Nuggets Win But THIS Is SCARY For Them...

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The Nuggets run a Ray Allen type of action for Nikola Jokic. This is a down screen for Jokic to curl outside, gets the ball at the top of the key and knocks down this shot.
In fact, Nikola has been acting like Ray Allen these playoffs since he’s shooting 55.9% from the field and get this: 51.2% from downtown. Astonishing efficiency that once again came into play last night against the Lakers. He did a lot more than that but Denver almost lost the game.
So let me break down the good and the bad from game 1. Let’s get into it.
I don’t know if I was more surprised at the start of the game by the aggressiveness of Jokic or the lack of effort by the Lakers. Watch this entire sequence as he gets 3 offensive rebounds on the same possession. Nikola ended the game with 21 rebounds, 16 of which came in the first half.
And watch him here as he initially stays strong on the contest, but then as he gets the ball, he is literally the last guy back. But then turns into Magic Jonhson and outruns everyone on the court and finds Gordon for the easy layup. Great play by Jokic but this was all LA’s fault.
Look at all of these open opportunities that the Nuggets got in transition. This lack of effort by the Lakers in a conference finals is inexcusable, and this played a big role in how Denver built out the big lead in the first half.
17 of the 19 points in transition for the home team came in that first half.
Not only was he nice on the break, but of course Jokic was magnificent in the half court as well.
On the post up against AD he makes a lightning quick spin move that obviously caught Davis by surprise but shocked me as well.
And when the Lakers tried to double team him, check out the incredible reaction and vision by Nikola as he finds the cutting KCP for the easy layup.
LA however did seem like they found an answer in the second half by putting Rui Hachimura on him. Rui really held his own, and the combination of Hachimura on Jokic and Davis in the paint as the defensive anchor caused some trouble for Denver. This brought the Lakers back from being down by 20 all the way to making it a 3 point game on the road.
I liked the adjustment by the Lakers but on the contrary I didn’t like how Denver didn’t adjust their defense. Check this out.
The Nuggets gave away switches way too easy. Right here Reeves is way too far to shoot this, and he’s not even looking to attack, but Denver quickly switches this into a mismatch and a big advantage for their opponent. So naturally, Austin drops it to Hachimura and now Murray has to battle against a much bigger guy and this is easy 2 points.
Again, despite Lebron being way out here, you see that Gordon doesn’t even try to get in front here which tells us that this was clearly the game plan.
You can see that this happened time and time again and put a lot of pressure on the smaller guys like KCP and especially Murray to have to fight, wasting a lot of their energy. Plus they both were in foul trouble ending the game with 5 each.
I would much rather even go under the screens than give them easy opportunities inside like these.
Despite all of that, even after making it a close one, Denver still managed to win this game in which Caldwell Pope’s 21 points were huge and proved to be the X factor in this game 1 victory.
Great opening of the series. Let me know in the comments who you got for the rest of the way. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.