The Los Angeles Lakers are obviously not where they want to be down 2-0 in their first round series against the Denver Nuggets. And they are especially unhappy that they blew a 20-point lead in Game 2 to drop to an 0-2 deficit. What’s perhaps most disheartening about the series margin is that Anthony Davis has been playing some of his best basketball, and Nikola Jokic — while still putting up incredible numbers — has been less efficient than usual.
The Lakers have also already forced the Nuggets to make some crucial defensive adjustments, meaning L.A. is in fact having success despite the two losing efforts. In Game 2, this involved forcing Jokic into pick-and-roll actions defensively, giving the Lakers guards an advantage against the slower Jokic. That scheme had major success in the first half, forcing Denver to try and adjust after halftime.
Davis spoke about the decision to put Jokic in the pick-and-roll and if he feels that’s something the Lakers can continue to use moving forward.
“I’ll have to go back and look at it, but we had something working with the pick-and-roll, just trying to put Jokic in the pick-and-roll, Michael Porter (too). And we had some success doing so, so we went to it in the second half.”
The Nuggets adjusted by having Aaron Gordon guard Davis and leaving Jokic as more of a secondary roamer near the paint. Davis believes the adjustment by the Nuggets isn’t what stopped L.A. from a successful second half of Monday night, though.
“We got great looks, we missed. Still tried to do what we were doing before with the ball screens, putting Jokic in ball screens and it was working for us. We didn’t score. In the second half, we only scored 40 points.”
And as it always does against Denver, it came down to the Nuggets having elite crunch time execution and the Lakers struggling. Davis wouldn’t change anything about the way the Lakers approached things defensively.
“They made some tough shots. I think we played pretty good defense and they made some really tough shots,” Davis concluded.
For Davis, the only mindset now is winning Game 3 and taking care of the rest later. The Lakers get to return home for the third game of the series and with two days of rest. And with the possible return of Jarred Vanderbilt to the lineup, L.A. should have a serious shot to give Denver a scare on Thursday.
Anthony Davis: Lakers don’t know what they’re doing at stretches
Anthony Davis was much more calm in his day after media availability, but in the heat of the loss on Monday, Davis registered a huge critique of L.A., the players and the coaches. He admitted that, at times, the Lakers don’t know what they’re doing on either end of the floor.
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