L.A. Lakers Versus Denver Preview
Western Conference Finals
#1 L.A. Lakers (52-19) vs. #3 Denver Nuggets (46-27)
Season series: L.A., 3-1
Denver can win if…Nikola Jokic is the best player in this series to the same extent that he was the best player as the Nuggets defeated the Clippers in seven games in the second round. In that series, Jokic led both teams in scoring (24.4 ppg), rebounding (13.4 rpg), and assists (6.6 apg) with shooting splits of .515/.395/.815. Jokic outplayed 2019 Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard (24.3 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 5.9 apg, .442/.359/.872) overall, and particularly when it mattered most in game seven (16 points, 22 rebounds, 14 assists for Jokic; 14 points, six rebounds, six assists for Leonard). Jokic is a gifted scorer who is one of the best passing big men ever. He is not a great defender but he is solid enough--both in his individual matchup and in switches--that he is not a liability, plus he is a tremendous defensive rebounder.
Jamal Murray was great versus Utah in the first round (31.6 ppg) but he struggled initially versus the Clippers before finding his way as the Nuggets recovered from a 3-1 deficit. The Lakers' strength is upfront with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, so it is very important for Denver that Murray decisively win his matchup.
L.A. will win because…LeBron James and Anthony Davis should be the two best players on the court. James' resume speaks for itself, but what is perhaps most remarkable about the four-time regular season MVP/three-time NBA champion/three-time Finals MVP is how dominant and durable he still is despite his age (35) and years of service (17). Perhaps only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, and Karl Malone have played at an equivalent level this deep into their respective careers. Davis is a potent scorer, excellent rebounder, solid passer, and elite-level defender; when he is focused and when he is attacking the paint at both ends of the court he is as good as any player in the league.
It is fashionable to ridicule the Lakers' supporting cast; that is standard operating procedure for the James-adoring media: if James wins then he can be portrayed as a basketball superhero--and if he loses, he can still be portrayed as a basketball superhero who carried a supposedly ragtag group farther than any other mortal could have. The Lakers have a first ballot Hall of Famer coming off of the bench (Dwight Howard), a Hall of Fame caliber guard coming off of the bench (Rajon Rondo), a championship-tested "3 and D" swingman in Danny Green, a potential future All-Star in Kyle Kuzma, and several other solid role players. Compare that group to the 2002 Lakers; Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant won their third straight title despite their third leading playoff scorer (Derek Fisher) shooting .357 from the field. Compare that group to the 2009 Lakers; Kobe Bryant's supporting cast consisted of a player who had been a one-time All-Star prior to joining the Lakers (Pau Gasol), with the third option being career underachiever Lamar Odom, the fourth option being career journeyman Trevor Ariza, and the fifth option being Fisher, who shot .394 from the field during that playoff run. Bryant molded that group into championship form; Gasol is a future Hall of Famer in large part because of the time he spent playing with Bryant, and most of the other Lakers' starters would not have started for the other elite playoff teams of that era. In contrast, Anthony Davis proved to be an elite player before joining forces with James, and the rest of the roster includes several established veterans and several young, upcoming players. It does not in any way diminish James' individual greatness to tell the truth and state that James has more than enough help to win a championship, and he has more help than many other stars have had during their championship runs.
Other things to consider: There is no excuse for the Lakers to not win the 2020 championship. The other three top contenders--the Milwaukee Bucks, the L.A. Clippers, and the Toronto Raptors--have already been eliminated. This means that the Lakers will not have to face either of the top two teams from the Eastern Conference, nor will they have to face the second seeded team in the Western Conference. James and Davis should be the two best players on the court the rest of the way during the playoffs and, as noted above, their supporting cast is more than adequate. The delayed postseason with no home court advantage has been filled with oddities--including the nominal "road" team winning all seven games in the Boston-Toronto series, and both of the top seeded teams in the Eastern Conference failing to reach the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since the current playoff system began in 1984--but the chaos has worked out perfectly for the Lakers, who have been relatively drama-free as their rivals have dropped off one by one.
James has proven more than once that he has what it takes to lead a team to a title, but he has also proven more than once that he can shrink under the pressure on the biggest stage. Although he played a pivotal role in Cleveland's 2016 NBA Finals comeback from a 3-1 deficit, he has a tendency to be a frontrunner, and it will be interesting to see how he responds if the Lakers face real adversity at any time during the 2020 playoffs (a 1-0 deficit versus a vastly inferior team such as Portland or Houston does not count as real adversity).
During the 2020 playoffs, the Nuggets have twice looked lethargic while falling into 3-1 holes only to rally to win the series. At one point, Coach Michael Malone resorted to publicly pleading with his team to play hard. The Clippers have been roasted for turning it on and turning it off, but the Nuggets have displayed inconsistent effort and efficiency throughout the 2020 playoffs. However, the Nuggets are also a talented team that has ranked among the Western Conference elite for the past two years, and they have proven that they can stay calm under the most dire circumstances and conditions. If their effort and energy level is consistently high then they could make this series very interesting. I predict that the Lakers will win in six games.
Labels: Anthony Davis, Denver Nuggets, Jamal Murray, L.A. Lakers, LeBron James, Nikola Jokic
posted by David Friedman @ 1:57 AM
Resilient Nuggets Stun Clippers in Game Seven
Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a problem. The Denver Nuggets proved to be an insurmountable and unsolvable problem for the L.A. Clippers after the Clippers took a 3-1 lead in their Western Conference semifinal series. The Nuggets overcame a double digit second half deficit to win game five to stave off elimination, but at that time it still seemed likely that the Clippers would close out the series. The Nuggets overcame a double digit second half deficit to win game six to stave off elimination, and suddenly the Clippers faced the pressure of a game seven without the usual benefits of home court advantage. The Nuggets overcame a double digit second half deficit to win game seven--and win convincingly, 104-89. You can argue about which team has more talent, but there is no argument about which team is mentally tougher and which team is more disciplined about following the game plan regardless of whether the point differential is +10 or -10.
Nikola Jokic was the best player on the court in game seven and he was also the best player in this series. In game seven, Jokic had 16 points, a game-high 22 rebounds, and a game-high 13 assists. He only shot 5-13 from the field, but he put his stamp on the game with his rebounding dominance and his pinpoint passing. As ESPN's Tim Legler masterfully showed when he broke down the game seven footage, the Clippers had no answer for the Nuggets' two man game with Jokic and Jamal Murray, mainly because of Jokic's tremendous decision making and peerless passing skills. Jokic gave the Clippers a simple, brutal choice on most possessions: Which way do you want to die? Do you want to die by a pass to the baseline cutter, a pass to the wing three point shooter, or a one legged runner by Jokic? Jokic kept asking the Clippers how they wanted it, and he kept giving it to them. By the fourth quarter of game seven, the Clippers looked like a mentally broken team, collapsing under the weight of defensive breakdowns, shots fired off of the side of the backboard, and careless turnovers.
Jamal Murray made headlines with his record setting scoring as Denver came back from a 3-1 deficit versus Utah in the first round, but you could argue that Jokic was the best player in that series as well, particularly after Jokic had 30 points, 14 rebounds, and four assists in game seven while Murray was limited to 17 points on 7-21 field goal shooting. Murray was outstanding in game seven versus the Clippers, pouring in 40 points on 15-26 field goal shooting. He is not only a gifted one on one scorer but also a key part of the two man game with Jokic. Jokic-Murray is the not the duo promoted the most by the NBA, but it is the duo playing the best in the 2020 playoffs.
While Denver deserves a full measure of praise for winning this series, this result is not the equivalent to a 16th seed in the NCAA Tournament pulling off an upset against improbable odds. The Nuggets posted the second best record in the Western Conference in 2019, and they finished with the third best regular season record in the Western Conference in 2020. This team has consistently ranked near the top of the league for the past couple years. Yet, there is no doubt that this is an upset considering the championship or bust expectations rightly placed on the Clippers after they acquired Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Also, the Nuggets were an uninspiring 3-5 in the seeding games, while the Clippers went 5-3 to preserve the second seed in the Western Conference. Prior to the start of the playoffs, few if any people outside of Denver's locker room expected this team to beat the Clippers in a seven game series.
The Nuggets deserve a lot of credit. They won this series, even though the mainstream media take will likely insist that the Clippers lost the series because the Clippers not only had a 3-1 lead but also had double digit second half leads in each of the final three games. Who cares which team had what kind of advantage before the final buzzer? The goal is to be the first team to win four games, not the first team to build big leads. It has been said that if the Indianapolis 500 were the Indianapolis 400 then
Mario Andretti might have won more of them than anyone; I am as big of a Mario Andretti fan as anyone, but I am sure that he would be the first to say that the point of that race is to lead the 200th (final) lap, not to lead the most laps or to to be the leader at lap 100 or lap 150. The Clippers' big leads do not prove that they were the superior team; the Nuggets' four wins prove that they were the superior team. The Nuggets may be the 2020 version of the mid-1990s Rockets, a two-time champion whose Coach Rudy Tomjanovich declared, "Never underestimate the heart of a champion!" Denver is the first team to recover from two 3-1 deficits in one postseason, and the first team to win six straight elimination games.
What went wrong for the Clippers? It is fair to wonder how much the load management philosophy hindered the Clippers from establishing the rhythm and the espirt de corps needed to win a tough seven games series. Teams are built when playing tough back to back games, or when finishing out the fourth game in five days. Often--if not always--Kawhi Leonard sat out those games, and thus the Clippers never built the foundation of their team. They assumed that with all of their talented players on the court during the playoffs everything would just work out, but they never put in the work as a unit to make that into a reality.
The Raptors got away with load management last season, but in general load management is not a recipe for success. A championship team is a finely tuned machine that can withstand tough times; the Clippers often looked unfocused, and they lacked poise when the Nuggets came back in the second half of three straight games. It seemed like the Clippers expected the Nuggets to just succumb, and that the Clippers had no idea what to do when the Nuggets kept resisting. Load management is based on the idea that some games and some possessions are more important than others; once you start down that slippery slope, it can become difficult to convince a team to play hard all of the time. The expectation used to be that great players strive to play all 82 games; I am not sure when exactly that changed, but the San Antonio Spurs are often given credit/blame for load management, so it is worth noting that the Spurs have won just one title in the past 13 years after claiming four titles in nine years prior to embracing load management. Tim Duncan played in at least 80 games in six of his first 10 seasons (and he played all 50 games in the lockout shortened 1999 season), but he never played in 80 games in a season after 2007.
Kawhi Leonard was supposed to be the best player in this series, but Jokic outplayed him, and you could even argue that Murray's impact matched Leonard's impact. In game seven, Leonard had 14 points on 6-22 field goal shooting, six rebounds, and six assists, looking nothing like
the two-time NBA Finals MVP who dominated the 2019 NBA playoffs while
leading the Toronto Raptors to the franchise's first championship. In the second half of game seven, Leonard shot 1-11 from the field on contested shots. Leonard usually not only gets to his spots at his speed, but he usually converts a high percentage of those shots; against the Nuggets--particularly in the final three games of the series--he did not always get to his spots, and he was much less efficient than usual. Once the other Clippers realized that Leonard was not going to just save the day by himself, they looked tentative, shaken and scared in the second half of each of the last three games. In particular, Paul George--always a bit of an overhyped player (he should not have finished third in MVP voting last season)--fell apart, scoring 10 points in game seven on 4-16 field goal shooting, with several of his misses caroming wildly and threatening the safety of the unwary.
Toronto's second round loss to Boston indicated that the Raptors needed Leonard's star power to get over the hump--but the Clippers' second round loss to Denver indicated that perhaps Leonard needed a supporting cast based on grittiness and toughness as opposed to raw talent. The Clippers sans Leonard are more talented than the Raptors sans Leonard, but who would you take now in a seven game series?
It would have been so much better for the NBA if LeBron James had stayed in Cleveland the first time, if Kevin Durant had stayed in Oklahoma City, and if Kawhi Leonard had stayed in Toronto. Instead of great players pursuing the fantasy of finding the perfect sidekick or the perfect supporting cast, it would be wonderful to see great players
following the examples set by Julius Erving, Isiah Thomas, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, and Dirk Nowitzki.
Perhaps Jokic and Murray will spend their whole careers chasing championships together instead of pursuing personal glory.
Labels: Denver Nuggets, Jamal Murray, Kawhi Leonard, L.A. Clippers, Nikola Jokic
posted by David Friedman @ 2:15 AM
Lakers Rout Misfiring Rockets to Advance to Western Conference Finals
The L.A. Lakers dominated the Houston Rockets in game five of the Western Conference semifinals, taking a 13-2 lead at the start of the game and never trailing en route to a 119-96 victory. The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since
Kobe Bryant led the team to the second of back to back titles in 2010. The Lakers outrebounded the Rockets 50-31, and outshot the Rockets from the field .527 to .371. The Lakers also set a single game franchise playoff record for three pointers made (19) while shooting .514 from beyond the arc. In contrast, the Rockets shot 13-49 (.265) from three point range. The Rockets
went all in with small ball and the results are devastatingly bad: they not only got outrebouned by a huge margin but they also lost the three point battle in both raw totals and percentages. One wonders how much evidence Daryl Morey needs to figure out that his interpretation of "advanced basketball statistics" is not producing a championship recipe?
ESPN's Tim Legler said this was the first playoff game this year that "felt like a summer league game." The Rockets set that tone in game four; with a chance to tie the series at 2-2, the Rockets came out flat, fell behind by a large margin, made a late run--but never really threatened--and then succumbed to their fate. In game five, the Rockets capitulated right after the opening tip. After shooting 2-11 from the field in game four--during the Rockets' final opportunity to make this a competitive series--Harden put up good boxscore numbers (30 points on 12-20 field goal shooting), but he and his teammates did not bring
energy at the start of the game. Harden had a -29 plus/minus number,
meaning the Rockets did worse when he was in the game than they did when
he was out of the game. By the time Harden started making shots, the
Rockets were already in a deep hole. Harden scored just two points as
the Lakers led 23-9 with less than five minutes remaining in the first
quarter. On defense, Harden flew by shooters, and then watched the rest of the play from out of bounds as the Rockets played four on five. Houston's Harden-led offense looked pathetic, producing shooting splits of . 371/.266/.708. Jeff Green scored 13 points on 3-9 field goal shooting, Russell Westbrook had 10 points on 4-13 field goal shooting, and no other Rocket reached double figures.
I declared before the season that the Rockets would only contend for the title if they let Westbrook lead the way. It is obvious that Westbrook should be handling the ball and attacking the hoop, with Harden providing shooting/scoring if Westbrook is trapped. It makes no sense for Harden to drive and then kick to Westbrook, as Westbrook is not a three point shooter. The Rockets played the right way for a little over two months, and they were difficult to beat during that time. Then came the COVID-19 shutdown, with Westbrook not only getting COVID-19 but also suffering a leg injury after he came back from the illness. In the playoffs, it did not seem that Westbrook consistently had his normal ability to attack the hoop and finish, so the Rockets reverted to Harden-ball, with predictable results.
In game five versus the Lakers, Harden did not play to win, but rather to score 30 points and let the media carry his water for him with sob stories about how he needs more help to win; in his postgame press conference, Harden asserted that the Rockets need "one more piece." The Rockets have been putting pieces around Harden for years, from Dwight Howard to Chris Paul to Russell Westbrook, supplemented by role players who are happy to play defense and only shoot the ball when Harden deigns to stop dribbling long enough to pass to them. The problem is not the pieces; the problem is that Daryl Morey, Mike D'Antoni, and James Harden stubbornly believe in a basketball philosophy that is fundamentally flawed, placing a higher value on three point field goals attempted than any other factor. Championship teams are well-balanced on offense and defense; they can score in a variety of different ways, and they excel at field goal percentage defense and creating a positive scoring differential (which is impacted by shot selection, effort level, defensive strategies, and other factors that are more important than just jacking up as many three pointers as possible).
In contrast to Harden's low energy in games four and five, LeBron James set the tone at both ends of the court from the start of game five. James led the Lakers with 29 points on 9-18 field goal shooting, he tied Anthony Davis for game-high rebounding honors (11), and he had a game-high seven assists. Davis had a quiet game offensively (13 points on 4-9 field goal shooting), but the Lakers defended so tenaciously and shot so well from three point range that it did not matter.
I will have more to say about the Lakers in my Western Conference Finals preview, so the rest of this article will focus on Harden's Rockets. Daryl Morey brought Harden to Houston eight years ago to be a "foundational player" who would lead the team to a title. During that time, the Rockets have never reached the NBA Finals, they have lost twice in the Western Conference Finals (including blowing a 3-2 lead in 2018), and they have lost three times in the first round.
Harden's production and efficiency drop consistently and predictably during the playoffs (to be fair, he did better in both categories in 2020 than he typically does, but not better enough to make a difference or to repair the playoff legacy he already established). ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy mocked the notion that Harden is a playoff choker, but the numbers speak for themselves. This year, Harden posted the best playoff field goal percentage of his career (.478) but here are his year by year playoff field goal percentages as a Houston Rocket prior to 2020: .391, .376, .439, .410, .413, .410, .413. During three of those playoff runs he shot worse than .300 from three point range, and in only two of them did he shoot at least .350 from three point range. This is the player who Morey has said
is a better scorer than Michael Jordan. Jordan shot at least .500 from the field in five of his 13 playoff appearances, and he did that during an era when much more physical contact by the defense was permitted. Jordan shot at least .450 from the field--the benchmark that I set for elite perimeter scorers--in 11 of his 13 playoff campaigns, with his two worst shooting performances happening within his first three postseasons. Jordan's career playoff field goal percentage is .487; yes, Jordan's career percentage is better than Harden's best field goal percentage in a single playoff season! Even more telling is that Jordan--not known as a three point shooter--shot .332 from three point range during his playoff career; Harden--supposedly a great three point shooter with a signature step back move (that is actually a travel and not a
real step back move)--has a career playoff three point shooting percentage of .331. Not only is Harden not as good of a scorer as Jordan, Harden is not even better at his signature shot than Jordan was.
Harden is an above average scorer, but Morey does Harden no favors by comparing Harden to Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. Jordan and Bryant were better scorers than Harden by a large margin, and--more importantly--they both could consistently put up big scoring numbers against elite teams in the playoffs.
In contrast, Harden is a regular season sideshow who does not have the necessary skill set to lead a team to a championship. Harden's regular season statistics have also been boosted by playing for Coach Mike D'Antoni. Guards who play in D'Antoni's system tend to have inflated statistics: Consider Raymond Felton, who averaged 9.0 apg during his 54 games playing with D'Antoni's Knicks; Felton averaged 5.2 apg for his career. Felton averaged 17.1 ppg during those 54 games, much better than his 11.2 ppg career scoring average. Chris Duhon
averaged 11.1 ppg and 7.2 apg in 2008-09 for D'Antoni, compared to
career averages of 6.5 ppg and 4.4 apg.
Steve Nash went from being an
All-Star to being considered an MVP while playing for D'Antoni. In 2004-05, nine year veteran Nash posted a career-high 11.5 apg, and a career-high .502 field goal percentage in his first season playing for D'Antoni. Experienced players in their early 30s rarely undergo complete skill set transformations. It should be obvious that something else happened. In 2005-06, Nash set a new career-high field goal percentage (.512) while scoring a career-high 18.8
ppg. Nash set a new career-high with 11.6 apg in 2006-07. He averaged double figures in assists all four
seasons that he played for D'Antoni, but he only reached double figures in assists in three of the other 14 seasons in his
career. Nash won back to back MVPs playing for D'Antoni and he finished second in MVP voting in 2007. Nash never finished higher
than eighth in MVP voting in any other season. Nash received three straight All-NBA First Team
selections while playing for D'Antoni and Nash made the All-NBA Second Team in 2008. Nash never made the All-NBA First
Team before or after his D'Antoni years, and Nash received just three All-NBA selections in the other 14
seasons of his career.
One might argue that D'Antoni is a master at developing players, but if that were the main story here then the players he "developed" would presumably retain what they had learned even after they no longer played for D'Antoni. No, the pattern above suggests that D'Antoni installs an offensive system that generates impressive individual statistics for his guards. It must be noted that D'Antoni has yet to reach the NBA Finals. In contrast, Phil Jackson's Triangle Offense did not elevate Michael Jordan's statistics but rather improved the team's offensive efficiency, resulting in six championships. Jackson's Triangle Offense had the same effect for the L.A. Lakers--the team improved (after failing to reach the Finals under previous coaches), as opposed to the individual players running amok outside of the context of playing championship level basketball.
Harden is an All-Star level player, but he is overrated now due to his statistics being inflated while playing under D'Antoni, who became Houston's coach for the 2016-17 season. During that campaign, Harden had 22 triple doubles after having nine triple doubles in his seven year career prior to that season. Harden averaged a career-high 11.2 apg in 2016-17, winning his first and only assist title. Then, Harden won the next three scoring titles in a row while averaging at least 7.5 apg in each of those seasons; Harden's previous season-high for apg was 7.5. Unlike Nash, Harden's shooting percentages stayed roughly the same, but Harden has had the four highest scoring seasons of his career during his four seasons playing for D'Antoni, peaking at 36.1 ppg in 2018-19. Only Wilt Chamberlain (five times) and Michael Jordan (once) have averaged more than 36.1 ppg in a full season (Elgin Baylor averaged 38.3 ppg in 48 games during the 1961-62 season).
Did Harden's skill set suddenly and dramatically improve four years ago? Or did D'Antoni give Harden the same opportunity to dominate the ball and amass gaudy individual statistics that D'Antoni gave to his previous point guards? Under D'Antoni, average point guards put up All-Star numbers, and All-Star point guards get vaulted into the MVP conversation. Steve Nash is a more durable
Mark Price--and that is no slight: Price was a great player, but no one gave him serious MVP consideration during his career, and no one gave Nash serious MVP consideration before or after the time he played for D'Antoni.
The Rockets' entire attack is focused on Harden and rises or falls based on what Harden does, but you can expect that the media will blame this fiasco on Westbrook,
who averaged 17.9 ppg, 7.0 rpg, and 4.6 apg in eight playoff games. Westbrook
ranked second on the team in playoff scoring, playoff rebounding, and
playoff assists. Westbrook missed Houston's first four playoff games due
to injury, but he came back in time to
help the Rockets win two out of three to survive a first round scare versus Oklahoma City. Westbrook
obviously did not play at the triple double level we are accustomed to
seeing, or even the level he displayed from January-March 2020 when he
was arguably the best player in the league. If you look at
Westbrook's
career resume
and conclude that his legacy is defined by his performance in the 2020
playoffs, then you do not understand basketball.
Unlike Harden--who chafed at playing the sixth man role for Oklahoma City and has made it clear that he must be the first option in Houston--Westbrook has demonstrated that even though he is capable of being the number one scoring option he is willing to accept being the number two scoring option. Westbrook partnered with Kevin Durant to lead the Thunder to four Western Conference Finals appearances (only the Cavaliers, Celtics, Heat, Lakers, Pistons, Spurs, and Warriors have made more Conference Finals appearances in the past 20 years), he won the scoring title in 2015 and 2017, and he accepted the role of second option in 2019 as Paul George finished second in the NBA in scoring with a career-high 28.0 ppg. The evidence that Westbrook brings out the best in his teammates is overwhelming, and yet many media commentators stubbornly repeat the false talking points about Westbrook not being a good teammate.
I don't believe in small ball or micro ball or whatever you want to call what Houston is doing, but if there is any way that this can work then it must be with Westbrook running the offense flanked by three point shooters. If Harden were willing to cut, post up and do something other than either monopolize the ball or impersonate a mannequin then he could actually be a dangerous offensive weapon. Playing this style, the Rockets' statistical targets should be something along the lines of Westbrook averaging 27-9-9 while shooting .450 from the field, Harden averaging 24-6-6 while shooting .480 from the field (including .400 from three point range), and at least two other Rockets shooting at least .375 from three point range. The Rockets would also have to be willing to commit to hustling and scrapping on defense for 48 minutes per game, making every offensive possession as difficult as possible for the opposing team. Little, scrappy guys can be annoying to play against if they hustle and if they are efficient--but if they are lazy and if they just jack up shots randomly then they are easy to play against, and you can pound them to death until they quit, which is what the Lakers did during this series.
Labels: Anthony Davis, Daryl Morey, Houston Rockets, James Harden, L.A. Lakers, LeBron James, Mike D'Antoni, Russell Westbrook
posted by David Friedman @ 1:21 AM
