CK3: Livin da Nug life, we break em down & smoke em: Denver Nuggets vs Your Boss Angeles Lakers

[UserNameless]

Assuming Miami wins this series, Boston’s window will still be open. There window is about as open as Tatums window to make the leap. They go as far as Tatum takes them. If he makes the leap and becomes a generational player, Boston will always have a window. KD is turning 32 this year(if he hasn’t already), and Boston’s core is young. Outside of Miami(assuming we get land a big free agent in the next two years) and Giannis, Boston will always have at least a window. Yeah, Indy will be good, so will Brooklyn, so will any Giannis team, but if Boston keeps that young core together and they all make that leap together, they’ll always have a window.

alotta IFs, but well reasoned .

 

[Fortunate Lee]

I was wondering if that would become a meme. The way he was looking at jokic was

He had the goin on lmao

 

[Jplaya2023]

The series is over and as a laker and bron hater, I take no pleasure in saying this, They will win the chip this season, for one reason only
their offense is simply superior, they score 100 plus pts consistently and easily regardless of the quality of the oppostion's defence whereas the other remaining teams like heat,denver and celtics
simply cannot match that level of scoring (certainly not in the bubble playoffs) elite offense will beat elite defence 98 time out of 100.

Lakers defence isn't inferior either, so how do you beat a team with a vastly superior offense (statistically in the playoffs bubble) and a defence that's comparable to the opposition?

Calm down breh the nuggets dont take shyt seriously until they down 3-1

 

[Big Boss]

Lakers should win in 5

 

[T.he I.nformant]

Real talk two things jump out to you when you watch the nuggets vs lakers. The lakers are older but many of their older players are just as quick and fast or faster then the nuggets who are younger. Second the most the laker players have high defensive IQs vs the nuggets who have multiple players with low defensive IQs. There were at least 5 turnovers created just off of rondo, howard, green, LBJ, AD, Morris and Caruso sniffing out a play. Hell LBJ and howard caused 3 or 4 turnovers just communicated on switches and sniffing the play out.

One play in particular where LBJ saw in like a millisecond that green was gonna get picked in a switch and he picked on greens man (murray) forced the ball not to go to murray which the play ended up getting blown out on a turnover I believe. This is the type of defensive IQ that I am talking about in which murray and jokic do not have.

I’ll say there were several plays where the Nuggets were trying to create action of their pick and roll and they ended up forcing some unnecessary turnovers. Instead of Murray forcing to whoever is rolling or sending an errant pass across the court he should maintain his dribble. There might be some separation off of the pick where he can launch a jumper or maybe he can attack the rim where he can try to finish for himself or dish to one of his teammates. Fixable stuff. They should watch the film, go over options, and execute the adjustments.

 

[darius19]

 

[Illuminatos]

That Hate U Give LeBron Is Fueling Everything

 

[drifter]

Good breakdown of some things LAL did to disrupt Denver's 2 man. Somebody else is going to have to take a giant step for Denver to win, this is the IQ difference Kawhi was talking about. All of this worked on the Clippers over and over but it's ineffective against the Lakers.

 

[Originalman]

If it's the play I'm thinking of I don't think the Lakers got a steal cause Nuggets didn't make the pass when he saw Lebron comiing It did blow up their play though and ended up in a bad Nuggets shot.. I remember the play cause I went nuts when he happened. Not just Lebron reading the pick and using it as an opportunity to jump a passing lane but also Green's recognition and him immediately stepping back and guarding Lebron's man. That rotation and communication was beautiful.

Yep thats the play and I actually think the denver player dribbled the ball into a crowd and off his knee out of bounds.

That was all high defensive IQ. I rewinded that play twice and showed my wife that play. I told her this is a perfect example of playing defense on a string.

Also when I mention low defensive IQ of murray and jokic one play summed it up. How late in the 3rd qrt Anthony is shooting a corner 3 and joker has 4 fouls. Joker runs out to davis and instead of contesting without fouling he over commits and gets his 5th foul.

That was perfect example of jokers low defensive IQ. Not realizing he has 4 fouls, its less than 1 minute left in the 3rd and that they were down by 19 and still had another qrt to play.

 

[Originalman]

Good breakdown of some things LAL did to disrupt Denver's 2 man. Somebody else is going to have to take a giant step for Denver to win, this is the IQ difference Kawhi was talking about. All of this worked on the Clippers over and over but it's ineffective against the Lakers.

@threattonature this is the play I was referring to.

 

[Originalman]

Biggest takeaways

There's a big difference in actual championship pedigree (Lakers) and being paper champs (Clippers). Lakers played them smarter, the rotations were sharper. Even when DEN some showed life LA stomped the fire out quick. Now Denver knows this is a different series/team.

Jokic has to watch his fouls. Not sure how when AD draws fouls at a good rate for a big and LA can target him with LeBron switches if they need to, but Denver have to find a way to protect him.

Dwight's energy was great, he flied around like Orlando Dwight defensively. He's playing like somebody that knows he might not make it back here so he's leaving it on the court. He's also well rested for not playing a whole series.

And IDC about FT totals for that 2nd quarter, lost in all that is LeBron doing most of his scoring that period and then the game got out of hand. Vogel's kept him at really low minutes considering LeBron's resume, in several games this playoffs. Only played 31 tonight and completely deferred to AD and they blew them out. Not sure if it's the ankle or not but that's spooky for Denver.

Great write up. I think folks either fell for the hype or didn't watch the games in the regular season.

Mcgee, AD and Dwight literally terrorized Jokic during the regular season (in the 3 games lebron played). Even after the regular seson games...kats on reddit were saying it was criminal what the lakers bigs were doing to Jokic. So most non casuals knew that joker was in a world of trouble this series.

Second in the next few year either MPJ got to turn into a swiss army knife defender like Pippen or Horry or Denver got to find a tyson chandler for Joker. Cause defensively when talking about Joker...that dog ain't gonna hunt (as the country folks say) and there is no way you winning championships when your biggest dude on the court can't and not willing to guard his own shadow.

 

[Trav]

:nugsisfood:

 

[drifter]

Great write up. I think folks either fell for the hype or didn't watch the games in the regular season.

Mcgee, AD and Dwight literally terrorized Jokic doing the regular season (in the 3 games lebron played). Even after the regular seson games...kats on reddit were saying it was criminal what the lakers bigs were doing to Jokic. So most non casuals knew that joker was in a world of trouble this series.

Second in the next few year either MPJ got to turn into a swiss army knife defender like Pippen or Horry or Denver got to find a tyson chandler for Joker. Cause defensively when talking about Joker...that dog ain't gonna hunt (as the country folks say) and there is no way you winning championships when your biggest dude on the court can't and not willing to guard his own shadow.

Yeah it wasn't too hard to imagine last night happening if they made it through the Clippers, said it in another thread but I thought Denver was the overall easiest match up for the Lakers. At least OKC/Utah have Adams/Gobert to slow down AD, Houston showed they might've been an issue the last few regular season match ups, then LA went down to their size and ended them. Clippers really only care to play the Lakers but couldn't make it.

Denver doesn't have an answer for AD now just like they didn't have one all year. I don't think you can shut Jokic down completely but if you can throw bodies in front of him that are as mobile or even more so and can frustrate him and break up their sets, you're doing a great job.

They'll make adjustments and be more competitive tomorrow, blowouts happen and then the margins get closer like always. The most concerning thing is not that they were blown out, it's that they were blown out without LeBron scoring a single point the entire second half. I don't think I've ever seen any LeBron team do that and it's not that he was defended so well and taken out, or just couldn't buy a shot. Felt like he kinda just didn't bother lol.

 

[Originalman]

Yeah it wasn't too hard to imagine last night happening if they made it through the Clippers, said it in another thread but I thought Denver was the overall easiest match up for the Lakers. At least OKC/Utah have Adams/Gobert to slow down AD, Houston showed they might've been an issue the last few regular season match ups, then LA went down to their size and ended them. Clippers really only care to play the Lakers but couldn't make it.

Denver doesn't have an answer for AD now just like they didn't have one all year. I don't think you can shut Jokic down completely but if you can throw bodies in front of him that are as mobile or even more so and can frustrate him and break up their sets, you're doing a great job.

They'll make adjustments and be more competitive tomorrow, blowouts happen and then the margins get closer like always. The most concerning thing is not that they were blown out, it's that they were blown out without LeBron scoring a single point the entire second half. I don't think I've ever seen any LeBron team do that.

Yep I have never seen a lebron team allow him to coast this long. Its like how aging Duncan was able to coast on those spurs teams in the 2010s.

Yeah Jokic is too good to slow down. But I stand by the theory is the greatest defense you can throw at a great offensive player is to make him work defensively and that is what is killing joker. He has to guard AD on every part of the court. He has to guard howard for put backs and lobs..plus battle him and AD on the boards. Then he has to guard the paint against LBJ, rondo, caruso and KCP drives. Then on top of that guard Mcgee for 10 minutes a game against lobs and the Lakers trying to run after every miss and make. Oh and I forgot the 10 million pick and rolls that LBJ and Rondo are going to run against Jokic

This ain't the jazz where all he had to do is focus on rudy and guard the paint against Mitchell..plus the jazz were gonna walk the ball up the court. Or when he had to guard the clippers who for some reason barely ran pick and roll or pushed the ball up the court. Or how joker had the foot speed to beat Zubac or the height to beat harrell.

The lakers a totally different beast. Jokic gonna be skinnier than bol after the lakers beat him up and run him to death in this series.

 

[threattonature]

@threattonature this is the play I was referring to.

Yup same one