And now, the Low Post. Welcome to an unexpected Friday Low Post podcast because I had to talk about the Nuggets Lakers series after what I thought was a really interesting and maybe telling Denver come from behind and then hold on for dear life. We're throwing the ball all over the gym. Oh my God, LeBron, just another layup.
Game two win to go up. Two games to none, taking care of business at home, heading to LA for the weekend games. And the Lakers are going to have to win both of these, I think. Oh, young Masuk, you were on the scene in Denver.
You're going to head back to your hometown in Los Angeles. How are you, sir? I'm doing good. Doing good.
Very late last night. Zach, I cannot remember ever seeing LeBron James blow a dunk like that. Never. I was, that might be the most funny thing I've seen in the playoffs.
Well, he blew a layup in the first half that he just short rimmed. Yeah, then I can, like, I don't know, the dunk. I mean, like to see, like, you know what he was going for. He was going to go for that reverse and to see it just fly out of his hands.
And then at the end, yeah, it was a tough layup that he missed, but normally makeable for LeBron James. It was shocking to me. Yeah, so he had that one in the first half. That surprised me.
He had, obviously, you know, we've seen like great players blow fast breaks. They drop the ball, whatever. That also stood out because it doesn't happen to LeBron. And then, you know, the Nuggets, in a weird way, I'm almost encouraged by it.
They got through their first case of the, whoa, we're here. We're here on the biggest stage, about to take a 2-0 lead, but it's getting tense. And we're actually not playing well. And this is new for us.
Like, the expectations are here. There's LeBron in AD. And he had that steal on the Jamal Murray lollipop that Jokic didn't come and get. And it was a great recovery by Aaron Gordon.
You can see him time it. But great recovery aside, LeBron James makes that layup eight times out of ten at a minimum. And he didn't make it. And then we had this whole, the whole show this morning on Get Up was like, Father Time, it's called LeBron.
LeBron's old. Why wasn't LeBron able to bring it? He was old, six from three. He keeps missing all his threes.
And I'm like, well, first of all, LeBron is old. Like, talking about how LeBron is old is like talking about, I don't know, like the progress of everything in nature. He's old. Like, we shouldn't expect him to be the same guy.
He also just went up 22, 10, and nine and guarded the freaking two-time MVP, who, by the way, is completely unguardable, pretty freaking well, for half the game, a third of the game, and got a bunch of deflections and strips late in the game to help the Lakers come back and win it. I understand everyone's obsessed with LeBron, and yeah, he's not the same guy. And boy, the fourth quarter, three-pointers, he played well enough to win. Like, he played well enough for them to win the game.
Yeah, I just think it's so jarring to see him, A, miss a dunk like that, miss layups, you know, settle for the threes, short rim all of them. You know, we just, he's been so good for so long that I think you just take it for granted. And when you start to see Father Khan creep up on him and take his normal natural course, it's just still a little jarring doing that. By the way, Zach, I like LeBron James and Payne battling with Nikoli Jokic.
I liked every second of it. I like Darvin Ham trying all these different bodies on Nikoli Jokic. You know, the problem is that they just, they could not contain, it was just like a flurry, it was an avalanche, a four-quarter three-pointers. A Murray flurry.
A Murray flurry. Yeah, yeah. But just, you can't, like, do the thing that people are doing where it's like, you say all this stuff that you think, not even that LeBron didn't do, but just, like, talking about time and shortcomings in the dunk, and then you, like, squeeze it in mid-claws, like, you know, you can guard Nikoli Jokic, and then you go back to the, no, no, no, that's, guarding Nikoli Jokic is the most exhausting part of the whole thing, and no one else on his team could do it, and he did it pretty darn well. Okay, here's where we are.
The Nuggets are up 2-0. They are plus 11 through two games. Two tight games. You want to have a moral victory parade for the Lakers?
Go ahead. I don't think they're going to have a moral victory parade. A couple notable numbers. The Nuggets have taken 16 more threes than the Lakers, and so that's a huge reason why they're ahead, and I think the most eye-popping stat that people are not talking about because it's not a sexy talking point, Denver is plus 26 in total rebounds, and the Lakers have nine offensive rebounds in two games.
Yeah, Jokic at six in the first quarter by itself in game one. And they just can't get any second chance points. They're actually shooting okay, largely, 73% at the rim and all that, so they just can't get any second chance points. Denver is dominating the glass, and here's broadly why I feel, it's hard for me to know if I'm biased because I picked the Nuggets in six, so I kind of want to feel good about the Nuggets, but I feel better than I would typically feel about a home team coming off two close wins for two reasons.
Number one, the Lakers have played a lot of cards already in the series, and the Nuggets really haven't played any. The Lakers have already changed their starting lineup. I think they might change it again before game three. They've already played around with the matchups on Jokic from AD to, okay, let's turn AD into a Romer.
Well, they'll put Rui on him, put LeBron on him. AD becoming a Romer is the big adjustment so far of the series. And LeBron also, and this is my big issue coming into the series, we've seen throughout the season and throughout the playoffs, we know how peak LeBron, apex LeBron, the guy that father time has come for. Why isn't it mother time, by the way?
Why does the bad guy have to be father time? Mother time can't be bad guy. It's got to be father time that comes out of you. Father time.
We know how that LeBron plays, and when things get tough and things get bogged down, he likes to play mismatched basketball in the half court. And we've seen in every round, he's been able to just parcel that out, using it only in case of emergency, in case of must-win game, in case like game six at home against the Warriors, got to win that game, let me take everybody to the weight room. Down by 18, the game's spinning out of our control. Okay, fine.
I'll assert myself and see if I can drag us back into the game for a few possessions. And I said before the series, that's not going to be good enough against Denver. That's not to say he can go 2016 finals ever again. He can't.
He's old. Spoiler alert, he's old. He's played the second most minutes of anyone in the history of the sport. But Denver represents a step up in competition, and they're going to need whatever of that he can give almost every game.
And he gave a lot of it in game one. A lot. These two games, he's run 58 pick and rolls total, according to Second Spectrum. They are the second and third most pick and rolls he's run in any game in the playoffs, or game one and two of the series.
Only the play in against Minnesota did he run more. A lot of those were aimed at Murray in game one to pretty good effect. And you saw last night, and the numbers back it up, there were less of them. And they only came really toward the end of the game when the Nuggets had taken a 12-point lead and he needed to drag them back in the game.
And that's when you saw LeBron, Reeves, pick and rolls. Reeves got some open threes out of it. Or not even open threes, they were tough threes. LeBron got some bully ball out of it.
And the fact that he's played about as much of that style of basketball as he can, and they've still lost, I think, is a slight cause for concern. And I do think, as hokey as it sounds, I do think there's something to the Nuggets. That game felt like a moment for the Nuggets to me. It felt like a moment because they're down 10, 11, 12.
The Lakers have that game in the mud. They have their offense in the mud. They still really haven't figured out the AD is Romer thing quite yet. And how to exploit it, how to get their spacing right.
It's all clunky and clogged, and Jokic is throwing the ball places you don't normally see them throw the ball. And they rally, and they fight. And they win those minutes that Jokic rested very briefly in the fourth quarter with a 6-0 Murray Fleury on two threes. And then the stage gets real bright.
And they're on the verge of the biggest win, I mean, maybe in franchise history. It's gotta be up there. And they get a little tight. Michael Porter Jr.
steps over the baseline. Whoopsie. Jokic throws the ball away again on another turnover. Whoopsie.
Bruce Brown goes for the kill shot three, up seven, with 2.30 left in the game. And I'm watching the game on my TV, and I'm saying, ooh, just hold that one. You're up seven. You've got the MVP on your team.
I understand you're shooting well, Bruce Brown. Just hold it. Take your time. Lakers come down and score at the other end.
And then, of course, they have the late turnover by Murray. And they survive it. They do just enough to win. And it feels like every team that gets further than they've ever been before has a game where it gets tight, where they kind of stare into the mirror and say, everybody just wants to talk about the Lakers and not talk about the Nuggets.
Game one, you know, look, they won the game. Nicole Jokic was unbelievable for three quarters. And everybody wanted to talk about, ooh, the Lakers found something with Rui Hachimura on Jokic. And they had all the momentum coming back in the fourth quarter.
But, you know, you overlook the fact that when they cut a 21-point lead down to three, it would have been very easy for the Denver Nuggets or any other team to fold and just be like, what is going on here? LeBron James, Anthony Davis are coming at us. And this moment is too big. And what happens?
Michael Porter Jr., of all people, dives on the floor to get that ball. And it starts a fast break. And they score, which might be the biggest, one of the biggest plays we will never talk about in franchise history for the Nuggets. Because I don't know what happens if he doesn't get that loose ball.
I don't know what happens if it doesn't score now and they get that fast break and they score and they push it back up to five. So they win that game. Michael Malone then saying, hey, I find it amusing that you guys are all talking about the Lakers finding something. Fast forward to game two.
Once again, now it looks like the Lakers are basically just muddling up this whole game and it looks like they might pull this out. Even though AD is having a bad game, they still might pull it out. And they need, you know, Jamal Murray to be just electric in the fourth quarter. And Nikola Jokic, I gotta say this, he's been amazing.
But he hasn't been as good as he was since the fourth quarter of game one. You know, they kind of just like, there were turnovers that you just don't see from Nikola. You know what I mean? Like he throws one out to, I remember he threw one out to the right side.
It was like the right baseline. And I think it was D'Angelo Russell that picked it off. And I remember turning to David Wynn and I was like, you don't see that very often where Nikola Jokic doesn't see someone picking him off. But they won these two games just with grit.
You know what I mean? Like they grinded out these games. These are the type of games they need to experience. If they're going to win a championship, they have to win these type of games.
You can talk all you want about how old LeBron James looks and whatever. The Denver Nuggets have grinded these two games out. And I think it's just making them even more confident. And then after the game, Zach, all he talked about was the chip they have on their shoulder that they were like, you know what?
When we beat the Clippers, everybody still talked about the Clippers falling apart. Nikola even said this and he never says this. When we beat Utah and came back against them, everybody talked about Utah, not them. And he goes, but we don't care.
You know what? But they do care, actually. I mean, Michael Malone actually said this the other night. You could take this narrative and stop it in your pipe and smoke it.
So look, I think they're going to go to LA. They understand, as you already said, the talk is about how old LeBron James is and everything. The talk is not about how good the Denver Nuggets are. And then they know the talk for the next 24 hours is all going to be about how can the Lakers keep their championship hopes alive.
I would like to say Michael Malone's whole thing is wildly entertaining. Yes. And I think he's kind of in on the entertainment. I also think he's half right.
Half right. The whole discussion today, I was on Get Up for two hours. 90% of it was, I made a whole joke on the show of, we were eight minutes into talking about the game before we mentioned the Nuggets and the fact that the Nuggets are good. So he's half right.
But on NBA Today, that's a show on ESPN called NBA's in the title. If you like the NBA, you should watch it. After game one, we had a whole big breakdown on like how Jokic was breaking the Lakers defense, getting into the X's and O's of it. And I haven't checked our experts' picks.
I picked Nuggets in six. I believe like 11 of 17 or 12 of 18 picked the Nuggets. I also think that the media, I believe them, votes on most valuable player and has the media that has ignored the Denver Nuggets and Nicole Jokic twice voted for Nicole Jokic as the most valuable player in the league to some controversy. So I think he's half right.
I think he knows he's half right. And he likes to just sort of play this up a little bit for the theater of it. Well, look, he is correct about one thing. Last round, the Denver Nuggets are the number one seed.
Yet the Phoenix Suns were favored to not only win that series, but odds on favored to get out of the West and go to the NBA Finals. Everybody's talking about Devin Booker. Everybody's talking about Kevin Durant. And guess what?
By the end of that series, Nicole Jokic was the best player, averaging a triple double. The dude now has four straight triple doubles and five minutes, like six games, Zach, and the only game he did not have a triple double. Guess what? 53 and 11 assists.
Like he is amazing. You know, I was thinking about this the other night. I think someone had mentioned to me about the premise of like where Nicole Jokic ranks in the NBA of all time greatest passers. I'm not ready to, he's an amazing passer.
Amazing. I'm not ready to put him at that Magic Johnson, Jason Kidd level yet. Okay. Like he is good with them, but I don't think he's better, all time better than them.
Okay. But I was wondering about this. Yeah. Oscar Robertson has more triple doubles, but, and so does Russell Westbrook.
But I think Nicole Jokic might be able to get triple doubles easier than anyone in history of the NBA. Well, Chamberlain's up there, but his passing ability is unbelievable, right? He can score in a multitude of ways very easy. The rebounding, Zach, we just talked about this.
And it's shocking that Anthony Davis is like, like the amount of rebounds, especially like Nicole Jokic, the little thing where he does when he misses at the rim and then just taps it back in, taps it back in. Big timber. Nobody can stop it. It's unbelievable.
It is unbelievable how many, how many times Nicole Jokic gets that. And so I was like, going into the series, I felt Anthony Davis has to be the best big man in the series. He has to do it four times and he hasn't been able to do it. I don't think he can.
Well, he did have 40 in game one. You know, it's funny the way we do this. He was four or 15 last night, right? Okay.
That's not good. Like you'd like to be seven to 15. If he's seven to 15, they might win the game. If Lonnie Walker or Dennis Schroeder or D'Angelo Russell did anything, they might win the game.
But all the focus will be on AD. And it's, why is he so inconsistent? And it's like, well, his defense is not inconsistent. He's been the best defensive player in the playoffs the whole time.
He might've had one B minus game the whole playoffs. This entire series, not this entire series, much of this series and much of the last series was all about where is Anthony Davis on defense and how can I, the opponent of Anthony Davis, minimize the impact of his all-consuming presence on defense. That hasn't changed. So guys are going to have four or 15, particularly big guys who need people to feed them the ball, who aren't like, AD's not an enormous high volume self-creator out of the post.
And then he's just sort of like, oh yeah, he also had 40 in game one. It's like that game is in the trash can immediately when he goes four or 15. He had 40 in the first game of this series two days ago. But Zach, what is more impactful?
Okay. The 33 points and triple double and the way Nikola Jokic was as aggressive as perhaps we've ever seen him in those first three quarters or 80, 40 points as they're coming back from down 21 and it's a frantic, like furious comeback and he's getting a lot of these floaters and everything. I think Nikola's statement in those first three quarters was way more impactful because it clearly stated right from the get-go, you're not going to be able to stop me. Yes.
You might be able to block my shot and stop me in the pain a couple times. One-on-one, you are the best so-called elite defender, big man in the league. You are not going to be able to stop me. I'm not saying he's been more impactful than Jokic.
He hasn't. And Jokic is unstoppable. He's just unguardable one-on-one in the post. Anthony Davis can't do it.
And if Anthony Davis can't do it, then they might as well try what they're trying, which is where is Anthony Davis? He's roaming. Okay, we've got to figure that out. And they haven't yet.
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The rebounding I want to go back to because I thought before the series we might see the Nuggets play around with the matchups just the way the Lakers are and take Jokic off Davis, put him on Vanderbilt if he plays much anymore. We'll see. He did start last game. Maybe put him on Hachimura.
They've even played around with putting him on Lonnie Walker here and there. Put Aaron Gordon on AD and put Bruce Brown or KCP, whoever, on LeBron and see if you can survive that. They've done it before. I thought they might try it again.
I thought they might try it even last night, particularly when LeBron was off the floor and either Vanderbilt or Hachimura is on the floor with Davis. That would seem like an easy time to switch Jokic onto those guys and Aaron Gordon onto AD because there is no LeBron to worry about against the KCP or whatever and they're not doing that and they're not doing that for two reasons. Number one, Jokic is doing fine. like his defense one-on-one against Davis he stood him up and said you're gonna have to make floaters over me and we don't think you can do it enough his defense on the pick and roll and the Lakers are running a lot of the LeBron AD pick and roll and they're mixing up drop coverage coming up to the level of the screen depending on how the Lakers are playing you saw last night as soon as the Lakers got two straight buckets against a really conservative drop coverage Schroeder hit a floater and AD hit a pocket pass floater they went right back up to touch and he's largely been fine he's kept AD in front of him and made AD make short twos long twos and the second reason is the rebounding if you take him out of the paint you're going to lose the rebounding advantage that you've built and he may be the best defensive rebounder in the entire NBA and the bonus of that is not just that the Lakers have nine offensive rebounds in two games which is like nothing the other bonus of that is every time the Lakers try for an offensive rebound and don't get it and he does it's five on four the other way and the Lakers are getting brutalized in transition yeah I mean that's that's the thing you cannot crash boards against the Nuggets if you saw in game one Nikola went back to grabbing the rebound and pushing the pace himself like in the second round against Phoenix he didn't do that very often he got the ball out of his hands this time if he had the ball in his hands off the rebound he was pushing it up the court which I thought was interesting too Anthony Davis yeah I was expecting AD to really try to take Jokic off the dribble and get to the rim and I thought he would do it easily and I thought this was the way that the Lakers could beat the Nuggets because in the first round Jokic didn't really have to deal with somebody truly inside the paint Rudy Goberi's not that guy really that's going to overwhelm him Cat likes to do his damage to the perimeter second round DeAndre Ayton just wanted to save the free throw line extended did not really want to go inside the paint so now I'm thinking oh this might be the first time I'm not sure DeAndre Ayton wanted to go inside the arena dominating Zach dominating but like look we thought that I think one of the fears of the different Nuggets was that AD and LeBron were going to get Jokic into foul trouble we haven't really seen that last night they dealt with massive foul trouble but it was to the perimeter players KCP, Michael Porter Jr.
right off the bat and Chris Brown so I think all the things we thought had to go right for the Lakers in the first two games has not gone their way AD on Aaron Gordon is a problem the Nuggets haven't quite solved yet and they're starting to sniff around solutions first of all one of the things he's just posting Jokic up a lot he posted up 14 times last night he got 14 post touches last night that's the second most in the playoffs he did not score well out of those plays and part of the reason is he can back down Hachimura, LeBron those guys can't stop him the help is coming and the help is sometimes a double team and AD lurking around the rim and the spacing has just been cluttered he's trying to thread the needle passes that aren't quite getting there but they're getting close and I think as he sees that defense over and over again as the Nuggets see it over and over again they're going to get a little more comfortable countering it and one of the things they did was they turned Aaron Gordon into like a screener in off-ball flex actions and stuff a back screener he's popping off back screens to occupy AD get him into the action that way with Jokic facilitating and Murray got a couple dribble handoff threes out of it that kind of stuff we saw them use Aaron Gordon as Draymond Green on one possession that was clearly scripted because the minute Jokic touched it he flung it to the other side of the court for a dribble handoff for Aaron Gordon to be like a facilitator and they also run this play I looked it up because I wrote about it they run this play a lot where they will give Aaron Gordon the ball at the elbow we haven't seen this at one elbow Jokic will be at the other elbow Porter and KCP will be in the corners so the paint is totally empty of two elite shooters in the corners and Jokic will set a little rub screen off the ball for Bruce Brown or Murray who was ever in the game and either you switch Jokic's guy onto that guard or that guard cuts back door and he's open and you turn Aaron Gordon into the facilitator and that plays impossible to guard and we haven't seen that I'll bet we'll see a little bit of stuff like that so I think they're going to figure some things out and the Lakers are going to have some counters like what do you expect from the Lakers in game three what can they do to right because I do think they're going to come roaring out in game three I think they need an aggressive Anthony Davis to set the tone right from the get go I'm sticking by that that if the Lakers are going to win four games Anthony Davis has to be the best big man on the floor I don't know if it's possible but it has to happen you know I asked Matt Williams from our great stats and info department after game one Zach about what happens when teams try to put a smaller player on Nicole Jokic to allow a big man to roam like they did with Anthony Davis and you know we think we saw with PJ Tucker and Joel Embiid and Rudy Gobert to a certain extent and Matt gave me this stat that he said the Lakers like to run on-ball screen actions where Gordon is in the dunker spot doing so 86 times this postseason this is after game one and that's tied for third most on-ball screens where particular players in the dunker spot in the playoffs really smaller onto Joker and allowed Davis to roam on the five plays that Gordon was in the dunker spot it didn't generate a single point so I thought yeah they had to move Aaron Gordon around to get Anthony Davis to be out of that paint do whatever he can there was one play I don't think the answer will be putting Gordon and just have him spot up I think they did that on one play late in the fourth quarter and he missed the three badly perhaps Michael Porter Jr. is the guy that they can try to get in that position later on but for the Lakers I think they can look at this and say look we were in those two games we missed a lot of shots at the end I don't know how much of altitude plays into that as well with LeBron specifically in the fourth his leg looks tired I mean Zach I'm actually doing a story like a fun story that's going to run before game five on the Denver altitude is it real or is it myth LeBron says it's real I don't know if you've seen you're a game ops guy like I am they lay into it thick in the beginning so have you watched I don't know how to show on TV but in the very beginning they put this big warning sign on the screen it's like warning oxygen levels are low you know Denver altitude you might not you know you'll have shortness of breath hypoxia could sit in right and they do this whole thing for about 25 seconds and then Kyle Steller I think that's the PA guy he then reads off the starting lineup as fast as I've ever seen anyone it's like LeBron James Ford you know LeBron James 23 Anthony Davis 3 he just goes through it in like five seconds and back in the day they used to have Rocky the Mountain Lion sitting on a beach chair reading a newspaper during the opposing starting lineup by the way two minutes remaining so did you so I asked him I asked the game ops I was talking to one of the game ops guys and I was like I like that I like that you read it in like five seconds and he goes actually we only do that because the whole oxygen level thing takes 25 seconds and we have a total of 30 seconds to really announce to the other team and I go and I go oh so what are you going to do if you guys get to the finals and it's on TV they're going to make you guys slow it down you have to hear their names and he was like oh yeah they'll probably give us a little extra time but they actually slowed it down now in the Western Conference you can actually understand the names that he's saying when he does it but back to the altitude thing you know Calvin Booth kind of wanted the team to lay into this more to mentally try to get into them so randomly in the fourth quarter during a coaching challenge in game one you hear the announcer during this long wait just go 5,280 feet he just says it out of nowhere and Kevin Garnett said this on the show the other day when he had bones on he was like I can't wait to read that story I love everything about the game ops narrative oh and you'll love this I did ask the game ops guy I said does Rocky ever feel the altitude especially when he's at the top of the arena you know rappelling down and he goes no because Rocky's not human he's absolutely a monster now you're saying this I believe there was one incident when Rocky rappelled down from the arena and like I may have passed out while it was it was like it's kind of a scary so there was a Rocky mishap at some point look it up people so if I'm the Lakers I don't think I'm starting Vando again I don't know I understand why they're doing it you put him on Murray you can switch the Murray-Jokic pick and roll which I think Denver should run more of and will run more of and just Vando gets into his airspace in a way that the Lakers guards could not do in game one he got way too many like easy just let me stroll into this long twos in game one the Nuggets also very smartly realized if Vando's on Jamal Murray we gotta run him through a whole bunch of stuff through a maze of picks because he's a big guy he's not gonna be able to keep up I think the lineup that they have to ride or die with in this series is Schroeder, Reeves, Hachimura, LeBron, Davis I think that's their best lineup is a big part of why the AD roaming thing works it's not just AD it's that they're just big all around there's a bunch of arms in the paint they gotta win the paint that way and I can either put Rui on Jamal Murray and do the same kind of switching thing or if that's not working then I don't know if that'll work over a long course of time you put Dennis Schroeder back in that alignment you put Rui on Jokic Davis on Gordon and LeBron on Michael Porter Jr. I just think Reeves is a must obviously he's been phenomenal I don't love D'Lo in this matchup that lineup to me just works and I might just go ahead and start it if I were the Lakers that's pretty interesting I do like the fact that Vando was pretty disruptive in their passing lanes at times doing everything he could to try to struggle I think Denver was a little out of sorts in that first quarter because of the foul trouble I mean you saw Reggie Jackson come in late in that game I mean late in that first quarter yeah I mean I think you're onto something when you said in the beginning like Michael Maloney said this after game one both teams had to show their hands perhaps maybe a little earlier than expected and now the series really starts to see what the adjustments were but I do feel like the Lakers have had to make more I don't want to say desperation moves but it certainly kind of felt like hey we're trying all these different things I will say this and I don't know how you feel about whatever the best way you would defend Nikola Jokic I do think you have to you know bring double teams at weird times to kind of throw him off a little bit but then he figures it out you have to get physical with him you know I think at some point he gets a little annoyed sometimes like last night you know I think like LeBron is trying to push him out and at some point Jokic will act like a smaller defender really shoved him and he goes flying right but that's sometimes I feel like sometimes it does get under his skin a little bit you have to get physical with him and try to bother him because otherwise there's just no stopping him he figures everything out he's gonna make the right pass and the one thing you can't do these one pass away threes they're giving up because the second rotation is not there on time or the second rotation is not made because they don't want to make it they want the guy to double and then get back you just can't let KCP and Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr. walk into those shots and then the other thing too is like you know teams are always trying to say okay we understand he doesn't want to shoot first he's a pass first guy and he doesn't want to be aggressive against his nature so let's like let's see if he's gonna score right and be aggressive and now he's showing it last series 53 points 53 points and then game one those first three quarters I mean I talked to Michael Sinner about this at Denver Nuggets reporter and I'm like yo I don't think I've ever seen Nikola Jokic put the ball on the floor try to move that fast and be that aggressive that many times that early we saw two driving dunks that out of Nikola Jokic two you don't even get two dunks in an entire game maybe in an entire series sometimes for Nikola Jokic okay for him to have two driving dunks in that spin it was very clear he is being aggressive you are gonna cover him one on one he is going to take you I actually think he wasn't aggressive enough last night and that's one of the reasons their offense hit a rut for about 14 second minutes late in the game where they almost gagged away he still frustrates me like crazy Zach when he has that three and then he pump fakes and then he decides I'm not gonna shoot it or then when he finally decides to shoot it the dude can shoot threes just let it fly Michael Porter Jr.
even said this he's like I tell him all the time just let it fly and get into a rhythm you know what I mean because when he's hitting threes it opens everything up for them but you mentioned the fouls I mean that's one thing that's really changed about Jokic in the last two or three years is you used to be able to bait him into frustration fouls he would just slap people in the backcourt after calls and get himself in foul trouble he never does that it's almost like he does that because he wants to stop the play so he can yell at the rep right you know what I mean well I remember I mean the last time you know two years ago when they played Phoenix he got thrown out of the last game for like damn near taking campaigns head off on a frustration foul so you mentioned Vanderbilt and he was disruptive one of the reasons why I would try I like that lineup that I mentioned whether you try starting it or not there's gonna be some hurt feelings on D'Angelo Russell when you start that group is I think they were smartly trying to lean into the LeBron AD pick and roll particularly in game two they ran a lot of it to test Jokic out to test the Denver defense out to see where the soft spots are gonna be and when Vanderbilt's on the floor they just can't get any traction because no one's guarding and the whole lane is caught now that may be the case with Schroeder too the Nuggets have shown we're not only gonna drop back normally the point of a drop back defense which they did about half the time in game two is we can stay home everywhere else the Nuggets to kind of protect Jokic will drop back and send help at him in the paint and they're doing that off Schroeder and to a lesser degree Hachimura who's been on fire the whole playoffs all of this has to make the Wizards absolutely sick to their stomachs Hachimura doing this so maybe Schroeder's you know he's a 32% three-point shooter this year maybe he's not a great fit for that but I like them trying that I think they should lean even more into and frankly a couple other things I think AD's leaving some hard rolls to the basket on the table when he slices hard to the basket I think he can get behind Jokic or if he's parallel with him maybe draw a foul maybe get a shot at the rim and the other thing that's right there for the Lakers whether it's LeBron or Hachimura from the corner or Schroeder from the outside when the Nuggets load up their defense like that in the paint there are backdoor cuts and slot cuts that are sitting there for the Lakers to make and they're not making them and I think they're gonna need to make more of those so there's some stuff there's some stuff that the Lakers can do there's also some stuff that the Nuggets can do let me ask you this because in the second round and I do think the Nuggets in the last few minutes of the game decided come hell or high water we're not giving you the Jamal Murray switch if we have to go under which they should be doing I think even more aggressively when you're shooting jumpers like this we'll go under if we have to chase you over and have Jamal Murray hedge and get back to his guy yeah he might screw that up now and then he might literally he and Aaron Gordon collided at one point in game one and Austin Reeves got three out of it we're just not giving you that switch and I think that's smart the other thing the transition defense I know they're harping on it on the broadcast the one where Hachimura just let Yoke literally walk by him like the best player on the floor just walks by you and they're like oh he's opening the rim layup the other one that people should watch the one that drove me bananas the Lakers have a fantastic possession with about 6.30 left in the second quarter last night in game two LeBron speed dribbles it up the floor Austin Reeves on the left sideline sets a step up screen for him and that's when it's that fast and out of nowhere you can't do anything but switch all your other strategies are taken away by the sheer speed of it they switch LeBron I think it was Jamal Murray backs Jamal Murray down kick to Reeves on the double team Reeves shoots a wide open three Jamal Murray runs out to contest it and leaks out Reeves is watching his shot that's you know shooters do that on the other wing D'Angelo Russell is lifted up to the three-pointer it's his job to sprint back you know what he's doing instead of sprinting back first he sees Jamal Murray right in his line of sight he's making the three-point celebration gesture on Austin Reeves' behalf and standing still he's making the three-point And Jamal Murray leaks out and gets a dunk when the shot misses. It's like, dude, this is the Western Conference Finals. Save the cool celebrations for Tristan Thompson and the bench mob over there who are doing like, there's like a whole silent movie unfolding with like the pantomiming on the Lakers bench. Save it for them.
They got to clean that stuff up because they're just giving Denver, it's not quite that bad because Denver's a really good transition team. They're going to get points, but there's like four to six just free points. They're handing the Nuggets every game, which is dumb, dumb stuff like that. And look, we can talk about the four points of LeBron James gave up missing that dunk in the layup.
You know what I mean? But, you know, look, with all that being said, Zach, they go home to Los Angeles and that's why our role players typically play good. So would it surprise you if D'Angelo Russell, maybe D'Angelo Russell will not have a good game the rest of the series, but this is the time for him to do it in Los Angeles where he will be in front of his home crowd where he will feel better. Austin Reeves has been good in flashes.
Maybe Austin Reeves will put together a big game for the entire game. I think Anthony Davis, though, it all starts with him. He's got to set the tone. He's got to be aggressive.
He's got to take it to Nikola Jokic inside. He's got to try to take him off these pick and rolls. He's got it one-on-one. He's got to not settle for that little fadeaway jumper and he's good at it, but he's got to take him inside, get Nikola Jokic into foul trouble and punish him at the rim.
He's got to make Nikola Jokic have to defend guys off the dribble and defend at the rim. Agreed. And that hard roll I mentioned is one way to do it. The other thing about D'Angelo Russell is defense is just a liability in every series, but in this series, they're going at him pretty aggressively and I think they're actually going at him more.
Like if he's on KCP, they got a couple good looks for KCP on that elbow, dribble handoff stuff with Jokic. I would just start possessions with a Jamal Murray KCP pick and roll to get the switch and let him go to work. I know him and Bruce Brown were jabbering all game life. So Bruce Brown, after game one, he just volunteers it.
Our goal was to go at D'Angelo Russell. He said, you know, make him move his feet. He's not that good at defense, but he tries. You know, Bruce Brown, he does try.
Then after that, Michael Malone comes up and Malone out of nowhere just says, yeah, so, you know, we've seen them show their hand and we showed our hand. He goes, well, one interesting storyline that I've seen is that D'Angelo Russell didn't play in the fourth quarter and then he tells the media, that's an interesting storyline to follow for the rest of the series. And I'm thinking like, you clearly are trying to send a message like to get in D'Angelo Russell's head. It was like the Duggets purposely were just like, D'Angelo, we're coming for you.
The Lakers aren't playing you in the fourth quarter. Could this continue? What's going to happen? They were like trying to play mental games with D'Angelo Russell.
Dissension. It was amazing. Dissension from within. It was funny.
By the way, if they put him on Michael Porter Jr., if they put any guard on Michael Porter Jr., there's a reason I said before this series, it's always a Yoko series, but I think more than the previous rounds, it's a Murray and Porter series for Denver. It's because I just thought Murray would get decent matchups that he could exploit. And Porter, if you're going to put small guys on him, if you're going to put D'Lo on him, run his ass around. Get him pinned down three-pointers.
And we've seen the Lakers defense kind of break apart when you make their little guys go through multiple screens. They get stuck, they go under, they make mistakes they shouldn't make. And those guys get open for three. Yeah, the D'Angelo Russell dissension play by Michael Malone was an interesting one.
So I think, I'm just going to come out and predict. I don't like to do this because I'll probably be wrong and people will yell at me. I think the Nuggets are getting a split in LA. I think they can smell it.
I think the every other day schedule does the Lakers no favors. I expect the Lakers to come out like gangbusters and win game three and then game four is the whole thing. And maybe not the whole thing because the Nuggets have home court. I just, the way they went to Phoenix and obliterated Phoenix in game six was like, oh, this is a serious team.
So I am going to lay my prediction on the line home. I don't like to do this that much. I think the Nuggets are coming back to Denver up three-one. I will say this.
I thought the same thing going into Phoenix in the second round and Phoenix won both games in Phoenix. They did. I thought for sure that Denver was going to get one of them in Phoenix and Devin Booker was incredible. Of course, Matt Ishvia did a little flop.
My fellow Spartan against Nicole Jokic. But yeah, I thought for sure Denver was going to get one of them. So I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if we came back tied to all, but I do think there's...
Oh, no, no, no. It would not surprise me. Let me be clear. Nothing LeBron James and Anthony Davis could do would surprise me.
They're that good. The Lakers are that good. They have proven their medal and their toughness as a team. Their defense is A-plus legitimate.
Let me be clear. Would not surprise me if they won the series. It wouldn't surprise me. I just said because it's fun to make predictions every once in a while.
I think Denver's going to win a game. There is a feeling, though. I got this feeling that when LeBron James walked off that floor... By the way, Jamal Murray at one point after he hit this big shot gave a little, like...
LeBron looked at him. LeBron gave him a fist pound as if, like, you know, respect. You hit some big shots. I'm like, I think LeBron walks out of the floor and leaves Denver thinking, these guys made the plays to win the game.
This team... I did respect how LeBron and lots of other players do this and I would do this too if I were a player and I had to kill time in a media session. I like that LeBron was able to simultaneously kill time in his Q&A and create, like, a soundbite that was replayed at nauseam in the last 12 hours simply by explaining the rules of an NBA playoff series in the most literal fashion possible. It's like, yeah, you have to win four.
We haven't been eliminated yet. So it's usually the first of four that wins and it's replayed on every TV show as if you said something relevant. I admire it because all you want to do is get out of there without saying anything inflammatory. So the more time I can waste by just being like, you know, we've still got to win four.
We're going home for games three and four. I'm just reciting the schedule of the series but you guys are all in rapturous attention to what I'm saying. I like it. Can I say this too?
If they do, whatever happens in these next two games in Los Angeles, there's one game in between games, right? The rest of the series. They will have one day to adjust to the altitude of 5280 when they go back. 5280?
They will have spent, I don't know, let's see, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. So almost five days, four and a half days in Los Angeles and then go back. And I've heard some people when I was doing the story say there are two trains of thoughts when you're trying to battle the altitude. Either you show up as early as possible to let your body adapt or you show up as late as possible and you just play.
But like I looked at this one study. Doesn't LeBron sleep and like doesn't he have every possible thing to train for this? Doesn't he have the altitude simulation at his house? Maybe he needs to buy one for everyone else.
I asked him and he said, it's like going from the West Coast to the East Coast to the West Coast and you're trying to adapt to the time. Your body needs time to adjust. You know the one thing I asked, I talked to the strength and conditioning coach Felipe Heckenberger with the Nuggets who's a guy who really kind of helped reshaping Nikoli Jokic's body, right? And by the way, for the people who don't know who that is, look for the big guy behind Denver's bench going absolutely crazy and standing up after every basket.
He's incredible. He's massive. So he was saying like he's seen draft workouts where guys almost pass out. They look like they're turning white, you know, due to the altitude.
But he did say another impact is that guys can't sleep. They can't sleep in Denver because of the altitude. It kind of messes with their head and their body and things like that. So these are all things that I wonder, you know, if the Lakers are going to have to deal with when they come back for game five.
It's just like one more thing they have to worry about, like let alone Nikoli Jokic and trying to slow down Jamal Murray, you know, and then of course like we're going to have the PA announcer being like, you know, oh, danger, warning, low altitude, shortness of breath. You should go to the extra mile and be like players over 37 years of age are particularly susceptible. Malone said that. I asked Malone about the eye.
I go, hey, you didn't have this in the bubble when you faced the Lakers. Now you're in front of your home court. You have the altitude, right? Is it real?
And he goes, yeah, we want to run. Everybody talks about the Lakers. We're going to try to run. He goes, look, LeBron's getting up there in age.
Maybe the altitude might have a little more impact. Michael Malone actually said that. He's such a little disturber. I love it.
Not a little, he's a little disturber. And by the way, I'm glad you said the B word, bubble, because people who have listened to this podcast for a long time know that before the bubble even happened, I was saying, I don't want to hear any asterisk about the bubble. If anything, winning the bubble title, I was saying this before people went to Orlando. If anything, the bubble title may end up being remembered as almost like a badge of honor in terms of like everybody in the world needed something to watch.
It was a horrible time. The conditions were weird. People were lonely. Psyches were strained and some team will rise up and some team will not rise up, aka the Clippers.
And three years later, and I've said consistently, do not besmirch the Lakers title. Like what I've said is if there were any team but the Lakers that had won it, we would not have all of this bubble revisionism. It's just that people who don't like the Lakers are bitter or don't like LeBron. If Miami had won that championship, would people say, that was an asterisk championship?
Not to the same level, I don't think. I think LeBron and the Lakers are different. And I've said from the beginning, I don't want to hear it. That was the only way to do it.
Everybody had to do it the same way. Everybody had the same shooting background. Everyone had the same no travel. Everyone had the same psychological demons to battle if you missed your family, if you felt constricted.
Some teams dealt with it well, some teams didn't. And I'm glad in a way that all four of them being back here has sort of shut that off because I always view that as an equally legitimate title to every other title that's ever been won by any other team. It's different, but equally legitimate. And how about this?
People say, oh, Jamal Murray only was bubble Murray because, oh, you know, the shooting background was probably perfect for shooters with no fans to deal with, right? It was like a shooter's heaven. Well, he's still coming up with big-time shots and having these massive games. Four 20-plus fourth quarters in the playoffs, Zach.
Most in NBA history since this was tracked in 1997, Michael Jordan is second with two and Allen Iverson, too. Jamal Murray has two more than them. That's crazy. And if you're a Lakers fan, one of the things you might maybe not hang your head on, but some of those shots Jamal Murray hit last night were like, did he just have a step back over Anthony Davis and then another one over LeBron James?
And they're kind of contested? Like, what's going on here? Yeah, that's what LeBron was like. I think LeBron said, we didn't really have defensive breakdowns.
If you look at it, like, they were contested. The only thing I will say is, like, you know it's coming, though. If you're a Lakers, you know this is coming. You know that Jamal Murray is going to run around into the paint, run into a body, make you run into a couple bodies, come out, get that handoff from Nikola, and he's going to shoot that three.
You've got to find a way to meet him before he gets out there. You know this place comes. I've seen LeBron James, I've seen him, like, actually move and try to anticipate where Nikola's going to go. He knows the play that's coming, and yet the Nuggets still scored.
I wonder if you can start throwing an extra body at him died, we're going to be able to manufacture enough buckets to hang in. They don't have to win them. They just have to say finish. Lakers have to win.
I saw on the movie today when you showed those three plays that Denver ran in a row, they were the exact same plays, and the last one you showed that Anthony Davis even jumped it, right? LeBron James did the same thing the other night. I watched him. He did the same thing, and yet Denver still scores.
They're very good, and the Lakers are very good, and I expect games three and four to be absolute thrillers in L.A. You will be there. I will not be there. I'm jealous.
Om Young-musu, go catch your flight. Thanks for all your coverage. We will look for the Altitude story coming up soon. Read his Jamal Murray story that came out a week ago, maybe, maybe right before this series.
We've re-run it a couple times, but yeah, it's Jamal talking about basically he doesn't want people to think that the bubble is the best of him and that it's a different person. He thinks this is just the beginning. No, I said today on Get Up, I'm not calling him Bubble Murray, I'm calling him Bright Lights Murray because he brings it on the big stage. Om, thank you, sir.
Go travel. Thanks, brother. Okay.