Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Nuggets WCF Game 2 Reaction: Jokic & Denver take 2-0 leader over LeBron & LA

get these shows. Well to Denver. Nuggets have gone up two zero on the Los Angeles Lakers, putting them in a very precarious position. It's going to be very difficult for the Lakers to win four out of the next five games. So the Nuggets are any commanding positions or congratulations to Nuggets fans. You're in good shape potentially for a run to the NBA Finals. The series is not over. Gonna get into a lot of stuff, but man, you gotta be feeling pretty good if you're in den right now,

you guys know the drill before we get started. To subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LTU, so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And if, 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, last but not least, you guys have heard me talk about game Time, the

fastest scoring ticketing app of the United States. If you're looking to get out to an NBA game, if you're looking to get out to a baseball game, or a concert or comedy show, game Time has amazing last minute deals on tickets to all of these. So if you're trying to get out and see your favorite artists performing a concert, game Time's got a deal for you. If you want to get out. If you're a Nuggets fan, you want to get out to Game five, game Time's

gonna have a deal for you. They've taken amazing care of me in the past. I know they're going to take amazing care of you, guys. I highly recommend you try it, so no matter where you live, get out and have some fun this week. Download the game Time app, enter email, and redeem code Hoops for twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply again, enter email and code Hoops. That's Hops for twenty dollars off. Download game time today,

last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All Right, So what I'd like to do as we kind of work through this, I'm not gonna go too heavy into the x's and o's tonight. We're going to talk a couple of things, specifically with the success that Jamal Murray was having at the end of the game. But obviously, like any other fan, as you guys know, I'm rooting for the Lakers in this series. They're my one rooting interest. I was very

invested in what was a highly entertaining basketball game. So tomorrow morning, I'm gonna wake up and I'm going to rewatch the game in its entirety and do a more detailed x's and and o's breakdown in the morning. Also, for you Eastern Conference Finals people interested in that series, I'm gonna do a little film breakdown on that as well. But let's start with the Battle of the Big So. I thought this was a great example of the difference

between Nikola Yokitch and Anthony Davis. Now, remember with the way that I view best Player in the world conversations. It's very different than the way a lot of other

people view them. Like for me, it's kind of like a status symbol that you earn as a sign of respect, right, And so I kind of was leaning towards Anthony Davis after the Golden State Warriors series because one, he had just outplayed Steph Curry, who I thought was the second best player in the world, and Jannisontana Kumpo had kind of removed himself from the discussion, and I thought he outplayed Hi mainly on the defensive end of four and

he's a champion. I thought he played a superstar level in the twenty twenty Playoffs, including out playing Nikola Jokic had head albeit three years ago, and I thought he kind of deserved that title for now. Nikol Jokic can absolutely grab it, but for me, you got to have the trophy. And so that's just kind of like my recognition of the way that I refer to the best

player in the world. Right, But in terms of like who's a better basketball player in this series, I mean, it's screaming off the screen through two games, and I thought it was evident in them both having kind of down games, you know, And this is a great example of why I hate looking at box scores, because if you look at Anthony Davis's box score from Game one, he had forty points and ten rebounds, and I thought he was so disengaged on the defensive end compared to

what he's capable of and on the glass and especially in transition defense, that I didn't think it was one of his best games. And this one kind of followed more what you would expect from the box score. This was a bad Anthony Davis game. He competed defensively at a higher level than he did in the first game. He competed on the glass at a higher level than he did in the first game, but not to any

sort of amazing extent. You don't leave this game thinking Anthony Davis is the overwhelming defensive force that you felt many times during the Golden State series and during the Memphis Grizzly series. And he goes four to fifteen from the field, he has fourteen rebounds, that's where the rebounding effort showed up. But he had four turnovers, including two pivotal turnovers in the fourth quarter that both led to Nuggets runouts, and he just gave you absolutely nothing on

the offensive end. And you know, again, like there's it's been overstated the Anthony Davis up and down thing, because he tends to be pretty damn good defensively, night in and night out for the most part, and so it's unfair to be like, oh, Anthony Davis had sixteen he was garbage tonight. It's like, well, did he anchor your defense as you gotta win like Game six against Memphis, then yeah, that's actually a pretty damn good game. But they're all of the coverage of Anthony Davis and his

offensive struggles going up and down are legitimate. Like the dude just for whatever reason, one game he's super polished with those little push shots and hook shots in the lane, and then the next game he just can't make them. And he got great looks in the paint in this

game and he just couldn't make them. And it becomes a problem because with the way that Denver runs their pick and roll coverage, and they kind of tweaked it at various points in this game, like they've been coming with the high drop for the most part through three halves of the series, and then they sat him way back to start the a little bit in game two, but then they started bringing him way back up to

the level. This screen again a little bit there in that fourth quarter, but either way, the pocket passes what's open there. So it's like absolutely vitally important to the Laker offense for Anthony Davis to be making those little floaters and pop shots in the lane. It's it's just it's an important part of the chain of the Laker offense as a virtue of the coverage. Remember, the coverage dictates the way you have to attack. When teams run drop.

You need to have guys that can either hit pull up jump shots or apply pressure on the rim, or make shots in the pocket, or hit the shots on the kickout when they tag the roller right when they're switching. It's much more about mismatch hunting, and you've got to be able to back a guy down closer to the rim, or beat him off the dribble, or consistently shoot over the top like that. In this particular coverage that Denver is running bad, Anthony Davis games are going to be

absolutely devastating to the Laker offense. And now we look at the Jokic game, which I also thought was, by Jokic's standards, not his best. He's been pretty bad defensively in the entire series. The Lakers have mostly had their way with him in his pick and roll coverage. But he was otherworldly great in the in Game one. And also I want to give him a little bit more credit defensively. A huge part of closing out defensive possessions

is grabbing defensive rebounds. And obviously he's done a great job controlling the defensive glass throughout this series. But with Nikol Jokic, like his bad game is nine for twenty one from the field. Still made a bunch of shots when his team needed him to, Still made a bunch of those little hook shots and pushots and floaters and ones. Still got to the foul line, still crashed the offensive glass,

still controlled the defensive glass, and had twelve assists. And that's the difference is with Nikola jokicch he's a little bit more resilient when it comes to the ups and downs that take place over the course of an NBA playoff series. And that's the thing, Like, what did I say coming out of Game two or coming out of Game one? In my film session, I said I actually

thought effort played a role for both teams. I thought the Lakers really mailed in the first half and never truly gained control the game defensively until the last six minutes. And then when I went back and rewatched the game, I thought Denver was really really sloppy defensively in the second half of that game, where I thought they let

go of the rope, so to speak. So effort was such a huge role in that first game, in the Lakers struggling so much early and the Nuggets struggling so much late, and so I said, I expected this to be much more low scoring, and I expected both teams to shoot in the mid forties. Well, like LA shot forty four percent from the field and the Nuggets shot forty four percent from the field. Honestly, the difference in the game. I said, both teams were shooting the mid

thirties from three, and the Lakers would win close. Well, the Nuggets shot in the mid thirties from three and the Lakers shot in the mid twenties from three, and that really is the difference in the game. If the Lakers were going to win this game, they needed to knock down a couple more of those threes. They needed Lebron to go two for six instead of zero for six. The needed D'Angelo Russell to go two for five instead of one for five. And so that's kind of the

difference in the game. And you know, uh, we're gonna talk a little bit more about the Laker effort stuff later, but that's just the reality of their predicament in the series. Denver is better than Golden State and is better than Memphis specifically when it comes to offensive firepower. And so you really held them under your thumb for three quarters for the most part, I'll say two and two thirds of quarter because that late quarter run for the Nuggets.

But they have so much firepower that they are capable of beating you even when you throw your best punch. That's the difference. This is not a series where the Lakers can go up and down with their effort level in that same cadence that they did in the first two rounds. You know, in Game one, I thought the Lakers kind of punted it. Game two, the Lakers gave you everything they got and it still wasn't enough because Jamal Murray caught fire at the end of the game.

And that's absolutely a risk. So there are what five games left in the series, and even if the Lakers do throw five great punches, they might only win. They need to win four of those, but they have a chance to lose those games anyway because of the sheer amount of fire your power that Denver has. That's the difference. As Lebron said, at every round, each test gets a little bit harder. Right like after Memphis, he goes, this,

next one's going to be harder. Well, they said, he said that right after the Warrior series, like this one's going to be harder. Well, you're learning that in real time with how good this Denver Nuggets team is. So I want to talk about Jamal Murray, so I talked a lot about in the series preview. I believe about his the way he's a complimentary star to Nikol Jokic, and actually I think it was after Game six against Phoenix. But that's the reality of the way that this partnership works.

It's very similar to the Lebron James and Anthony Davis partnership, where what makes it work offensively is they kind of play complimentary parts. You need two pieces to a strong pick and roll attack, and both of them can fulfill really both ends of that role. They can even run inverted stuff. And the same goes for Murray and Jokic.

Is you know there, they did it. The Lakers just did a much better job of, you know, on the on the the the pocket pass to Nikol Jokic, of having Lebron come off of Aaron Gordon and Tag Yokitch quickly and Anthony Davis running back to Aaron Gordon. The Lakers were so sharp on the backside of their defense. But here's the thing, and this is another part of what makes Nikola Jokic so damn good. He's an incredible screener.

He's one of the best screeners in the game. And so how did the Nuggets get off at the end of the game. They stopped going to the damn pocket pass and Jamal Murray started coming off of those dribble handoffs looking to shoot, and again you held him down. I think it was he five to seventeen through through three quarters, I believe it or something. I can't remember the exact number, but he didn't shoot well for three quarters, but he broke away in that fourth quarter. And that's

the beauty of complimentary stars. So the Lakers are throwing the kitchen sink at the Jokic part of that dribble handoff and off of that pick and roll right like they're tagging him on the roll. They're helping off the weak side and rotating their Lebron I thought did an amazing job defending Jokic for portions of this game, and that's something the Lakers are gonna have to explore more over the course of the series. But against the truly

elite guys, you have to seed something. And if Anthony Davis is gonna sag back on the roll, or if Lebron James and Rueyatcha Murray are gonna stay glued to Nikola Jokic, then you need the guard to chase over the top of those actions and apply pressure to Jamal Murray. And they just did it, and they tried a bunch of different things too. Eventually they tried an Anthony Davis

switch on Jamal Murray. And I called this out in the moment, but there were three seconds left on the shot clock and Anthony Davis is playing back, conceding a jump shot to Jamal Murray, and kudos to Jamal Murray hit him with a hard step back and knocked it down. And on the ad front, like, that's the thing, dude, you're not bringing anything to the table offensively. You have to be perfect defensively to help your team. That needs to be your competitive response to the fact that your

SHOT's not falling. And in a pivotal possession of the game, you conceded a step back jump shot to a hot shooter and from there it just didn't matter. And I mean, I've talked about this a lot with skill development when we talk about it on the show, but with pull up jump shooting in particular, when you get to your muscle memory, it's over really once you're in rhythm, and you can get disrupted from your rhythm in a bunch

of different ways. But a lot of all these guys, Jamal Murray's just one guy in a long line of guards in this league where when they really got it going, it just doesn't matter what you do as long as they get just a fraction of separation. They've just worked so hard over the years on these complicated off the dribble jump shots that they just you're helpless. And so that's the thing, and that's the beauty of both of

these teams in a lot of ways. Is they just have so many different ways they can beat you, right, Like any given game, Austin Reeves can go for twenty five, He's gone for twenty plus five times in this playoff run. You know, Danzel Russell's given the Lakers over thirty in a game. But the Nuggets can do the same thing. You know, Jokic can kill you one game. Jamal Murray can kill you one game. You have the Michael Porter

junior factor at any given moment. Contavious cabble Pope had his season high and field goals made if I remember correctly, in Game one. So like, both of these teams have way too much firepower for any team to get away with laziness. And so I thought Game one was a lazy game for both teams that the Nuggets ended up winning.

And I thought Game two was both teams threw their best punch and the Nuggets were just better, and uh, you know, and again like like we'll talk about it when we get to the Lakers, but they just Lebron James in particular, I thought really got fatigued down to the stretch of that game. But shout out to Jamal

Murray man. Like, that's we always talked about the two to one one theory, right, you need two games from your best player, you need one game from your second best player, and you need one game from your role players to win the series. Well, you got a Jokic game. He was best player on the four by mile in game one dominates. Well, you just got your Jamal Murray game. If Jokic gets you won more and you have another game where all your role players get hot, that's the

series right there. So Jamal Murray, Game two of the twenty twenty three Western Conference Finals will be referred to as the Jamal Murray Game. Looking forward, Uh, let's talk about a couple of the guys on the Nuggets. I wanted to shout. I thought Bruce Brown was awesome throughout this game, particularly on the defensive end. He was applying a lot of pressure to Lebron James over the course of the game. I thought that was a big part of the fatigue element that led to Lebron missing some

of those threes in the fourth quarter. He also hit two massive threes in the third quarter in transition. You know, you could tell what I really appreciate about Bruce Brown's game is he's got kind of a slow release and it's definitely not exactly a fluid shot. It's very rigid and has a little bit of a hitch in it.

But to his credit, he's got great muscle memory. Every Bruce Brown three looks exactly the same, and you could see when he really has the space and can load up into his form and trust his muscle memory, that thing's going in and he made two massive ones. Michael Porter Junior made a huge three during that run in transition. It was it was I'm I'm really impressed by the Nuggets. Like I said, if you're a Nuggets fan, I congrats to you guys. You've got a great team and you're

in great shape. And uh man, I'm blown away by the offensive firepower because, like again, the Laker defense is real. You saw that in that first half, held them down to forty eight. But the sign of a truly great offense is that they can always push through even against the truly great defenses. And there you go. They go for what's that fifty to sixty sixty points in the second half, So there you go. Difference in the game.

Let's talk a little bit about Laker efforts. So again, the Lakers followed a very similar cadence over the first two series. They threw the kitchen sinking game one, won the game, punted game two, through the kitchen sink in game three, blew them out both series, kind of tried to do the bare bare minimum to win game four in both series, barely won both games. Then they punted game five, and then they threw the kitchen sinking game

six and one. And again those are teams that again, and I actually think the Warriors in particular are very good, but I think this Nuggets team is probably better than any team that was in the Western Conference in last year's playoff run. And so again this is the way that competition steps up as things progress. And in this particular series, even when the Lakers throw their best punch, as you saw tonight, they're not going to be able

to overcome every single time. And so what that tells me is that strategy of mailing it in is gonna end this series quickly. If they mail in one of those two games in LA, this series can be over in five. And again, they have to win four of the next five games. And the only chance that they do that is if they bring hallacious effort in all five games, simply because they're probably gonna lose one of

those anyway, and again, the series is not over. I'm never going to count out Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Lebron James multiple times in his career has come back from down two to oh to win a playoff series. He did it against the Warriors in twenty sixteen, he did it against the Pistons in two thousand and seven. He's done it before. But this is a different phase in his career and him and Anthony Davis just haven't quite been good enough. And that's a big part of

why they're down too oh. But in order for them to win this series, the two of those guys are gonna have to be a lot better now. Lebron James in particular, I actually thought this was one of his better two way playoff games. He was pretty rough defensively. In his first shift, he got beat on a back cup by Aaron Gordon. There was a switch with Anthony Davis where he's supposed to run down to the rim with Nikola Jokic, and he didn't. He just conceded the

shot to Nikola Jokic. But when he came back in in the second or end of the first quarter for his second shift, he was incredible defended Nikola. Jokic was cooking in high pick and roll, controlled everything for them offensively while they were getting absolutely nothing anywhere else on the roster. I thought it was one of Lebron's best

two way playoff games. But here's the problem. At this phase in his career, just doesn't have the gas tank that he used to have, and he didn't get anything from anybody else, and so when he got to the fourth quarter, the legs weren't there, start settling for threes, and Lebron's having one of those postseasons like twenty fifteen where he's just, for whatever reason, just can't get it

going with the jump shot. And it reminds me so much of twenty fifteen because there are these for a game or two where you see it come through, but it just this slump just never ends for him. And those were pretty damn good looks there in that fourth quarter, but they're concession shots because he's tired, like he's just like I need to just throw this up essentially as a punt and hopefully I make one or two of them,

and he made zero of them. But I'm not gonna get too down on Lebron because I thought he was the best player on the floor for the Lakers tonight, and actually was the best player on the floor in the game through three quarters. He just just didn't bring up in that fourth quarter. Anthony Davis. Again, like we talked about earlier, when he has these bad offensive games, specifically against the Nuggets, it's just gonna be super detrimental

to their offense. But again, when that's happening, he needs to dominate the game defensively, and I didn't think he brought enough defensively in this game to make up for what he did offensively. Couple three adjustments that I wrote down for the Lakers, and again I'm going to do a film session tomorrow morning for both teams for both series of four teams and kind of go over adjustments

for everybody. But things that stood out for me in the live watching with that Murray dribble handoff, it's time for them to go to what they did in the twenty twenty bubble, which is put Lebron James on Jamal Murray and put Anthony Davis on Nikola Jokic and switch the handoff, or if you're gonna put Ruby Hatcher Murra on Nikola Jokic, still put Lebron James on Jamal Murray

and switch the dribble handoff. That's basically what they did in the twenty twenty playoffs, which led to Jamal Murray going for ISOs or at least at the at least in ISO's he's got to generate separation rather than getting separation naturally as part of the coverage because of how good of a screener Nikola Jokic is. So that's an adjustment I expect the Lakers to make. Got to stop

sending Anthony Davis to the offensive glass. No, if you want to see an example of what I'm talking about, you'll see it in the You'll see it on my twitter feed. I actually tweeted out a video that kind of demonstrated an example of what I'm talking about. Anthony Davis crashed the offensive glass all night and had one

offensive rebound. Why Because Nikola Jokic, for as bad as he is defensively, is a fantastic defensive rebounder, and so he's not getting any advantage there and what's happening is the Lakers are sending two forwards every single possession to the offensive glass, and the Nuggets are running on them. And so the play that you'll see, there's a Austin Reeves pick and roll, if I remember correctly, and Austin

throws a great cross court pass to DiAngelo Russell. He takes a three, he misses it, but both Jared Vanderbilt and Anthony Davis crashed the offensive glass and miss if you freeze frame it. When Jokic gets the rebound, both of those two guys are the furthest back and there's five on three going the other way, and to Vanderbilt and AD's credit, they sprinted back, but it just they weren't back in time, and Michael Porter Junior ends up

getting a corner three. So at a certain point, when you acknowledge the fact that the Lakers are actually getting a ton of stops in the half court against the Nuggets and Jamal Murray just got hot with a bunch of difficult shot making in that fourth quarter, you're gonna win the series if you can keep them in the half court. And I trust the shot result with Jamal Murray, right as long as they bring the right amount of effort,

but the Nuggets are thrashing them in transition. At a certain point you have to make an adjustment and stop sending guys to the offensive glass. That's an adjustment I expect. And the D'Angelo Russell, this is two games now where he's looked pretty much unplayable. He's getting into it with Bruce Brown and clearly letting it affect him. He's dying on screens. He's not competing on the glass. He's not

hitting shots. Like again with D'Angelo Russell. If he's not hitting shots, he doesn't bring enough to the table to justify having him out there. That's where you're almost better off going with the Troy Brown Jr. Even though he has his own limitations. At least he's gonna compete defensively and on the glass, and so it might be time to go away from D'Angelo Russell. I would try him in Game three just and hope that the home court energy kind of brings a certain level to d LO

that he can be impactful. But you need to have a quick leash with D'angela Russell and take him out of the game if it's not working. Well forward. I do believe the Lakers will win Game three, but obviously this Nuggets team is so good, but that they have a very good chance of stealing one of the two games in LA. And no matter what, it's extremely difficult

to beat a team three times in a row. So if the Lakers win both home games, it's just so difficult to then go on the road and beat the Nuggets. Just ask the Phoenix Suns. That's why when you go down to zero in a series, you lose almost every time. It's not over. They have a chance, but they've dug themselves in a significant hole. The Nuggets should feel like significant favorites. They have a fantastic chance to win the series. Like I said the nugget, if you're a Nuggets fan,

you should feel like you're in great shape. Don't forget tomorrow morning. I keep an eye on the feed. It should be up around like you know, eleven noon or so Pacific Standard time. But I'll have a film breakdown from this game. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys, and I'll see you next time. The volume