Lakers most to blame for Game 5 loss to Nuggets

If someone had told another person that one team led for 80% of an NBA Playoffs series, one would think that the aforementioned squad would have advanced in the second round. That person would also have been terribly mistaken. The Nuggets won four out of five games this series despite the duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis constantly being insanely good at building huge leads.

The same thing happened in Game 5. In the first half, the team out of California led by three heading into the break. They had all the momentum before the third quarter started and everything just crumbled yet again. A lot of it had to do with Mike Malone employing tighter coverages because they kept getting hammered in the paint. So, kickouts and schemes to play in the perimeter was surely the answer, right? Well, not exactly.

The Lakers had a horrid night where they only managed to knock down 28.6% of their three-pointers. To put it into perspective, only 10 of their 35 shots from outside were seeing the bottom of the net. All of this was a result of the Nuggets’ schemes and not just a byproduct of the Lakers’ decision. It was a smart move to use those types of coverages because up until the end, the LeBron James and Anthony Davis-led squad had 52 points in the paint which dwarfed the 46 that the Nuggets produced.

Who’s to blame?

The visual for Darvin Ham’s rotational calls in this game is quite simple. Oftentimes, the Lakers would see that they were not matching up with the Nuggets’ personnel well in the second half. A lot of it had to do with their star players being famished. They were establishing the first-half schemes while Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray were preserved. The main indicator of this was that the reigning Most Valuable Player of the Year was not too concerned about scoring in the first 24 minutes.

So, Darvin Ham and the coaching staff had to put someone in to defend the Nuggets’ starters while theirs rested.  These calls in substitutions and schemes did not just happen in Game 5 of this NBA Playoffs series. It was often the non-Anthony Davis and LeBron James minutes where the Nuggets were taking advantage in the past four games too.

It was clear that the strategy was to build a big lead to no longer worry about the third-quarter surge. But, consequences started to show. It was evident when The Brow held his shoulder in pain a lot and The King had to play through an injury. It shows a lot of grit but that never wins against wit in the postseason.