanket theory: if you cover your feet, you uncover your head and vice versa.
32 points with 15-23 field goals (65%), 12 rebounds, 7 assists and 0 turnovers. Those were Jokic’s numbers in the debut game. It’s stupid. LeBron, icon of the Lakers and NBA legend, played a great game: 27 points, eight assists, six rebounds (10-16 in TC). Anthony Davis, too: 32 points, 14 boards, five assists (12-23 in TC).
But of course, not only is it not enough with the two of them, but what You have to evaluate not the attack but the defense.
Dubbing Jokic is a cardinal sin in today’s NBA. Defending him one on one would be the way, but there are no physicists of his size who can tolerate him in height and strength. The Lakers, in this section, have good news on their hands: Anthony Davis.
According to Second Spectrum, Hachimura defended Jokic in 40 stationed attacks and La Ceja in 20. It makes sense, because in 2023, Hachimura limited the Joker to 9-21 (43%) in TC, but in Game 1 the situation was very different: the Serbian giant he was 8-9.
However, the one who did well is Davis: Jokic went 3-8 against him. On this, Darvin Ham has to step up.
“I can block shots, I can help on the weak side, I can switch with any defender and I can defend the pick and roll. I can defend the small player and go back to the big player to break the circuit. I can defend the post and also the drop,” he said. Davis told ESPN. “You name it, defensively, I can do it. That’s my skill. My defensive skill is to do it all.”
Davis’ trust here is vital, but we also have to be clear: What the Nuggets star has is that he reads situations very well. If they help, unload in the cuts by backline of Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. or on wide shooters like Jamal Murray or Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. If they don’t bend it, it knows where to hurt. So much so that Hachimura took him to the painted zone and had 28 points on 14-19 field goals. He even added four dunks, and as ESPN Stats points out, it is the most of any Jokic game, both in the regular series and in the playoffs.
Less Hachimura and a little more Davis is the first step in trying to maintain an advantage.
Another topic that is not minor: Murray finished with 22 points, 10 assists and also zero turnovers. The Lakers are forced to cut this circuit between both stars, always with the primary focus on Jokic. Davis says it may be the key to this, but it’s not enough to say it: it has to be done.
It would seem difficult for the gold and purple team to do things better than they did in Game 1. The feeling that was left in the atmosphere is that they played a great game, they played at times even above what they had shown in a regular series, but it still wasn’t enough. That’s disappointing for anyone, especially them.
There is no doubt that the Nuggetsreigning NBA champions, second in the West millimeters behind the Oklahoma City Thunder, they are better. But only those who give up lose early.
For that, there is still missing a lot of fabric to cut. The second game is already among us.
It will serve, with Anthony Davis as the obligatory hook, to begin to change hypotheses for certainties.
2024-04-22 20:55:00
#Anthony #Davis #Lakers #key #card #Nuggets
