The minor tweak that almost helped the Lakers steal Game 1 from the Nuggets

The Lakers clawed their way back into Game 1 with a key fourth-quarter adjustment. Will it work as well against the Nuggets in Game 2?

With three and half minutes remaining in the third quarter, Denver Nuggets positional anomaly Bruce Brown got a step on Los Angeles Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt. What followed was a thunderous slam that extended Denver’s commanding lead to 20 points.

At that moment, it became clear that the seventh-seeded Lakers were overmatched against the one-seeded Nuggets. A Nuggets series victory was still distant, yet it seemed almost inevitable.

So, how is it then that with less than a minute remaining in the game, the Lakers had possession of the ball with a chance to tie the game in one fell swoop? How did they manage to erase that seemingly insurmountable deficit? And more importantly, what does it mean for the rest of the series moving forward?

How things got ugly for the Lakers

No matter how you slice it, Nikola Jokic has been the best offensive player on the planet in these playoffs. And being that good on that side of the ball presents some unique challenges for opposing teams.

For starters, during the regular season, Jokic finished in the 95th percentile in post-up efficiency, despite also being in the 98th percentile in volume (the general trend is the higher your volume, the lower your efficiency). Simply put, that means that he’s an unstoppable force on the low block. And even the likes of Anthony Davis (the player who many believe has been the best defensive player in this postseason) don’t stand a reasonable chance against him.

According to NBA Matchup Data (which can admittedly be a bit finicky), Jokic was 8-for-10 from the floor on possessions where he was being shadowed by Davis. That is #notgood if you are the Lakers.

But what makes Jokic a real handful is he’s just as good (if not better) at playmaking as he is at scoring. So, when Los Angeles’ other defenders tried offering Davis some backup, by way of double teams or early help, Jokic was able to quickly identify which one of his teammates was being neglected.

Jokic was in complete control on offense, and as a result, his Nuggets tallied a franchise-high 106 points through three quarters of basketball.

This was an issue for Los Angeles for a handful of reasons. One, it is never good practice to allow your opponent to hit triple digits without even getting to the fourth quarter. Two, the Lakers are a team that leans on their defense for success (they were first in Defensive Rating in these playoffs heading into this series). And three, if they aren’t generating misses, it makes it harder for them to get out in transition.

The Lakers aren’t the Sacramento Kings (or even the Nuggets, for that matter). They don’t have some dynamic free-flowing offense they can fall back on to help them navigate a shoot-out. They need their defense to generate stops so they can get to running and gunning. They were sixth in the regular season in transition frequency and have been fifth in that department during these playoffs. So, by dominating them with his offense, Jokic also threw a wrench in the Lakers’ offensive plans.

How the Lakers made things prettier

During a regular season game in late January, Ben Taylor of Thinking Basketball noticed something interesting about an adjustment the Philadelphia 76ers made in how they defended Jokic.

After having MVP big man Joel Embiid defend Jokic in the first half, the 76ers returned from the extended intermission with PJ Tucker guarding the Serbian Stallion. This enabled Embiid to play a floater role near the paint while Tucker used his strength to bang with Jokic on the block. This tactic is known as the man-spy technique.

Now, going back to that first clip we showed you of Jokic giving Davis the work, what do you notice here?

The paint is completely wide open. By having Davis on Jokic, that means the Lakers have no rim protectors in the paint to deal with Denver’s drivers!

So, in the fourth quarter, Los Angeles deployed their own version of the man-spy technique, having the big-bodied Rui Hachimura dance with Jokic while Davis waited in the shadows to catch Jokic’s spin move.

Davis is clearly a better on-ball defender than Hachimura. But if even Davis can’t contain Jokic on his lonesome, you might as well have Hachimura on him so that Davis can at least safeguard the most important part of the court — the paint.

We alluded to the Lakers touting a lackluster half-court offense. That is true, but they have found success in these playoffs when they have been able to use their brutish bullies to attack smaller guards. They did it to Ja Morant and Tyus Jones in the first round against the Memphis Grizzlies, and they did it to Jordan Poole and Stephen Curry when they played the Golden State Warriors last round.

Last night, they continued this form of mismatch hunting on Denver’s Jamal Murray. They went to it a bit early on, but they really doubled down on their crusade in the fourth quarter.

In the first clip, LeBron James (can you believe it took us this long into the article to mention him?) sets a screen for the guy Murray is defending (in this case, Dennis Schroder), thereby compelling Murray to switch onto him. From there, James receives the ball and attacks the smaller Murray downhill.

In the second clip, Austin Reaves — Murray’s assignment on the play — sets a screen from James to try and get Murray to switch on to James. At this point, Denver has caught on to the Lakers’ antics and has instructed Murray to hedge and recover on the screen. However, Reaves counters by popping out for a 3-pointer (he shot 39.8 percent on those in the regular season) before Murray can get back in time to contest.

In summary, this two-pronged battle plan — using the man-spy technique on one end and relentless mismatch hunting on the other end — is what helped Los Angeles scrap and claw their way back into the game.

How do the Nuggets make things ugly again?

Despite ultimately winning the game, Denver will need to come into Game 2 with some adjustments of their own if they want to avoid Los Angeles’ new formula splitting the series at one game a piece.

You may have noticed that the person Davis was spying/sagging off of in the Lakers’ man-spy formation was none other than Aaron Gordon — the Nuggets’ worst outside shooter in their starting lineup (career 32.5 percent 3-point shooter).

To counter, the Nuggets may try to take a page from the Warriors’ book and have the non-shooter Davis is sagging off of come up to set a ballscreen in order to lure Davis into the action and out of the paint. Like this:

At the very least, Denver would be wise to bring Gordon out from the dunker spot (where he was in the fourth quarter of Game 1) to the perimeter. That way, Gordon can try to burn Davis for ignoring him by spotting up for 3s, setting exit screens, or ghost-cutting him.

As for the Murray dilemma, one thing Denver did at the very end of the game was put him on Dennis Schroder. That matters because, when Murray tries to hedge to avoid mismatches, Schroder isn’t as dangerous of a shooter as Reaves is (Schroder is a career 33.7 percent 3-point shooter), so he’s less likely to burn him by popping out for a triple (as Reaves did in the second clip we mentioned earlier).

Regardless of what new moves Denver comes out with in Game 2, the Lakers have shown us that they won’t go down easy. They aren’t going to lie down and just give this series to Denver. No. If Jokic and the Nuggets want to gift this franchise with their first Finals berth in NBA history, they are going to have to pry it from the cold hands of the most storied franchise this league has ever known.

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