Why are people so eager to jump ahead here. We still have to beat a dangerous Pelicans team and if we can’t do that best a Warriors or Kings team.
SellingPapierMache
Sure hope the lakers are trying to figure this out – no need to concentrate on play in!
LoveTheHustleBud
Has a team tried playing them the way teams played young mj?
Let jokic go off, but shut down the rest of the team. Sure, jokic will happily drop 50, but if we can keep Murray to his average and lock up the role players, that’ll be a long exhausting series for Jokic while he currently can take plays off because he’s just passing out of a double team or barely crossing the 3pt line before giving it up. Theres no shutting him down, so make him do all the scoring.
Ia_in_4
It’s a very good point the nuggets had the 2 best players in the series last year. If we want to win bron and ad both have to outplay jamal. They ain’t outplaying joker. Joker is that good at basketball. But can we please stay serious and beat New Orleans first holy shit it’s insane how much people are talking like it’s a given
CowLarge7818
Ah, yes!
Life_Ad_9518
Murray was the best player in the series last year; he played way above his head
Nijee302
We need to worry about the pelicans first before we think about Denver
MikePenceFly18
Pelicans are easy work.
Le_Tigre1611
The team is preparing for the Pels they shouldn’t lose focus on that… if they lose that would be hard for them to recover with all this travels and late night sleeps the toll is on the players… specially the team doesn’t have home court advantage against Pels, Warriors and Kings… unless they will try to avoid Denver then they have a different preparations…
nottherealstanlee
Interesting way of thinking about it. I don’t have time, I’d love to go back and review but Murray was definitely the 2nd best. I’d just like to see how/where he got his shots off.
The problem with the Jokic/Murray 2 man game is the other pieces. You put 2 shooters out there with Gordon. Gordon usually spaces to the corner, MPJ and KCP the other corner and the top of the key. Murray shoots well off the dribble so you have to fight over. Then he puts you in jail and the Center (AD) has to show help. Now you got Jokic in the paint playing 3 on 2 (since the guard is still stuck on Murray and AD helped). LeBron said it on the most recent pod with Reddick: Jokic shot like 70+% in the paint in the Finals lol you can’t just give him that. Whoever is guarding the weak corner drops to help and now either Jokic has an easy lob to Gordon off a cut or a wide open MPJ corner 3. Even if you rotate well and the guard defending KCP at the wing goes to MPJ, you’re still in scramble and they swing the ball really effectively. Fuckin brutal.
Dinwiddie and Gabe are going to be crucial. They’re the only guards we have that can chase over screens and navigate in ways that can knock Murray away from where he wants to be. I remember in the series last year we did that sometimes and he’d still fuckin bury a jumper but ultimately I want to live with two shots from Denver: an Aaron Gordon 3 and a tightly contested mid-range jumper from Murray.
On the other side: can our guards and wings hit 3s? Last year as a team besides AD (2/4) and AR (an electric 14/25) we shot just 28.8% from deep. And Bron raised that 3% just by going 4/7 in the final game. If Bron, Dlo, Rui, and TP can’t shoot at least a solid number from deep then we’re fucked off the bat. We need them to have to work defensively. It was too easy last year to just sag in the paint because nobody could shoot. Our offense is much better this year. Hopefully it’s enough.
DragonfruitWeary8413
Murray will twist his ankle in the 2nd quarter. lol
KigDeek
Uhm, we still need to face the Pelicans? Whatever happened to “one game at a time”? I’m sure these Nuggets talks ain’t gonna bite us in the ass lol.
Low_Employ3877
MPJ is a cheat code though and KCP always plays like his life is on line every laker game
Exciting_Attitude240
We can’t stop Murray. He is the problem. Jokic gets his but Murray is the problem. We have nobody to defend him in the perimeter
TorontoRaptors34
How bout beat NOLA first
HenryGrosmont
WTF is this shit? I swear, I may post it on r/nbacirclejerk.
ChillClinton904
Coaching is what concerns me most about this matchup. We have the personnel but Ham goes fucking brain dead with match up’s and rotations.
Yamshh
Lakers literally have no perimeter defense, that why Murray average 32 pts during WCF. Dlo n AR cannot guard for shit. Gabe is back but i don’t trust him to fully lockdown Murray
chrisumafp
Take care of business vs Pelicans
Believe it or not Theres probably a better than 20% chance we never end up playing Denver at all.
Magic_SnakE_
Ham has no list lmao
Wise_Ad_112
I said this before, let Jokic get 40 alone if he wants, his passing is the killer. Stop everyone else and attack him and Murray, make them both play defence.
goddoc
Murray? No problem. Just lock him down with either Caruso or KCP.
mikedanktony
The lakers refusing to stop playing drop coverage will be the death of them
rhoutz1
It’s not Jokic we need to worry about its damn Porter and Murray contain what you can with those bad let Jokic have is
ValuableAssociate8
I can already see Ham doing something stupid like doubling Jokic. Don’t double Jokic and we will be alright. Don’t help on Jokic and we will be alright. As soon as AR and them start trying to double and get steals Jokic gone light us up.
DerGovernator
Yup. The Nuggets went 15-1 last postseason when he scored less than thanks 40 points and 1-3 when he scored more than 40 points. Its not a “Just let him score” thing, it’s that as good as Jokic is as a scorer, his passing game is even higher efficiency.
Zepest
MPJ is always prime Klay against us
Electronic_Bit9495
Lebrons gotta rally the troops and get the game plan right for the first round right? No way he just lets Ham sink the ship regardless of how he feels. Feel like this is our best chance to win a chip, just gotta mow down the nuggets and sail to the finals
Marktaco04
“Even” MPJ? Dude has one of the nicest most efficient threes in the game
hungrywantmooshoo
I know it sounds insane, but I really do think putting Lebron on Jokic gives us the best chance to limit him. Rui isn’t strong enough, and I prefer AD on Gordon in the help position.
UglyForNoReason
I would argue Jamal Murray was easily the best player in that series last year. Dude was seriously just amazing. But yes, we need to slow or stop either him or Jokic and the supporting cast. Let’s worry about beating NO again first tho
Aggravating-Fall-709
Damn can we get pass the Kings
CarlosE2006
Its easy, just dont keep double teaming Jokic and letting every other Nuggets player take free 3pt shoots every time. Stick AD on Jokic, our best perimeter defender on Murray and if they make video game plays for an entire series then theres not much we can do.
baabaabilly
Lmao raj with the lukewarm take. Jamal was Kobe incarnate against us. Props to the guy. We’ll need to stop the entire team. They can all make huge contributions.
Zealousideal_Form761
Interesting and valid approach. I’m honestly Ham just uses his timeouts properly let alone have a coherent strategy.
We will never loose to pure paint play. So just keep Murray and co average or below from the outside and mid.
35 Comments
Why are people so eager to jump ahead here. We still have to beat a dangerous Pelicans team and if we can’t do that best a Warriors or Kings team.
Sure hope the lakers are trying to figure this out – no need to concentrate on play in!
Has a team tried playing them the way teams played young mj?
Let jokic go off, but shut down the rest of the team. Sure, jokic will happily drop 50, but if we can keep Murray to his average and lock up the role players, that’ll be a long exhausting series for Jokic while he currently can take plays off because he’s just passing out of a double team or barely crossing the 3pt line before giving it up. Theres no shutting him down, so make him do all the scoring.
It’s a very good point the nuggets had the 2 best players in the series last year. If we want to win bron and ad both have to outplay jamal. They ain’t outplaying joker. Joker is that good at basketball. But can we please stay serious and beat New Orleans first holy shit it’s insane how much people are talking like it’s a given
Ah, yes!
Murray was the best player in the series last year; he played way above his head
We need to worry about the pelicans first before we think about Denver
Pelicans are easy work.
The team is preparing for the Pels they shouldn’t lose focus on that… if they lose that would be hard for them to recover with all this travels and late night sleeps the toll is on the players… specially the team doesn’t have home court advantage against Pels, Warriors and Kings… unless they will try to avoid Denver then they have a different preparations…
Interesting way of thinking about it. I don’t have time, I’d love to go back and review but Murray was definitely the 2nd best. I’d just like to see how/where he got his shots off.
The problem with the Jokic/Murray 2 man game is the other pieces. You put 2 shooters out there with Gordon. Gordon usually spaces to the corner, MPJ and KCP the other corner and the top of the key. Murray shoots well off the dribble so you have to fight over. Then he puts you in jail and the Center (AD) has to show help. Now you got Jokic in the paint playing 3 on 2 (since the guard is still stuck on Murray and AD helped). LeBron said it on the most recent pod with Reddick: Jokic shot like 70+% in the paint in the Finals lol you can’t just give him that. Whoever is guarding the weak corner drops to help and now either Jokic has an easy lob to Gordon off a cut or a wide open MPJ corner 3. Even if you rotate well and the guard defending KCP at the wing goes to MPJ, you’re still in scramble and they swing the ball really effectively. Fuckin brutal.
Dinwiddie and Gabe are going to be crucial. They’re the only guards we have that can chase over screens and navigate in ways that can knock Murray away from where he wants to be. I remember in the series last year we did that sometimes and he’d still fuckin bury a jumper but ultimately I want to live with two shots from Denver: an Aaron Gordon 3 and a tightly contested mid-range jumper from Murray.
On the other side: can our guards and wings hit 3s? Last year as a team besides AD (2/4) and AR (an electric 14/25) we shot just 28.8% from deep. And Bron raised that 3% just by going 4/7 in the final game. If Bron, Dlo, Rui, and TP can’t shoot at least a solid number from deep then we’re fucked off the bat. We need them to have to work defensively. It was too easy last year to just sag in the paint because nobody could shoot. Our offense is much better this year. Hopefully it’s enough.
Murray will twist his ankle in the 2nd quarter. lol
Uhm, we still need to face the Pelicans? Whatever happened to “one game at a time”? I’m sure these Nuggets talks ain’t gonna bite us in the ass lol.
MPJ is a cheat code though and KCP always plays like his life is on line every laker game
We can’t stop Murray. He is the problem. Jokic gets his but Murray is the problem. We have nobody to defend him in the perimeter
How bout beat NOLA first
WTF is this shit? I swear, I may post it on r/nbacirclejerk.
Coaching is what concerns me most about this matchup. We have the personnel but Ham goes fucking brain dead with match up’s and rotations.
Lakers literally have no perimeter defense, that why Murray average 32 pts during WCF. Dlo n AR cannot guard for shit. Gabe is back but i don’t trust him to fully lockdown Murray
Take care of business vs Pelicans
Believe it or not Theres probably a better than 20% chance we never end up playing Denver at all.
Ham has no list lmao
I said this before, let Jokic get 40 alone if he wants, his passing is the killer. Stop everyone else and attack him and Murray, make them both play defence.
Murray? No problem. Just lock him down with either Caruso or KCP.
The lakers refusing to stop playing drop coverage will be the death of them
It’s not Jokic we need to worry about its damn Porter and Murray contain what you can with those bad let Jokic have is
I can already see Ham doing something stupid like doubling Jokic. Don’t double Jokic and we will be alright. Don’t help on Jokic and we will be alright. As soon as AR and them start trying to double and get steals Jokic gone light us up.
Yup. The Nuggets went 15-1 last postseason when he scored less than thanks 40 points and 1-3 when he scored more than 40 points. Its not a “Just let him score” thing, it’s that as good as Jokic is as a scorer, his passing game is even higher efficiency.
MPJ is always prime Klay against us
Lebrons gotta rally the troops and get the game plan right for the first round right? No way he just lets Ham sink the ship regardless of how he feels. Feel like this is our best chance to win a chip, just gotta mow down the nuggets and sail to the finals
“Even” MPJ? Dude has one of the nicest most efficient threes in the game
I know it sounds insane, but I really do think putting Lebron on Jokic gives us the best chance to limit him. Rui isn’t strong enough, and I prefer AD on Gordon in the help position.
I would argue Jamal Murray was easily the best player in that series last year. Dude was seriously just amazing. But yes, we need to slow or stop either him or Jokic and the supporting cast. Let’s worry about beating NO again first tho
Damn can we get pass the Kings
Its easy, just dont keep double teaming Jokic and letting every other Nuggets player take free 3pt shoots every time. Stick AD on Jokic, our best perimeter defender on Murray and if they make video game plays for an entire series then theres not much we can do.
Lmao raj with the lukewarm take. Jamal was Kobe incarnate against us. Props to the guy. We’ll need to stop the entire team. They can all make huge contributions.
Interesting and valid approach. I’m honestly Ham just uses his timeouts properly let alone have a coherent strategy.
We will never loose to pure paint play. So just keep Murray and co average or below from the outside and mid.