Should Lakers Go Big or Small Against the Nuggets?

🚨🏀 Here's your Lakers-Nuggets scouting report 🏀🚨

◾️ How LA can shut down Denver's offensive engine
◾️ Denver's defensive vulnerabilities LA can attack
◾️ Playing big vs smallhttps://t.co/BEEX06w78m

— Cranjis McBasketball (@Tim_NBA) September 17, 2020

Overall, the Laker offense was about as efficient in both situations. We saw the team get more scoring from rolling and putbacks, with AD having more space to attack. LA went to isolation about as much in either scenario, but were more efficient in big lineups. Post ups were seen less in small lineups, but were more effective when used. Perhaps again to better spacing.

Now let’s take a look at how Denver played on offense when LA went big or small:

What stands out most here is how much less Denver got out in transition when LA played small. We also see big drops in efficiency for a number of areas, as well as a huge rise in putback efficiency.

Overall, Denver’s offense performed far worse when LA played without McGee or Howard on the court. This ended up being reflected in the raw results this season with LA playing big vs small:

The Lakers vs Denver this season:

Playing Big: -42

Playing Small: +34

— Cranjis McBasketball (@Tim_NBA) September 16, 2020

I’d start game 1 with LA’s normal mix of big and small for the first half, then look in the second half at whether or not I want to give McGee or Howard a second stint. I can see this being more of a Howard series than a McGee one due to post defense.

Once we get an idea for how Denver will attack and defend LA in both big and small situations, now that we’re in the playoffs and they’ll be more purposeful around each of those, we’ll have a better idea for how this’ll go. If Morris and LeBron struggle to handle Jokic down low but Howard is blanketing him, playing big becomes more appealing. Now, if Morris/LeBron can guard Jokic down low, that opens the floodgates to me for lots of small ball.

But I’d give game 1 a healthy dose of small ball. In theory, each way has its pros and cons. It’ll depend on the tendencies of the teams pushing potential edges and attacking potential vulnerabilities to determine how that balances out from a score standpoint.