Lakers Final Score: Jamal Murray Erases Late LA Lead, Denver Takes 2-0 WCF Lead
Your Los Angeles Lakers put forth a valiant effort, and almost stole a road win from the mighty Denver Nuggets tonight.
Unfortunately, Jamal Murray had something to say about that.
A ferocious fourth quarter scoring binge from the Nuggets' starting point guard sealed a 108-103 Game 2 victory in Ball Arena. With a 2-0 series record, Denver is now two games away from its first-ever NBA Finals appearance.
This now becomes a best-of-five series for LA, in which the Lakers must beat Murray, Nikola Jokic and the rest of their ilk for at least four games. Barring injury, that's a tall task, especially against this team.
James, who of course has seen a lot of different playoff scenarios across his 20 seasons, has been down 0-2 in a Conference Finals series before. In 2018, he led his Cleveland Cavaliers all the way back to best the Boston Celtics in seven games and advance to their fourth consecutive NBA Finals (and his eighth straight overall). But he was still arguably the best player in the league then. Now the guy most deserving of that title is on the other team.
It will be an uphill battle, and the Lakers' shooting woes tonight (plus some uncharacteristic close-range misses from James and co-star Anthony Davis) exposed some significant holes in the team's game.
Head coach Darvin Ham made a savvy lineup change, adding some size into the mix by returning Jarred Vanderbilt to his first five, and demoting Dennis Schröder back to the bench (although, honestly his defense was probably more valuable than D'Angelo Russell's spotty offense). The opening quarter was a back-and-forth affair. After Nuggets reserve guard Bruce Brown revealed that part of the club's plan in Game 1 was to target Russell, D-Lo went out of his way to talk smack to Brown after nailing two quick triples early:
A balanced offensive approach from LA, and high-scoring turns from Denver, kept the contest close. Things were knotted up, 27-27, at the end of the frame.
The Lakers built out a significant lead with a 9-0 start to the period. Los Angeles had as much as an 11-point edge over Denver at various points during the frame.
Rui Hachimura started off red hot, scoring 17 points on 7-of-7 shooting from the floor in the contest's first half overall.
In an ominous harbinger of things to come, LeBron struggled a bit to convert inside, including missing a wide-open dunk:
LA's non-Rui Hachimura role players couldn't get much cooking on offense. Reaves, Russell, and Schröder shot a combined 4-of-17 from the floor through the game's first half.
Though Los Angeles defended the Nuggets capably in the halfcourt, and Hachimura and LeBron James both had strong opening halves, the lack of offensive punch elsewhere, and some sloppy transition defense (where the Nuggets outscored LA 16-9) let Denver climb back into the contest. The Lakers led by five at the break, 53-48.
With Jamal Murray still performing miserably through the second quarter, the Lakers continued to pace the Nuggets in what was most likely a must-win game for Los Angeles. But the rest of Denver refused to go quietly.
LA got up by as much as 11 in the frame again -- and the Nuggets promptly responded with a 10-0 run of their own. The third quarter ended with LA leading by a possession, 79-76.
To kick off the third quarter, small forward Michael Porter Jr. made a three falling away to tie the game 79-79.
James was showing some signs of fatigue by the fourth quarter, as evinced by a flurry of terrible early-shot clock three-point whiffs.
The Nuggets snagged their first lead since the contest's first quarter, 84-83, after Jamal Murray nailed a critical triple. It turned out, that was just the beginning of the good vibes for Denver.
A 15-1 Denver run midway through the fourth quarter, buoyed by a series of triples from the likes of a suddenly-hot Jamal Murray, plus Michael Porter Jr. and Bruce Brown, threw a wrench in the Lakers' plans.
Austin Reaves finally stopped the bleeding, nailing a trey of his own after Los Angeles had lost 11 straight looks from deep.
Invariably, Murray responded with yet another three, putting the Nuggets back up by 10, 99-89.
Suddenly, Los Angeles went on a 5-0 run of its own, thanks to some clutch shotmaking courtesy of James and Davis -- including a rare Davis corner triple! Schröder was brought back into the game late to clamp down on Murray.
Tough defense from James and Davis on Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic resulted in a bad miss, but James unfortunately appeared to roll his left ankle on AD's foot, and remained on the floor for a while even as play progressed on the other end with LA on offense. Austin Reaves banked in a critical triple to cut the Nuggets' lead to just two points, 101-99, with 49 seconds left.
Jamal Murray drew a foul and made both his free throws to extend Denver's lead to four points. The Lakers blew an offensive possession by forcing up another Anthony Davis corner three for some reason, and remained down by four points, 103-99, with 34.2 seconds remaining and the Nuggets with possession.
James picked off an errant Nuggets pass to Jokic for a steal, but then blew yet another point-blank look at the rim (this time air-balling a layup try) with power forward Aaron Gordon's arm in his face.
The Lakers had no choice but to foul Jamal Murray yet again. He made both.
This next time down the floor, James did make a quick layup, cutting the lead back down to four points. Los Angeles had to foul Murray again to stop the clock, and this time he split both looks.
Reaves made a quick lefty layup along the baseline to shrink the Nuggets' edge to three points, and LA once again expediently fouled Murray with 12.6 seconds remaining. This time, Murray iced both shots, finishing with 23 points in the fourth frame alone, having gone just 5-of-17 from the floor for 14 points in the previous three quarters. He played every second of the game's second half.
Headed downhill, James had his approach stripped by an attentive Bruce Brown, sealing the victory for Denver.
With the win, the Nuggets improve to 8-0 at home for these playoffs.
The Lakers, too, are undefeated on their home floor this season (7-0). Should they protect Crypto.com Arena in the third and fourth games of this series, they'll survive to try to steal a road contest in Denver once again for Game 5.
LA shot an abysmal 8-for-30 from long range. Davis turned in one of his worst scoring nights of the entire playoffs to this point.
James notched 22 points on 9-of-19 shooting from the floor, 10 assists, nine rebounds, four steals, and two blocks. But if we dig a bit deeper, James made took some really costly three-pointers that nobody expected him to make, in addition to missing several shots at the rim (he missed four of his 12 tries around the rack). After shooting poorly in the previous two playoff rounds from long range, James now can't buy a single three in this series. He's gone 0-for-10 from deep thus far through these first two games. Why is he averaging five triple tries across two contests with this kind of success rate?
Murray's 37 points on 11-of-24 shooting from the floor (6-of-14 from deep) paced all scorers. He also grabbed 10 boards and dished out five assists. Jokic had yet another 20+ point triple-double, this time a "modest" 23 points, 17 rebounds, and 12 assists. Three other Nuggets scored in double digits.
Even though the Lakers, as is their custom, got eight more free throw line opportunities than the Nuggets (LA went 23-of-26 from the charity stripe compared to Denver's 16-of-18), they weren't enough of an advantage to stave off Murray's incredible night. He scored 18 points on 4-of-15 shooting from the field and 9-of-11 shooting from the charity stripe, while pulling down 14 rebounds, dishing out four assists (neutralized by four turnovers), blocking four shots and nabbing one steal.
Are you following us on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube yet? Join the conversation as we discuss the latest Lakers news and rumors with fans like you!
