There’s but one measuring stick in the NBA these days. The team that plays a mile above the surface of the Earth, the Denver Nuggets. The rest is simply debate fodder.
1) I said on the podcast before the game the Nuggets remind me of the Spurs w/Duncan, Ginobli, TP and an up and coming KL. They kill your dreams and hopes with pinpoint execution and they don’t it with ease. Denver seemed to toy with LA for 4/5ths of the game before shifting to a gear the Lakers simply do not have.
2) Coach still hasn’t learned to trust DLo and it may or may not have cost us the game and went with an ineffective Dinwiddie down the stretch. As a result the offense cratered when we needed it most. This is perplexing because we haven’t done a good job integrating Spencer. At all, dude looks like he’s playing catch up on the packages.
3) Against the Thunder the Lakers went back to AD being the focal point. Not sure why we went away from it vs. Denver. AD or Ham lets Denver force us away from our best player. They need to figure this out.
4) The Thunder would be a wonderful 1st round matchup. In theory, While we do match up well against OKC I think it’s a little short-sighted to count them out before a series started. Shai is a nova star waiting to explode. Write them off at your own risk.
5) Doesn’t matter because even if we get outta the first round we really have no shot if we meet up with Denver. They’ll have home court, we don’t have anything close to an answer (at least that I’ve seen) so if an (best case scenario) WCF exit is the goal, well, whee.
I agree with your assessment to a point Jamie. The current available roster would lose to the Nuggets. But I write us off completely until I see if we can get everyone back. Gabe was given that contract because he a good player and an excellent on ball defender and we both know what Vando can do on defense and the boards. Vando hasn’t even played against the Nuggets. If we can get both of them back. Big if, we might have a chance. Our 2nd unit would definitely be better than the Nuggets. One other point, we were ahead until Darvin subbed Cam in for Spencer. Thats when things went downhill. The Nuggets began to help off of Cam and clogged the paint. Spencer’s offense hasn’t come around yet but his defense has been pretty good, especially against the Thunder. He let the team with a plus 35 against the Thunder.
Gabe didn’t look great against Denver in last season’s NBA Finals and Vando was played off the floor.
If the coach is a liability that’s on the FO to correct but as long as he’s the dude at the podium after the game with “Coach” under his title he gets the blame (and praise) for his bad (and good) decisions.
Still, I thought the biggest issue was how we simply let Denver force the action away from AD rather than force-feeding him the ball and making Jokic play more defense.
No offense to OKC but they’re nowhere near the stratosphere the Nuggets play in. All roads lead through that squad barring a major injury to either Murray or Jokic.