Lakers vs. Nuggets: The Value of Staying Ready
A preview of the Western Conference Finals, and why the Lakers' roster versatility as well as their mettle, will once again need to be the key to a series.
Welcome to issue #17 of Throwdowns.
First off, I want to apologize for the delay in-between issues. With everything going on, my recent return to work and attempting to navigate the labyrinth that is the Zoom-sphere with students has as I am sure many of you can attest — been a handful.
A lot has changed in the basketball world since the last time we spoke. So let’s play catch up, and also talk a little about this one in the process.
When you read this, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets — not the Clippers — will battle it out in the Western Conference Finals.
After the initial shock of that statement pulls up a chair and settles in, it’s fitting, really. When you actually think about it.
In a year where anything, and nearly everything fathomable has happened in the world around us, the nearly set in stone series that L.A. fans and basketball aficionados everywhere had envisioned heading into the season, vanished. Poof. Just like that.
Hopes, legacies, history, all of it seemingly a bounce of a basketball away from coming to fruition. But like the Clippers, we took it for granted. We should have read the writing on the wall earlier. And the Nuggets taught us all that hard lesson.
The Clippers are (were) a collection of excellent players. Rangy, efficient and fit the mold of what a playoff club should look like. But all season, that always felt more theoretical, and more artificial than tangible. A confidence that leaned more heavily toward arrogance than belief. Something simply always was off.
Yes, no one really expected Denver to come back from a 3-1 series deficit, even after literally accomplishing that feat in the round prior.
But they did, in emphatic, apocalyptic fashion. Showcasing in the process, that nothing should be assumptive, in basketball or in life.
The sport itself is so much more than a single variable. It’s more than gathering up all the prototypical pieces and expecting it to simply work. There is variance. There are rough patches, bumps in the road. Things that only a team can face head-on. Together.
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The Lakers have had their fair share of obstacles this year.
From their preseason trip to China, to the passing of Kobe and Gigi Bryant and then moving into a bubble, this team became much more than just that. They became vessels of solace that one and other could rely on.
In a strange way, what they experienced this year prepared them for the unimaginable. And it is that flexibility and resilience, that has proven time after time to be so vital in the playoffs.
Which will once again be needed. Perhaps even more so against a team who similarly have gone through the fire and can still tell their story after reaching the other side.
On the court, and individually, the Nuggets will offer interesting challenges for the Lakers.
Jamal Murray is an offensive dynamo. The guard has taken a leap in the postseason, highlighted by his wonderful series against Utah which he then chased with one of the more impressive game-seven performances from a 23-year-old in recent memory.
His shooting versatility, whether off-the-catch, on the move, going downhill, east/west, and the floater game, it’s all there. Arguably more polished than ever since arriving to Orlando.
His ability to catch fire is reminiscent of the guards the Lakers have already faced in the playoffs, obviously not to their degree, but the danger he presents should not be taken lightly if judging his game solely in comparison to those they have already bested. Especially, when you factor in Nikola Jokic’s role in this series.
If you choose to blitz or double Murray, Jokic is then there to create in the short roll unlike any of the previous bigs the team has faced thus far. If you don’t trap, or send help Murray’s way, Jokic can operate in the post, pop out, or simply create on his own.
The beauty behind Jokic’s game is he makes the difficult seem ordinary. The ordinary seem wonderful. He’s a joy to watch play the game, as is Murray and the rest of the Nuggets when they’re clicking and fighting.
For the Lakers, and in particular the bigs, this is another chance to flash their versatility in matching up with yet another roster type, and show the value in staying ready.
Against Houston, Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee combined for a total of 46 minutes played. Relatively counted on instead for moral support, the team’s primary centers had to mostly watch from the sidelines with the understanding that their time would come. And it has.
The Lakers will likely need both Howard and McGee in this series to varying degrees when it comes to Jokic, as will they need to be able to go back to being “small.” And they will need to once again do so in cohesion, without ego and relying on one and other.
It was a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but when the team’s rookie 19-year-old Talen Horton-Tucker, surprisingly received spot minutes in the second round, he took the literal ball and ran. He did not flinch, he did not shy away, he was ready.
That’s the spirt that has followed this group throughout the year. They have been versatile, willing to adjust. And when it’s not their night, they are on the sidelines cheering for their teammates on the floor.
Knowing that their name will eventually be called.