Lakers News: 4 Takeaways From LA Wasting A Golden Opportunity In Game 2
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In Game 2 of their ongoing Western Conference Finals series yesterday, your Los Angeles Lakers led the Denver Nuggets for most of the contest, often by double digits.
Unfortunately, by the time the game clock ticked down to zero, LA wound up on the losing side of the equation, falling 108-103 in Denver. The Lakers now head back home trailing 0-2 in the series.
The Conference Finals now move to the friendly confines of Crypto.com Arena. LA, which is unbeaten at home in the playoffs (as is Denver), certainly hopes that a less-imposing altitude and its rabid home fans will galvanize it to victory.
Here are four takeaways from a bummer of a loss Thursday night:
4. LeBron James needs to stop taking five three-pointers a game.
The Chosen One has never been a great three-point shooter, but he's at times throughout his long and storied career been at least a competent one. Last season represented, to date, the biggest change in his shot portfolio yet. He took a whopping eight three-pointers a night, making them at a 35.9% rate, around the league average. If he could sustain that level of production, it would practically make sense for James to keep shooting from distance, given that it preserves his 38-year-old body from getting battered in the paint every possession (as we witnessed last night).
This season, his three-point shooting efficacy declined significantly, to just 32.1% on 6.9 makes. In the playoffs, it's gotten even worse. He's taking 6.4 triples a night and making just 23.3% of them. During the Denver series, he's made zero of his 10 three-point tries across two games. He has also missed 19 straight fourth quarter triple tries since the playoffs started, per ESPN.
3. "Every Other Davis" is a real issue on offense for LA.
The Brow just can't consistently sustain his offensive output in the playoffs from game to game. That proved to be the case yet again last night. After scoring 40 points on 14-of-23 field goal shooting in Game 1, Davis chipped in a far more pedestrian 18 points on a miserable 4-of-15 shooting from the floor during Game 2.
Incidentally, as a nickname, I think I prefer "Every Other Davis," which The Ringer's Joe House has popularized, to describe this hot-and-cold playoff scoring phenomenon, over Charles Barkley's nickname, "Street Clothes," which is more a reference to his proclivity for injuries than it is his erratic scoring.
2. It may be time to consider yet another starting lineup switch for Game 3.
Power forward Jarred Vanderbilt was reinserted into LA's first five for his defense and size in favor of Dennis Schröder. But down the home stretch of the contest it was Schroder, not D'Angelo Russell, who had earned Darvin Ham's trust to close the game.
I appreciate that the Lakers are worried they'll lose D-Lo's engagement if they bench him, but at the same time, if this iteration of D'Angelo Russell we've seen in the past two playoff contests is the "engaged" version, then who cares? Schröder is not the level of shooter Russell is, which could hurt LA's spacing. Still, he's a solid passer and can be a good and creating offense inside when he needs to be, plus he's a terrific defender who can make Jamal Murray work for his points (as he did for much of Game 2's first three quarters, anyway).
1. This series is over.
Barring a miraculously healed right foot for LeBron James, I just don't see the Lakers winning four of the next five contests against the shotmaking, passing, and size of this hungry Nuggets team, anxious to make the club's first NBA Finals in its history. To be fair, pre-NBA/ABA merger, Denver did make an ABA Finals against Julius Irving's New York Nets in 1976, which it lost in six games. That Game 2 loss was the nail in the coffin for a frankly overachieving Lakers squad that went impressively far during a somewhat wacky West playoffs.
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