“When he [Anthony Davis] has been on the floor, the Lakers have a 117.2 offensive rating and 102.3 defensive rating.
Put more succinctly: The Lakers have outscored opponents by 131 points in his 421 minutes.”https://t.co/gGscZ8WCCb
— The Lakers Review (@TheLakersReview) September 21, 2020
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.
Excellent article by Anthony Slater for the Athletic. Slater is always at the top of my list of respected analysts. His review of the Jokic problem is spot on. Lakers saw what happened when they switched. Clippers saw what happened when they doubled.
The solution is fight through the screen and don’t switch but double if you’re forced to switch and don’t allow cutters to bail Joker out. Always easier to talk about than do. Joker’s a legit superstar. Key is Lakers defense is elite too. Frank may need to junk it up so as not to allow Nikola to get comfortable.
Lakers need to win Tuesday to essentially eliminate Nuggets. I would start Dwight and have him work to not get fouls so he could play 20 minutes and have AD play more than 39 minutes for this game because of Jokic’s challenge This is also the kind of game where if we go micro with Morris at the 5, it could help to have players who can shoot the 3 and weave to the rim, like THT and Waiters.
Lakers also need to go back to their Game 1 strategy which was to relentlessly hunt Joker and Murray with LeBron and AD and get them in foul trouble. That’s the best way to defend Jokic especially.