Lakers News: Opposing Coach Believes LA's Depth Has "Championship Magic"
On Tuesday night, your Los Angeles Lakers will open up their best-of-seven Western Conference Finals series against the Denver Nuggets as the underdogs, just as they have been throughout these playoffs so far.
Does LA have the eye of the tiger enough to knock off the top seed in the West and advance to its second NBA Finals appearance during its four seasons with LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the team's roster?
An anonymous rival coach chatted with Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times about what they see overall happening in the series, what they've seen overall from LA, and some specific matchup questions.
The coach believes that the club's solid role player depth could make the difference between the buck stopping here and Los Angeles moving on.
"The Lakers seem to have a little bit of that championship magic a little bit where they’re getting the random [D'Angelo] Russell game, they get the [Rui] Hachimura game, they get the Lonnie Walker game," the coach said. "They get stuff like that where it’s these guys in big moments they’re getting role players to step up and so they’ve survived those games where LeBron hasn’t been as effective.
Beyond the depth, the coach went on to dig into how the Lakers could deal with Denver's best player, two-time MVP center Nikola Jokic.
"I’m just really interested how they cover Jokic from a Lakers perspective," the coach continued. "You have someone in AD that I think can potentially guard him one on one and he’s one of the few guys that can but then AD is out of help-side — does this become more of a Jarred Vanderbilt series? Because you’re going to need someone off the ball roaming off those drives if AD’s sole focus is Jokic. Will they send extra bodies if they have AD as a secondary defender [on Jokic]? If anyone else besides AD is matched up on Jokic, how are they coming — top side, baseline side, on the dribble, on the catch?"
"Denver’s been the most steady team this whole playoffs and so I do think that there has to be, not junking it up, but [Lakers coach Darvin] Ham and that staff are going to have to be a little creative and they have the personnel to do that," the coach added. "But I’m interested in how they kill the head of the snake as much as possible."
Russell is LA's third-leading scorer, behind Davis and James, in these playoffs thus far, averaging 15.7 points on .445/.347/.773 shooting splits, 5.0 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and 0.8 steals a night. Through the playoffs thus far, Reaves is averaging 15.4 points on .434/.397/.857 shooting splits, 4.8 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and 0.7 steals a game. Hachimura is logging 11.2 points with a .570/.533/.833 slash line, plus 3.6 rebounds. Elsewhere among LA role players, Dennis Schröder and Jarred Vanderbilt have also submitted big-time performances on occasion.
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