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Five observations from Lakers’ thrilling Game 2 win over Nuggets

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2. Solving the Nikola Jokic problem
But if the Lakers want to succeed where two previous teams failed — killing a never-say-die Nuggets team — they need to sharpen up their coverage of Jokic. Denver has a clear strategy to unlock him, and it’s working.

What is that? Simple. Early in most possessions, the Nuggets are running some screen action to get a smaller guard switched onto him and, once they succeed, they’re dumping it to Jokic in the mismatch and running action around it.

If the Lakers single-cover, Jokic has no problem going to work against Danny Green, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Alex Caruso or Kyle Kuzma — basically anyone not named Dwight Howard or Anthony Davis.

But the design isn’t just about getting Jokic an isolated post-up against a wing or smaller guard. It’s about forcing the Lakers into a situation where they must double, for fear of that post-up, allowing the Nuggets to zigzag around Jokic, search for cutting lanes and use his all-world vision and passing ability to find open 3s and layups.

Basically, Vogel wants his bigs and guards/wings to better communicate on both of those Jokic screens — avoid the switch if possible and, even if it’s not, work to find a window within the play to slide back into the more traditional matchup.