Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Nuggets Predictions: Will LeBron James & LA upset Nikola Jokic & Denver?

I'll be recording it here shortly. I'm just not sure when they're going to release it, but we'll have an Eastern Conference Finals preview as well, breaking down the heat and the Celtics. You guys know the drip before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over

to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So, just like we usually do, we're gonna do our series notes where I just talk about a couple of the background pieces of information. Then we're gonna do our Chase three points segment where we go over the three biggest matchups that I'm looking at in this particular series. At the end of that, I'll

go over a couple of quick hitters. I'll pick who I think is gonna win and make the case for the other team. So the Nuggets right now are minus one sixty five favorite. That's not insubstantial, so Vegas clearly used them as the slightly better team. The season series was two to two. The home team won every single game, and all four games were January ninth or earlier, so none of the trade deadline pieces involved the games that the Lakers beat the Nuggets. One in particular, Anthony Davis

was out. They went small, they were running up and down the flour crazy in transition. The other one they won with Anthony Davis, was also a great transition effort, because they had lost a game early in this seaar with bad transition defense. Hard to sift through that too much because that sort of thing plays a much bigger role in the regular season than it does in the postseason. But I'm gonna try to zoom in on some specific matchups to try to get a better feel for where

I see this series going. The Nuggets do have home court advantage, which is significant. The Denver home court advantage is statistically more impactful than any other home court advantage in the NBA. That's been proven over many, many years. And they're playing every other day now, which is I think an advantage to Denver in particular, just with the wear and tear on Lebron James and Anthony Davis, especially

since their size won't be an issue. I thought the Lakers actually wore down the Warriors despite their age, but I think a big part of that was down the roster. The Warriors were giving up physical advantages, and you have to make up for a lack of size by playing harder, and it's just really difficult to do that every other night, all right. So these are our chase three points. Number One, can Nikola Yoki force the Lakers to consistently send multiple

defenders towards him in the Anthony Davis matchup? So, the two most common play types logged by Nikola Jokic so far in this postseason are as you could probably guess, pick and roll rollman possessions and post ups. Post ups are actually number one, and pick and roll roll man possessions are number two. Anthony Davis is the best defensive player in the world, and we all saw just the latest example of that against the Golden State Warriors in

the last round. As after Steph Curry ripped through the entire league last year in the postseason and then ripped through the Sacramento Kings in Round one, he had his least efficient playoff series since the twenty nineteen second round series against the Houston Rockets. So for all the Nuggets fans out there talking about how great Jokic is and how great the Nuggets offenses, I agree with you guys

about those things. But guess what if there's one guy that you could say is probably a better offensive engine than Nikola Jokic. If there's one guy, it's Steph Curry. And if you think Jokic is number one, the guy you're saying number two is Steph Curry. And there certainly

isn't much of a gap there. Everything that you're thinking about Jokic and the way he can warp a defense and the problems he can cause for teams, the same could be said for Steph Curry, and the Lakers held him to his least efficient series since twenty nineteen and held the Warriors significantly below their regular season offensive rating had six halves I believe, or they held them under

fifty points and a half. It was a dominant defensive effort, So we are we have to at least consider the possibility that Anthony Davis could have a similar impact on this Denver Nuggets team. Now, this Denver Nuggets team does have I believe more aggregate offensive talent than the Warriors. That goes without saying, so I would absolutely say that this is a better offense overall than the Warriors. So

it will definitely be a challenge. But this will also be the weakest defense that the Lakers have faced so far in this postseason, after facing the defensive player of the Year and the third ranked third ranked defense during the regular season in the Memphis Grizzlies, and a Warriors defense that wasn't as good as they were last year statistically but had the same core players that they had when they were the number two ranked defense and won

the championship last year with Raymond Green and Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton the second and despite all of that, they still finished ahead of the Denver Nuggets in regular season defensive ratings, so there's no doubt that strictly from the standpoint of defensive personnel, the Lakers are facing an easier matchup than they face in a long time, which makes it difficult to predict. But we're gonna do the

best that we can. So as we zoom in on the post up possessions and the pick and roll possessions, to me, it comes down to can the Lakers consistently play those actions two on two or one on one? So in the post, can Anthony Davis guard Jokics without too much help? It's one thing to you know, kind of gap down and kind of stunked at the basketball.

It's another thing to hard double. Right, If Anthony Davis can get away with never having to hard double on the Jokis post ups, that means they can guard it one on one. In pick and roll. You can have your shell drill and guys can be ready to help when they need to. But if you can guard the Denver Nuggets two on two in pick and roll, that goes a long way towards your ability to stop them.

Why because as you go down the roster. Contavious Carwell Pope, Michael Porter Junior, Aaron Gordon, Christian Brown, Bruce Brown, those guys, Jeff Green, those are all guys that's pretty much that plus Jamal Murray is basically the rotation that they shrunk down to there over the course of the Sun series. All of those guys are guys that are capable of making plays against closeout situations. Right, so when the defense is already warped, you know, Michael Porter Junior's best spot

up player in the league this year. Contavius Callwell, Pope, I've said before, is one of my favorite role player two guards in the entire NBA. Loved rooting for that dude when he was a Laker. Christian Brown and his athleticism in transition, and he can make plays cutting out of the weekside corner occasionally knocked down in corner three. Bruce Brown can run, pick and roll, run dribble handoffs,

he can get out and transition. Jeff Green obviously has been a solid role player in the NBA playoffs for a half decade now. All those guys are great, but in a set defense situation, they're not guys that are gonna consistently beat you attack like set defenders with help behind like they need advantage situations. So everything comes down to Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray and their ability to

bring in multiple defenders. Jamal Murray is an excellent player, and he's gonna do some mismatch hunting against Lakers guards. He was doing that a lot against Landry Shamant in the last round. You're gonna see him try to pick on Austin Reeve, and try to pick on d Angelo Russell, and try to pick on Dennis Schroeder. They'll clear the side and just let him post up on the block by himself. He's gonna do some of that, and he's going to knock down some pull up jump shots in

the dribble, handoff and pick and roll situations. With Nikola jokicch there's no doubt that there's gonna be a good percentage of that in this series. The difference is, though, is that that's not the type of player that's going to monumentally dominate and change the geometry of the series in terms of the tactics the way that is Steph

Curry does. He's just not that level of player, and I would imagine that Darvin Ham and his scouting reports are like, hey, obviously the Sun's guards aren't as good as us. Defensively, he lit them up. If we can hold him to a point per game average in the series on twenty shots per game, twenty two shots per game, where his efficiency isn't quite where it needs to be, I think that the Lakers would be happy with that, especially if they can guard those actions two on two

and not have to overhelp on the weak side. I think their biggest concern is giving up the wide open shit the guys like Michael Porter Junior and things along those lines. So again, down the roster, there is talent there and it's a really good fit, but fundamentally it depends on Nikolay jokicch and his ability to warp the defense.

So if Anthony Davis, as a pick and roll an inverted pick and roll defender, can protect the rim and not concede too much pull up jump shooting and in isolation or post up situations, if he can contain Yokic on an island, that goes a long way to giving the Lakers an advantage down the roster, especially as we go down the roster for the Lakers roster, and you're getting Lebron James and Austin Reeves right like you're you're actually getting higher level players from the Lakers down the

roster again, and this will be a theme as we get to our predictions. But if Denver wants to win, Nikola Jokic needs to soundly outplay Anthony Davis, which is certainly on the table. But Steph freaking Curry the defending finals MVP just got outplayed by Anthony Davis based on what he could do on the defensive end of the floor. So don't sleep on Anthony Davis's ability to win that matchup. He is capable. Let's start at the post for starters.

So Nikol Jokicic does have the ability to dislodge Anthony Davis. He's got a high center of gravity. When I went back and watched all the post up possessions, and there are a ton of them, But when I went back and watched all the post up possessions with Yokic on ad this year, he did do a decent job of bumping into his getting to his spots and bumping him off of his base and making those little hook shots

and floaters and things in the lane. But Anthony Davis did on a handful of possessions bother him with his length. Foul trouble in particular is going to be a big factor in this series. Dwight Howard in twenty twenty spent a good portion of the series guarding Nikola Jokich. They got to split fouls. Dwight could be super aggressive. He could pick up three four fouls a game, and it was all just kind of part of the game plan to try to frustrate Jokic. That's not a factor anymore.

There's not a soul on the Lakers roster that has a hope in hell of guarding Nikola Jokic except for Anthony Davis. So it's important, But that same factor plays the other way. The Lakers are one of the very best teams in the league at drawing fouls. Now, I will say Denver is much better at defending without fouling than Golden State was, so I don't expect to see the same type of free throw disparity that we did

in the Golden State series. But the Lakers are good at drawing fouls, so foul trouble for Nikola jokis foul trouble for Anthony Davis. Those are gonna be big factors in this series. That said it, with ad post up defense against Jokic, I think that favors Denver early in the series, but it'll favor La later in the series. I think that Ad is too smart and too physically gifted not to eventually figure out a way to slow

down Jokic in the post. But don't be surprised if early in the series, when Ady doesn't quite have a feel for him yet, if Jokic has a lot of success in the post. Looking at pick and roll, it's a similar concept to what they were doing to the Warriors, right, Like you're gonna try to chase over the top of the screens with Ad and some kind of drop coverage.

He probably won't be as high up as they were against the Warriors because they were more They were more willing to give up roleman possessions to the Warriors than

they will be to Jokis. Because Jokic is, in my opinion, the best roleman in the league and shoots seventy percent and all those stupid push shots and floaters on the short roll, right, So my guess is it's going to be a deeper drop, which means it's going to be a higher responsibility on the guards for the Lakers to chase over the top of those screens, which they did a decent job of in the last round, and most importantly, trying to contain Klay Thompson and Steph Curry coming over

the top of those screens. Is a different type of

challenge than Jamal Murray and KCP. Jamal Murray's great pull up jump shooter, but just not in the same stratosphere as Steph Curry and CACP is a different type of player than Klay Thompson, So it's it's definitely going to be a different type of coverage, but it's going to be the same concept Anthony Davis trying to dissuade those pull up jump shots as best as he can while staying back to protect the rim, namely because of Jokic on the roll and the guards chasing over the top

of the screen. The other thing you saw in twenty twenty is at one point late in the series, in Game four, they ended up putting Lebron on Jamal Murray and Anthony Davis on Nikola Jokic so they could switch the Murray Jokic pick and roll, and Denver ended up countering that by just trying to isole Lebron with Jamal Murray. And some of you guys might remember Lebron blocking Jamal Murray a couple times, enforcing a couple misses at the

rim in that game four wins. So Lebron again, He's gonna be older now and not as mobile, but he's had a really good defensive postseason, especially when he's been engaged, So that might be another wrinkle the Lakers could go to is just put Lebron on Jamal Murray, switch the Jokich Murray pick and roll. Now, who's gonna win that matchup? That's gonna be the dynamic of the series, in my opinion.

If the Nuggets are playing two on three in pick and roll and one on two in post up situations, too many high quality shots from too good of a passer in Jokic on the back end, they're gonna get picked. Apart, if Jokic and Murray can be contained two on two by the Lakers in one on one in the post in the Yokjad matchup, I think they're gonna be able to slow down the Nuggets offense enough for them to

succeed on the other end. That to me is the dynamic of the series and whoever wins that specific matchup as by far the best chance to win the series. Number two, can Lebron James pick apart the Nuggets in pick and roll? So I talked about this a little bit with Colin Coward yesterday, but the big difference in this series for the Lakers compared to the previous two rounds of the defensive matchups. Right, I actually think Aaron Gordon is a better matchup for Lebron than either of

the last two guys that Lebron faced consistently. So he was seen a lot of Dylan Brooks and Xavier Tillman in the first round, and Xavier Tillman was big enough, but he wasn't fast enough, and Lebron ended up beating him off the dribble when he needed to, namely at the end of Game four, Right, and then Dylan Brooks, he could just post him up or bully him whenever

he absolutely needed to in that series. But Dylan Brooks was a very good switchable wing defender, and Jaren Jackson on Anthony Davis, they could just switch that action, So the Lebron Anthony Davis pick and roll was kind of useless in that round, and as a result, they had to attack switches, which really bates Lebron and Anthony Davis into their worst tendencies, which is to settle for jump

shots and to not apply enough rim pressure. Right, same dynamic against the Warriors with Raymond Green on Anthony Davis and Andrew Wiggins on Lebron James. They're switching the Lebron ad pick and roll most of the time and as a result, you lose that advantage. Now it's the same thing. Stagnation. Got to try to generate offense against their switches, or hell, just give the ball to the guards and see if they can do it. Since the Warriors were running drop

coverage against the Laker guards. But that dynamic is going to be completely different in this series. Even though Aaron Gordon is a much better matchup for Lebron James just because he's bigger and stronger than Wiggins and Dylan Brooks are, so he can hold up a little bit better in the post. That's all good, and I think that bodes well for Denver in the series. In isolation situations, and in post up situations, but in pick and roll in particular, I think that the Nuggets are going to be in

some trouble on a couple of different fronts. So and this is why I'm considering this the Lebron James series on the offensive end of the floor. So on film, what I noticed in the footage at the beginning of the year. Now it's important to note that they were this was before the deadline. So it's a lot of Patrick Beverlely on the weak side. It's a lot of Troy Brown Junior on the week side. It's a lot of Kendrick Nunn back when he couldn't make a damn shot,

and so the Nuggets were really loading up. But it was very similar to the Phoenix Sun's coverage. It was kind of yokicchen a high drop up near the level of the screen, Aaron Gordon chasing over the top, and almost all three other defenders have a foot in the paint except for maybe in the strong side corner right, and so those skip passes are open. It's very similar to what they did to Phoenix. And I thought I was talking with Matt Moore this morning. Actually i'd go

to his twitter feed. I'm sure he'll have the link because we got pretty deep into this series. He's a big guy covers the Nuggets, big Nuggets optimist, and yeah, I was asking him. I was like, do you think that Phoenix left some meat on the bone as it pertains to the Nuggets pick and roll coverage with how hard they were loading up?

in this postseason run. Dangelo Russell on the weak side, He's shooting thirty nine percent on catch and shoot threes in this postseason run. Ruy Hatcha Mura on the weak side fifty three percent on catch and shoot threes in this postseason run, Lonnie Walker on the weak side thirty eight percent on catch and shoot threes in this postseason run. So there's gonna be much more dependable weak side shooters than what they had during the regular season, and that

coverage is gonna leave some openings for Lebron. What I like about it the most for Lebron's sake is it implicates his brain more than it does his body. So when they're switching pick and roll, Lebron has a bully smaller defenders right, Whereas if in a drop coverage he's getting downhill by the by virtue of the coverage, all he has to do is set Aaron Gordon up for

the screen than Aaron Gordon's behind him. So now he's going downhill naturally as part of the coverage, which puts the onus on his brain to make the necessary reads as opposed to switching coverage bonuses on his body. And so a lot of times Lebron would get really passive for long stretches offensively over the last two series, in large part because he's just trying to conserve his energy. He can actually conserve his energy as a playmaker and

high pick and roll against the Nuggets. I think that's a significant advantage. Another thing I think you'll see a lot of is what Lebron did towards the end of the Warriors series, which is picking on the smaller Nuggets

players in pick and roll. So instead of the Lebron Anthony Davis pick and roll, what if it's trying to target Jamal Murray, Contavious Cabble, Pope and Michael Porter, Junior, Bruce Brown and Christian Brown and switches just like he did down the stretch to Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole, Steph Curry, Andrew Wiggins, even in straight ISOs or straight post ups. But Lebron would sit at the top of the key, call the defender that he wants into the action. Say

it's Steph Curry and Lonnie Walker's on him right. So Lonnie Walker's gonna set like a ghost screen basically and funnel off to the left side on the wing, and Steph is going to try to hedge and recover or he might end up having to switch onto le and Lebron.

What he would do is just hard kind of take a banana driving route along the right side of the floor around the hedge and either he would get downhill because the hedger would allow Lebron to kind of turn the corner or he would get the switch that he wanted. And if he got the switch that he wanted, once he kind of took that banana route, he would turn and then he would start posting up right and then he would start trying to bully that smaller defender to

whatever spot he needed to do. And like again, that one's really energy consuming for Lebron. So it's more of a late series thing or a late game thing. But Lebron attacked Moses Moody. Lebron attacked Dante DiVincenzo, he attacked Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Jordan pul Like. He was relentless attacking the Warriors smaller defenders towards the end of that series. Don't be surprised if you see a lot of that against the Denver Nuggets to try to take advantage of

his size there over the course of the series. Number three, who will win the Battle of the bench. So both teams law a backup center. And this in particular is very interesting to me because over the course of this postseason, Lebron's plus minus numbers have not been very good. And a big part of that or is on off numbers, I should say, and a big part of that is because the Lakers don't have a backup center. And one of the things that Taylor Jenkins did with the Memphis

Grizzlies is he staggered. He flipped Jared Jackson's rotation. Jared Jackson during the regular season was on Anthony Davis's rotation. He switched it up because Darvin ham wasn't switching his rotation to make sure Jared Jackson was on the floor for all of the Laker bench group minutes.

Ruy Hatchamura is gonna be able to hang just fine in that group as a kind of a small ball five defensive rebounder type compared to the way he did against Kevon Looney and Jaron Jackson. So I actually really like the bench matchup for the Lakers in this series after it was a problem in the previous two rounds. A couple of quick hitters guard play Ken Bruce Brown, Contavio's Coldwell Pope and Jamal Murray outplay Dennis Schroeder, Austin

Reeves and D'Angelo Russell. Who's going to provide better shot making in defense?

This series is gonna have some similar stuff Michael Porter Junior runs a lot of off screen action. Contavious called what Pope runs a lot of off screen action. If Ruey ends up in one of those matchups, he could

be in a situation where where he could struggle. I think Ruiy's gonna have to play when Lebron's off the floor, so he can guard Aaron Gordon as much as possible or Jeff Green someone like that, so he can kind of be more to help situation and be a on the rim as a defender, rim protector and defensive rebounder. But the Lakers need their their forwards to be an

effective defensive rebounding team. He saw that a lot against the Warriors where they ended up going small and then they gave up twelve offensive rebounds in the first half because you've got three guards on the floor and Lebron James and Anthony Davis have to do so much physically to overcome that. So can the Lakers forwards play big minutes. That's going to be another one, last, but not least transition.

I mentioned this at the start of the show, but Jokic knows how to punish a d when he's lazy. He sees when he's on the floor and he sees when he's bitching at the refs, and he sprints and tries to get a cross match in a quick post seal. He also can beat the Lakers in transition with outlet passes, So Biggs running the floor, particularly Ad that's going to be a big one in this series as well. My three points were brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited.

Earn five percent on travel purchased or Chase three percent on dining including takeout, three percent on drug stores, and one point five percent on everything else. How do you cash back? So my prediction, I'm picking the Lakers and six games. I think Anthony Davis will significantly hamper Denver's defense, just like he did every other offense he's faced in this postseason. Golden State was a top ten offense in the regular season. They had a one to fifteen point

one offensive raiding in the regular season. The Lakers held him to one ten point two. The Grizzlies were eleventh in offense. They had a one fourteen point seven offensive raiding in the regular season. The Lakers held them to one oh two point eight, so utterly stifled their offense. Again, this is the better offense than either of the two

they faced. But just like I said with Steph Curry, you'd be foolish to think that Anthony Davis can't have a similar impact on Jokic, at least to some extent. I also think this will be by far the easiest defensive match up the Lakers have faced so far in the postseason. Memphis was the number three regular season defense. We talked about all defense defender on Lebron and Dylan Brooks, and then the defensive Player of the Year guarding Anthony

Davis Golden State. You've got the best defensive player this era and Draymond Green guarding Anthony Davis. And you've got Andrew Wiggins, who I said after last year's postseason might be the best perimeter defender in basketball, guarding Lebron James. And they just have better personnel, right, Both of those teams just have better defensive personnel than what Denver brings

to the table. That puts a lot of onus on Lebron James to be the offensive maestro that he's capable of being, and I think he's got to dominate that end of the floor. To me, it's Lebron's series. Offensively, it's Anthony Davis's series Defensively. If Nikola Jokic can defend well enough to slow down Lebron on offense, and if he can punish Anthony Davis enough on the other end of the floor, I think the Nuggets can win. But I believe the Lakers will win those matchups at least

to some extent. So I am picking the Lakers in six. Denver's path to victory, it's pretty simple. Jokic has to dominate a d If he does enforce his consistent help or gets Anthony Davis in foul trouble, I think this could be over quick. As a matter of fact, if Denver wins this series, I think it'd be in five games. I think they would win games one and two, be two to zero, steal one in LA to make it three to one, and then close out the series in five.

So picking the Lakers in six wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Denver one have a ton of respect for those guys. I'm riding with the Lakers right now. I think they're a much better defensive team, and I think they're capable of picking apart this Nuggets team enough to advance. All Right, guys, that's all I have for today.