The 5er I never got to drop

A lotta these are going to be the same in any series and that’s because, at it’s core, winning basketball comes down to managing the same few things.

1) Control the glass (whoops in game 1). It is crucial we rectify the outrageous rebounding differential we endured in game 1. Especially on the offensive glass. One and done has to be the way forward. Anything else and we don’t have a chance.

2) Pick your poison with Jokic. His 34 points we can absorb. It’s when those also come along with over 10 assists meaning he was responsible for (at a minimum) 62 points and probably more. Honestly it’s probably closer, if not over, 70. One man cannot create 70 points/game and we expect to win. Gotta keep that number under 60. I’d prefer he score 45-50 and have 5 or 6 dimes because that means the Denver attack is less multi-faceted.

3) Don’t let Murray shoot over 50% from anywhere. Another “whoops in game 1” as Murray shot 12-20 overall, and 4-8 from three. Now one of those was a H.O.R.S.E. shot that I would dare him to make again but the fact remains we left him wide open far too often and he got to the rim far too easily. Is this a byproduct of the attention and defensive focus that The Joker creates? Absolutely but we can, and must, do better.

4) Our team has to be better than their team. AD and LBJ will, essentially, cancel out Jokic and Murray. That means the rest of the Lakers have to beat the rest of the Nuggets and they didn’t show up until it was too late. Other than Rui nobody had significant impact off the bench, D-Lo and Schorder combined for 14 points on 6-14 shooting (mostly D-Lo’s fault but Schroder was not aggressive enough going at anyone on Tuesday and wasn’t the defensive factor that off-set his lack of scoring punch). We won our other series by getting solid overall production from the starting 5 and someone off the bench stepped up big in the wins. That’s the formula we need to continue to embrace.|

5) Continue to adapt. We saw a late-game adjustment almost work and if LeBron takes it to the hole against Murray instead of settling for herky-jerky threes and trying to draw a silly foul we may be talking differently. Maybe we start Rui, maybe we start Lonnie for a little more size and speed to start and swap Hachimura onto Jokic situationally. We definitely need players on the floor who will crash the glass and, frankly, that’s not either D-Lo or Dennis. They stand and wait for the ball to bounce to them and we need guys getting their feet off the floor and crashing the glass. The Nuggets will likely have already figured out a decent counter to Hachimura on The Joker (and a lot of that success was also the dude probably got a little gassed by the 4th quarter). We can’t always do a rope-a-dope and come out heavy in the 4th. We need to come out punching better at the start and maintain that ferocity. Everyone should be adjusted to the altitude by now, that’s a crappy excuse anyhow. Lakers need to start with fire, not find it when it suits them.