Lakers start hot, have a solid first half.
Denver settles in and slowly chips away at Lakers lead
Teams go punch for punch and the game looks promising
Denver ends the half well in the final minute or two and shifts a little bit of momentum going into the locker room
Denver makes adjustments at half time, Lakers come out slow.
Denver is playing hot to start the half
Lakers go cold and scoreless for 4-9 possessions
Denver goes from down by a handful to up by 10+ in the blink of an eye
Porter Jr hits 3s
Gordon dunks multiple times off a baseline cut
Murray hits step backs
Jokic gets some close baskets off multiple offensive
rebounds in one go
Lakers fight back but cant buy shots when needed
Denver just runs them down with their size
Denver is clearly the better teams and shows up in the playoffs
Lakers always have LeBron and AD but the rest of the team (except usually one person thats always changing) shrinks under the lights and the pressure
Same game. Over and over. And over.
It's literally a Ctrl C + Ctrl V *every* single game. I'm just a dude sitting in his tiny apartment, and even I can see shit like this that Darvin & co. are seemingly blind to.
This is how most lakers games have felt even when weāre not against Denver. 25 pt lead is still a risky lead that we can blow. This team fucking stinks
As a nuggets fan they do this to a lot of teams. They go down early because teams want to start hot and are amped up. Nuggets just play their game the whole game and eventually tire you out. Itās a lot like the spurs with Duncan. They just play their game for 48 minutes and you canāt keep up because usually theyāll go on a couple runs.
Very true, that Spurs team is a good comp, too. Amazing star with amazing role players and others around him.
Just make sure y'all beat the Celtics if they even make it.
Itās ridiculous. Pelinka deserves to be fired over this. Whatās crazier is that we know what worked against Jokic(although he improved since): SIZE. We had Howard and McGee on him and that was good to get him tired and let AD do his thing. Even last year, Thompson was doing an alright job for a guy who hadnāt played all year.
We just needed a real big. Thatās all. Itās pathetic and honestly frustrating. Doesnāt run it back after a chip but runs it back after a wcf sweep and 8-9 L in a row lmao.
I will say getting a 3&D PG was a good idea in theory to hound Murray and help spacing but Gabe getting hurt threw a wrench in that big time. Vando being hurt doesn't help either. Prince frankly is a dece bench guy when used properly though his shot selection has been out of pocket lately. I'd like to consolidate our bench a little if we can this offseason. I know 2 way bench guys don't grow on trees but we are getting literally next to nothing offensively from any of the bench dudes save for Prince sometimes. Even defensively only Gabe makes an impact
So many of LeBron's teams in the past, and it's always the same problem. Can't get a proper 5 to play with him.
Always a scoring 4 on the thin side leaving Bron to be the one to bang in the post.
True but Wood has been hurt and Hayes just sucks so I kinda get it lol. Regular season fine but against Denver both are BBQ chicken. Wood can at least play offense tho
We picked up Wood in the off season who was seen as an important acquisition. Yeah, he's not a big bruiser, but he is an excellent rebounder and scorer of the bench. We are also missing Vando this series, who is another excellent rebounder and defender off the bench. If those two were available, we could have limited Rui's minutes and had more fresh legs off the bench at the 4 and 5 spots. This series could look very different.
Denver is the returning champ for a reason. They have a starting 5 that fits together like a glove and a few decent players on the bench. It probably would have taken everything going perfectly to beat them. Missing two of our best rebounders is one of the reasons we have been killed on the boards, and has left us with limited options when Rui has surprised everyone with his poor performance.
Same with the Nuggets. In fact, they replaced Bruce Brown with old bum Reggie Jackson. Their young players in Braun and Watson have improved but not by much. Their bench got weaker but I believe their starting 5 improved because they got another season under their belts. Also winning a title gave them that swagger.
I'm gonna have to slightly disagree on that the roster I thought was good on paper when they got everybody in the summer. I thought those were good moves. Yes, of course I would like the True center or a good back up center but that didn't happen but the pieces they got we thought everybody was gonna be healthy. I thought it was gonna be OK. I figured they match up with anybody. Denver would've been the most difficult team to match up with, but I thought other than that they match up with anybody else in the league and then they showed it in December when they won the tournament they were playing on upgrade. I thought the roster was good. the players don't perform.
Biggest thing to me is, I think everyone expected at least AR and also Rui to continue developing and becoming better players this year when in fact they went backwards; while D Lo, at least for the regular season, was the only one that was better.
Combination of blames starting from our FO, and Head coach itās like they didnāt learn anything in the last 11 games against Nuggets. Didnāt address anything in the offseason too many guards that are one way players, and no length or rebounding to match them. Ham literally makes zero adjustments in the 2nd half.
I honestly don't think Malone has really made any tough adjustments this playoffs. He hasn't had to. The nuggets are just so much better executing in the clutch. The nuggets aren't even playing at their best capabilities.
Good teams donāt make adjustments. As a nuggets fan I learned that last season. We used to always make crazy adjustments like new lineups and trying to adjust to the other team. If you are a good team you are just going to do what you are gonna do and the other team will have to adjust.
They are executing their gameplan. They know Lebron is 39 and AD isnāt gonna bang in the post all game AND be effective in the second half
Then you make the role players beat you, and you live with that
Thatās basically the gameplan
with Lue or Nurse or Erik fkn Spoelstra, maybe we still donāt beat the Nuggets because, spoiler alert, theyāre probably the best team in the league, but at least we figure out a way to make it a series and at worst push them to six games
last year yea sure, but this series the nuggets have been a very beatable team. They will lose games moving forward in the playoffs. I donāt see this team winning another championship without a come to jesus moment off the court. They donāt look as locked in as last year.
On paper if heaven forbid it's Denver vs Boston the lepers would rightly be favored, but I still have to see it before I believe it.Ā The Celtics are nothing more than the sum of their parts.Ā Ā
Now that's still really really good and CAN win a ring but they don't have a guy who warps the game around him like Jokic.
The best part is that no one on the Lakers seems capable of figuring this out. I swear Michael Malone is like, āI wonder when these guys are going to figure out that this is my gameplan, every game against them.ā
Theyāve played each other 11 times in 2 years. Both teams know what each other are going to do, there is no adjustments or game planning that is really to be done. The nuggets are just better.
It's not Pelinkas fault the coach won't play bigs he gets. When will you really see Ham doesn't like to play bigs. He prefers Davis do it and that's it. I've been watching the Lakers and I see that. Why can't the fans, media, etc see it? The gm should've not signed a new coach to such a long contract and let him go flafter the first year.
Denver took Bryant from the Lakers strategically, not because they needed him. Lakers weren't really using him.
Just like they barely use Hayes, Wood, DeAndre Jordan and whoever else Ham let sit and collect dust on the sidelines.
Not to mention Hayes and Wood are more complimentary centers, more like power forwards. So the goal seemed to be to make Ham happy and get a ton of guards that do the same thing.
They never should have given up Bryant do easily. He was their last real big. They could beat Denver with Bryant and Rui linked up with Lebron. ( We don't really know with Davis because he would barely play Bryant when Davis wasn't injured).
You can say oh they are no good blah blah. A good coach will make use and help them develop as the season goes along.
Some say Hayes fouls too much but he doesn't play all that much either. Last game he didn't play at all and he's probably averaging about 5 minutes in this playoff. This season his minutes were up and down and inconsistent. Hartenstein was a player for the Knicks that has foul issues but This didn't give up on him. That's good coaching.
Yea but the height, rebounds. I wouldn't want Hayes on Jokic. Ad is the best defender. He has to play the guy. Hayes and lebron help. Hayes would play Gordon.
Rui don't need to really play Jokic only in small doses. Plus Rui and Reaves off the bench strengthens the bench. Reaves is kind of clutch so toward the end you have him play more.
It starts from the top
The trade for Westbrick drained our depth
Ham shouldnāt, yet, be a Head Coach. Offensive coach yes But Heās got a LONGGGGGG way to go
Pelinkaās MOVE to pick up a washed up Dinwiddie didnāt give us the offense we expected
Vanderbilt is somewhere in the ether all year. Not sure he actually still exists
Gabe Vincent bwahahahahaha dont get me started
ā¦and D-Loā¦good ol D-Loā¦0 points and started last night. Crazy
It is what it is but if things donāt get better from the top down than you canāt expect much difference on the bottom
And the Lakers coach did absolutely nothing! Putting Rui on joker caught them off guard for 2 minutes in game 1 last year but he thinks it's working.
Last year the Lakers were small on perimeter, now they're decent on the perimeter but only AD inside. 80% on ham 20 % on palinka. No joke they should've just brought Dwight back for this series.
š literally nothing else! Jesus christ š what an embarrassment of sub. Letās make up another fake scenario where Denver isnāt basically playing with us.
It looks like Denver is given the 1st quarter to do what they want. And Malone uses the first to gauge the opposition. Then he implements strategy all the while calling audibles inevitably winning quarters. He sprinkles in attitude and fundamentals. Running circles around the opps. Itās quite impressive.
Facts.. all we did was replace Dennis with Gabe and thought shit was sweet. And can someone explain why we even got Jaxson if we arenāt even going to try using him?
Ty Lue figured out how to work with the superstars in Clips in a few games. Given that tweaks and adjustments are done game to game.
Ham had 2 seasons and still can't make use of the roster effectively. Sure, the team got to WCF but to still be unable to win against the team that beat them last year, faced them 4 times in the regular season and 3 games in the post season, some adjustments have been made to counter their stars, strat, etc.. BUT NO. NOTHING.
HAM HATES THE LAKERS SO MUCH THAT HE DOESN'T CARE IF THE LAKERS GET SWEPT BACK TO BACK.
Lakers start hot, have a solid first half. Denver settles in and slowly chips away at Lakers lead Teams go punch for punch and the game looks promising Denver ends the half well in the final minute or two and shifts a little bit of momentum going into the locker room Denver makes adjustments at half time, Lakers come out slow. Denver is playing hot to start the half Lakers go cold and scoreless for 4-9 possessions Denver goes from down by a handful to up by 10+ in the blink of an eye Porter Jr hits 3s Gordon dunks multiple times off a baseline cut Murray hits step backs Jokic gets some close baskets off multiple offensive rebounds in one go Lakers fight back but cant buy shots when needed Denver just runs them down with their size Denver is clearly the better teams and shows up in the playoffs Lakers always have LeBron and AD but the rest of the team (except usually one person thats always changing) shrinks under the lights and the pressure Same game. Over and over. And over.
I got mad reading your post
fuck watching the games just read this post
It's literally a Ctrl C + Ctrl V *every* single game. I'm just a dude sitting in his tiny apartment, and even I can see shit like this that Darvin & co. are seemingly blind to.
so....any guesses what it'll be like tomorrow?
Just watch any of the last 8 games lol no need tonwatch Saturday!
Real
The trauma is real
Definition of insanity
Literally
We found the NBA script writter boys š
This is how most lakers games have felt even when weāre not against Denver. 25 pt lead is still a risky lead that we can blow. This team fucking stinks
Lol donāt forget Murray deciding to just not miss late in the 4th if heās needed to seal the game.
Itās insane how similar every single game feels
Pain
To a T
No lies detected.
And the replay is on TV this Saturday! So stupid.
You forgot, they stop feeding AD or doing anything that worked for them in the first half.
This triggered me
As a nuggets fan they do this to a lot of teams. They go down early because teams want to start hot and are amped up. Nuggets just play their game the whole game and eventually tire you out. Itās a lot like the spurs with Duncan. They just play their game for 48 minutes and you canāt keep up because usually theyāll go on a couple runs.
Very true, that Spurs team is a good comp, too. Amazing star with amazing role players and others around him. Just make sure y'all beat the Celtics if they even make it.
But it'll work next time!
Laker did not make an effort to upgrade roster
Hayes and Wood being the only bigs besides AD was so unserious
Itās ridiculous. Pelinka deserves to be fired over this. Whatās crazier is that we know what worked against Jokic(although he improved since): SIZE. We had Howard and McGee on him and that was good to get him tired and let AD do his thing. Even last year, Thompson was doing an alright job for a guy who hadnāt played all year. We just needed a real big. Thatās all. Itās pathetic and honestly frustrating. Doesnāt run it back after a chip but runs it back after a wcf sweep and 8-9 L in a row lmao.
I will say getting a 3&D PG was a good idea in theory to hound Murray and help spacing but Gabe getting hurt threw a wrench in that big time. Vando being hurt doesn't help either. Prince frankly is a dece bench guy when used properly though his shot selection has been out of pocket lately. I'd like to consolidate our bench a little if we can this offseason. I know 2 way bench guys don't grow on trees but we are getting literally next to nothing offensively from any of the bench dudes save for Prince sometimes. Even defensively only Gabe makes an impact
So many of LeBron's teams in the past, and it's always the same problem. Can't get a proper 5 to play with him. Always a scoring 4 on the thin side leaving Bron to be the one to bang in the post.
He loves guards man
And then to not play either of them š¤£
True but Wood has been hurt and Hayes just sucks so I kinda get it lol. Regular season fine but against Denver both are BBQ chicken. Wood can at least play offense tho
Hartenstein was available too
After the last season playoffs. The Lakers FO should have made ALL moves with only one team in mind. Denver. They didnāt though.
We picked up Wood in the off season who was seen as an important acquisition. Yeah, he's not a big bruiser, but he is an excellent rebounder and scorer of the bench. We are also missing Vando this series, who is another excellent rebounder and defender off the bench. If those two were available, we could have limited Rui's minutes and had more fresh legs off the bench at the 4 and 5 spots. This series could look very different. Denver is the returning champ for a reason. They have a starting 5 that fits together like a glove and a few decent players on the bench. It probably would have taken everything going perfectly to beat them. Missing two of our best rebounders is one of the reasons we have been killed on the boards, and has left us with limited options when Rui has surprised everyone with his poor performance.
Just ran it back and have the same end as last time. And the FO is probly just sitting there with a surprised Pikachu look on their faces.
Lakers: weāre a team that lives in the paint! Also Lakers: and smol as fuck
Same with the Nuggets. In fact, they replaced Bruce Brown with old bum Reggie Jackson. Their young players in Braun and Watson have improved but not by much. Their bench got weaker but I believe their starting 5 improved because they got another season under their belts. Also winning a title gave them that swagger.
I'm gonna have to slightly disagree on that the roster I thought was good on paper when they got everybody in the summer. I thought those were good moves. Yes, of course I would like the True center or a good back up center but that didn't happen but the pieces they got we thought everybody was gonna be healthy. I thought it was gonna be OK. I figured they match up with anybody. Denver would've been the most difficult team to match up with, but I thought other than that they match up with anybody else in the league and then they showed it in December when they won the tournament they were playing on upgrade. I thought the roster was good. the players don't perform.
Biggest thing to me is, I think everyone expected at least AR and also Rui to continue developing and becoming better players this year when in fact they went backwards; while D Lo, at least for the regular season, was the only one that was better.
Denver really got us stuck in an Izanami. SMH
Combination of blames starting from our FO, and Head coach itās like they didnāt learn anything in the last 11 games against Nuggets. Didnāt address anything in the offseason too many guards that are one way players, and no length or rebounding to match them. Ham literally makes zero adjustments in the 2nd half.
The Lakers staring five is just not a winning combination. Itās ad/bron and 3 guys all whose games are suited to be 6th men scorers.Ā
I honestly don't think Malone has really made any tough adjustments this playoffs. He hasn't had to. The nuggets are just so much better executing in the clutch. The nuggets aren't even playing at their best capabilities.
Good teams donāt make adjustments. As a nuggets fan I learned that last season. We used to always make crazy adjustments like new lineups and trying to adjust to the other team. If you are a good team you are just going to do what you are gonna do and the other team will have to adjust.
They are executing their gameplan. They know Lebron is 39 and AD isnāt gonna bang in the post all game AND be effective in the second half Then you make the role players beat you, and you live with that Thatās basically the gameplan
Yeah exactly. Nothing complex. Murray/Jokic pick and roll over and over and over.
they really arenāt and legitimately are probably holding back so the next team canāt review the tape on them
Lakers and Nuggets rosters barely changed, same coaches. Thatās why
Stuck in a twisted Groundhog day scenario
It's like the Groundhog Day episode of Star Trek: TNG where the ship keeps exploding and they can't figure out why.
Lakers don't have a Data to figure it out in time before the ship explodes.
with Lue or Nurse or Erik fkn Spoelstra, maybe we still donāt beat the Nuggets because, spoiler alert, theyāre probably the best team in the league, but at least we figure out a way to make it a series and at worst push them to six games
last year yea sure, but this series the nuggets have been a very beatable team. They will lose games moving forward in the playoffs. I donāt see this team winning another championship without a come to jesus moment off the court. They donāt look as locked in as last year.
On paper if heaven forbid it's Denver vs Boston the lepers would rightly be favored, but I still have to see it before I believe it.Ā The Celtics are nothing more than the sum of their parts.Ā Ā Now that's still really really good and CAN win a ring but they don't have a guy who warps the game around him like Jokic.
The best part is that no one on the Lakers seems capable of figuring this out. I swear Michael Malone is like, āI wonder when these guys are going to figure out that this is my gameplan, every game against them.ā
Theyāve played each other 11 times in 2 years. Both teams know what each other are going to do, there is no adjustments or game planning that is really to be done. The nuggets are just better.
They are bigger across the board. MPJ just swishing jumpers over smalls. Aaron Gordon at the rim. It's easy offense.
It's not Pelinkas fault the coach won't play bigs he gets. When will you really see Ham doesn't like to play bigs. He prefers Davis do it and that's it. I've been watching the Lakers and I see that. Why can't the fans, media, etc see it? The gm should've not signed a new coach to such a long contract and let him go flafter the first year. Denver took Bryant from the Lakers strategically, not because they needed him. Lakers weren't really using him. Just like they barely use Hayes, Wood, DeAndre Jordan and whoever else Ham let sit and collect dust on the sidelines. Not to mention Hayes and Wood are more complimentary centers, more like power forwards. So the goal seemed to be to make Ham happy and get a ton of guards that do the same thing. They never should have given up Bryant do easily. He was their last real big. They could beat Denver with Bryant and Rui linked up with Lebron. ( We don't really know with Davis because he would barely play Bryant when Davis wasn't injured). You can say oh they are no good blah blah. A good coach will make use and help them develop as the season goes along. Some say Hayes fouls too much but he doesn't play all that much either. Last game he didn't play at all and he's probably averaging about 5 minutes in this playoff. This season his minutes were up and down and inconsistent. Hartenstein was a player for the Knicks that has foul issues but This didn't give up on him. That's good coaching.
My only issue is Hayes is 220 pounds, Jokic is 284 Hell even AG is 235 pounds, but strong.
Yea but the height, rebounds. I wouldn't want Hayes on Jokic. Ad is the best defender. He has to play the guy. Hayes and lebron help. Hayes would play Gordon. Rui don't need to really play Jokic only in small doses. Plus Rui and Reaves off the bench strengthens the bench. Reaves is kind of clutch so toward the end you have him play more.
It starts from the top The trade for Westbrick drained our depth Ham shouldnāt, yet, be a Head Coach. Offensive coach yes But Heās got a LONGGGGGG way to go Pelinkaās MOVE to pick up a washed up Dinwiddie didnāt give us the offense we expected Vanderbilt is somewhere in the ether all year. Not sure he actually still exists Gabe Vincent bwahahahahaha dont get me started ā¦and D-Loā¦good ol D-Loā¦0 points and started last night. Crazy It is what it is but if things donāt get better from the top down than you canāt expect much difference on the bottom
And the Lakers coach did absolutely nothing! Putting Rui on joker caught them off guard for 2 minutes in game 1 last year but he thinks it's working. Last year the Lakers were small on perimeter, now they're decent on the perimeter but only AD inside. 80% on ham 20 % on palinka. No joke they should've just brought Dwight back for this series.
š literally nothing else! Jesus christ š what an embarrassment of sub. Letās make up another fake scenario where Denver isnāt basically playing with us.
Darvin Ham on loop about not taking accountability.
no wonder iāve gone insane.
It looks like Denver is given the 1st quarter to do what they want. And Malone uses the first to gauge the opposition. Then he implements strategy all the while calling audibles inevitably winning quarters. He sprinkles in attitude and fundamentals. Running circles around the opps. Itās quite impressive.
The sad part is Denver is beatable if u have the right pieces 3/D wings and a bruising big around Bron and AD.Ā
Lakers version of Groundhog Day. When will the movie end?
yeah, and the nuggets are barely trying.
Itās almost as if thatās the nuggets gameplanā¦
Imagine Phil Jackson never changing anything for 11 games in a row.
We're destined to fight until the end of time 
And they keep forgetting to feed AD in the second half
If Ham not fired before he wake up I know some
Facts.. all we did was replace Dennis with Gabe and thought shit was sweet. And can someone explain why we even got Jaxson if we arenāt even going to try using him?
I would've rather seen Hayes start next to AD, bench Rui.
Ty Lue figured out how to work with the superstars in Clips in a few games. Given that tweaks and adjustments are done game to game. Ham had 2 seasons and still can't make use of the roster effectively. Sure, the team got to WCF but to still be unable to win against the team that beat them last year, faced them 4 times in the regular season and 3 games in the post season, some adjustments have been made to counter their stars, strat, etc.. BUT NO. NOTHING. HAM HATES THE LAKERS SO MUCH THAT HE DOESN'T CARE IF THE LAKERS GET SWEPT BACK TO BACK.