When You Finally Realize You’ll Never Beat Them

The future of LeBron James and Anthony Davis in Los Angeles is uncertain. After another demoralizing loss to the Denver Nuggets, there are now more questions than answers. Let’s break down how the Nuggets, once again, triumphed in a series that was tougher than the record indicated.

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► Sources:
Stats and box-scores from Basketball-Reference.com, NBA.com, Statmuse.com, PBPstats.com

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have you given any initial thoughts on what comes next this summer for next season uh no I just want to get home to the family honestly uh one of my boys is just trying to decide if he’s going to you know enter the draft or go back to school if and when uh bronnie enters the NBA how much of a goal is it for you to play alongside him on the same team um I don’t know I haven’t given much thought lately I’ve never seen Anthony attack his coach like that where he basically called him out you know after the game that was behavior that indicated that they thought there was a breakup coming the Lakers struggles against the Denver Nuggets are symbolic in a way it serves as a stark reminder of LeBron’s mortality on the court even as his offensive production is still at a superstar level there are other parts of his game that has regressed as his body can’t carry the burden anymore as great as LeBron was and still is his ERA with LA will come to an end and yic the best player of the current generation is at the peak of his career it’s only fitting that he would be the one to send off LeBron into retirement 10 20 years from now when people look back at LeBron’s last few years in the NBA yic will be the first face to come to mind as his final obstacle his last rival though the Lakers loss to Denver might seem lopsided they actually LED for the majority of the minutes across the series but even so it always felt like the Nuggets had that extra gear the Lakers could never reach three-point game yic the other way the pass down low Gordon back to Porter tied while it’s hard for any team to beat them what makes them so difficult for the Lakers specifically how’s it going folks my name’s Andy and today let’s take a look at the Lakers demoralizing defeat and the end of an era without further Ado let’s get started the Nuggets always create an advantage I stumbled upon a quote said by Miles Turner and he explained the difference between guarding embiid versus guarding joic you can’t double joic as soon as you double him it’s like oh okay now I’m looking at my team like guys come come on whereas in beid I have a Fighting Chance of actually able to guard him oneon-one when you defend and beid you need to stop him oneon-one but when you guard yic you need to stop him five on on five when yic has the ball you’re not just guarding him you’re guarding the entire nuggets team a team that took several years to build but it’s built perfectly around him due to his all-time great Court Vision if a Defender is caught slipping within a fraction of a second yic will notice and find the guy who’s open this is usually Gordon or Porter both of whom are bigger than their Defenders too in many cases this Advantage is created with a pick and roll or from an isolation it’s important to keep this in mind because for the Lakers they are below average in defending the pick and roll ranking 16th in the regular season but more importantly they are the fourth worst team in the NBA at defending isolations while Anthony Davis you know he’s still one of the best defenders in the league but you can’t ask him to do everything and the rest of the starting lineup lack impactful one-on-one Defenders Davis is also at his best when he’s defending in off the ball not getting bruised by yic down low but he also happens to be the biggest guy the Lakers have at least the biggest guy who gets minutes which means if he’s not guarding yic someone else is mismatched against him most of the time that guy is rui hachimura this is a huge Advantage for joic in fact in the 2023 to 24 regular season he posted up on 26% of his possessions the highest frequency out of all players in the league and he scores a hyper efficient 1.14 points per possession in post-ups that’s over 60% from the field his combination of volume and efficiency in the post is unheard of if most centers can’t stop him how is hachimura supposed to do anything when this mismatch is created the Lakers need to call for help when the help arrives that’s when yic is at his best the Lakers don’t foul there’s been a running Trend involving the Lakers free throw differential for example in both of these Seasons the Lakers led the entire league in free throw attempt differential and by a massive margin as a team they attempted 476 and 57 more free throws over the course of each season this has attracted all the conspiracy nuts out of the basement spewing things like oh the league is favoring the Lakers even if you believe that’s true the main reason is because the Lakers as a team do not foul much they actually commit the fewest fouls in the entire league but this is not a good thing the reason they don’t foul much is cuz they give up way too many open looks due to miscommunication bad rotations and just a lack of defensive IQ it’s not because they’re purposely avoiding to foul it’s because they’re literally not there on time to put a body on the offensive player they give up a lot of wide openen looks while LeBron and Davis are two incredibly intelligent defensive players there are moments in the game where the rest of the team looks brain dead they seem completely lost and are either too slow to rotate or do not have the instinct to read a play correctly heck even LeBron I’ll give him a pass due to his old age but his endurance is clearly not the same as it used to be long gone are the days of Miami LeBron who dominated every second he was on the courts on both ends now the bulk of his energy is put into running the offense the Lakers poorly executed rotations and undisciplined defense has led to too many easy shots for the Nuggets one thing stands out which is more relevant in their previous encounter in the Nuggets 2023 run to the championship they shot at a better efficiency against the Lakers than any other opponent in that entire playoff run Jamal Murray going all the way back to their first matchup in 2020 Jamal Murray has torched the Lakers heck even in the games he doesn’t shoot well he always finishes well in fact in two of their three playoff series Murray outscored joic in all three of their series Murray took more shots than anyone on the Nuggets roster while yic is the one who’s leading the team in scoring against most other teams what makes it so that Murray is so willing to shoot more against the Lakers they do fairly well in limiting other star point guards so what is it about Murray that gives them a hard time well unlike most point guards Murray has a rather unique skill set he doesn’t rely on his three-point shots nor does he rely on free throws to score free throws and three-point shots tend to be the areas that opposing teams try to limit the most but because Murray doesn’t rely on either of these it benefits him in the playoffs three-point shots tend to be the most inconsistent part of the game you see all the time incredible three-point Shooters in the regular season get stifled in the playoffs and don’t shoot nearly as well for other players who rely on free throws to score the playoffs are officiated differently so they might not get the same calls Murray however he’s well equipped with a versatile scoring Arsenal from the mid-range or even long twos where he shoots an excellent 47% the mid-range is an area of the floor that most players have already abandoned but Murray thrives from this distance plus he’s a big strong point guard who’s not afraid to post up or bully his way to the rim his shot chart is very balanced as he’s willing to take shots from every area of the floor Murray once said that him and joic were the best one-w punch in the league but he got clowned when he said this because people felt you can replace him with any other decent point guard and the Nuggets would still be just as good that’s far from true there are very few point guards today who can perform like Murray when the lights are at their brightest of course there’s another more obvious reason to why Murray plays so well against the Lakers and against every other playoff team it’s because the opponent’s primary attention is on yic and this means teams don’t double him as much as a star point guard on another team the Nuggets don’t shoot threes the Denver Nuggets are an anomaly of their time with the NBA moving towards an era of three-point shooting they are dead last in the entire league in three-point attempts I didn’t think we’d ever see a time when a team that doesn’t rely on the three is the most difficult team to guard compared to the Boston Celtics who are on the opposite end of the spectrum launching the most threes in the entire game there’s nothing wrong with the Celtics play Style by all the metrics and statistics they are the best team in the entire league but we’ve seen before what happens when teams over rely on the three they’re more susceptible to cold streaks sometimes you just have an off shooting night but in the playoffs an off shooting night could make or break a series the nuggets with their Reliance on killing you from below the ark this type of play style is more consistent as the nuggets are top five in the NBA in points in the paint another even more important metric paint touches the Nuggets lead the league with 26.1 paint touches per game meaning they’re getting the ball deeper than every other team considering the Lakers also allow opponents the ninth most points in the paint yeah that’s a bad result in a way the Lakers are similar they also happen to shoot much fewer threes than most other teams but they’re outmatched in almost every other area nowadays most NBA teams focus on defending the perimeter the best defensive teams try and prevent open threes but the Nuggets don’t care cuz they don’t need it however don’t let that fool you even if they don’t take many threes as a team they’re still equipped with some of the best three-point Shooters the league has ever seen that’s why they’re so deadly cuz they have the option to kill you from three if they want size versus Talent while rui hachimura has tried his best to slow down yic the real question is why is he their best option to put on yic in the first place well the Lakers aren’t very big and even their taller players like Jackson Hayes are significantly weaker than yic and he doesn’t have the skills to stay on the floor a big problem the Lakers have is over relying on Anthony Davis he’s got to do everything even when he’s injured he needs to stay in cuz he’s that important from trying to stop yic to trying to play the passing Lanes to stop in alyuk to switching onto the perimeter to contest more shots he does so much for his team because he has to it’s not just their size at Center their biggest matchup night May is Michael Porter Jr he’s the same height as Anthony Davis yet he’s being guarded by guys who are 6’5 a smaller Lakers player is forced to slide onto Porter that’s an easy shot for him every single time and even if he doesn’t take the shot he has the rebounding Advantage too in their 2023 series he averaged over nine rebounds a game as their small forward all the switches and mismatches also allow Aaron Gordon an easier time time catching a pass and finishing because there’s going to be a smaller guy on him it’s very rare to see a team have both the size and talent in today’s NBA when the league was taken over by small ball it was very common to see smaller guys Excel against lesser skilled big men their bigs also happen to be very skilled and that’s something most contenders do not have anyway That’s all folks with another Lakers loss to the Denver Nuggets this era is is coming to a close faster than we realized could this be the last harah for LeBron’s Lakers will they need to retool their roster to overcome their biggest roadblock to the championship or is it over the nuggets have come a long way since the Lakers troun them in 2020 they’ve won the majority of their game since then regular season or playoffs the future of this roster the direction the Lakers are headed is shrouded in mystery thank you all so much for watching I hope you enjoyed the video and of course as always I’ll see you next time peace