On January 16, Beijing time, the Lakers lost to the Nuggets 96-133 on the road, suffering three consecutive losses in the new season, and the Nuggets won two consecutive wins. In this game, although the Lakers adjusted the lineup to make Howard the starting center, the efficiency was not ideal. In the contest with the Nuggets' starting lineup, the Lakers are at a disadvantage, the team's starter has been in a state of losing points, and in the second lineup competition, the Lakers have lost more. The Nuggets led the Lakers by more than 40 points at the most, and in the final quarter, the game had already lost suspense. In the end, facing the Nuggets, who also had an incomplete lineup, the Lakers suffered a fiasco and suffered another three-game losing streak this season.
It has to be said that the Nuggets are really strong, because their lineup is very incomplete, many of the team's core players are absent due to injuries, such as Murray and Porter Jr., who got the top salary, and role players like Rivers Jr. cannot play, and the Nuggets lineup is very incomplete.
But it is such a set of lineups, they played under jokic, and in the face of the weak defense of the Lakers, the Nuggets played a smooth team offense. Every player on the court can show value on the court and complete the score, and the Lakers have never been able to limit the Nuggets' performance. In the first three quarters of the game, the Nuggets had already ended the game, widening the score gap to more than 25 points.
In this game, the Nuggets core Jokic was efficient, he only played 28 minutes, 7 of 12 shots to get 17 points, 12 rebounds and 13 assists triple-double data, personal plus-minus as high as +16. And Jeff Green ushered in a big outbreak in this campaign, he got 26 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists, he became the best role player for the Nuggets in this game, Andranders who came off the bench also had 27 points in the account, and a total of 7 people in the team scored in double figures, in the case of incomplete lineup, the Nuggets with the overall play, they successfully defeated the Lakers at home and won this game.
On the Lakers side, the team had hoped to use Howard to defend Jokic and achieve the same effect as the last playoff Western Conference Final. However, it is a pity that Vogel's change of formation is a failure, although Howard played well in this battle, he also could not limit Jokic's play, and the Lakers let Howard start, which affected their defensive rhythm, and was successively attacked by the Nuggets on the defensive end. Although Jokic did not score high in this campaign, his performance in other aspects was very good, and his teammates were also very good at this campaign, they gave Jokic a lot of help on the court, like Jeff Green and Hyland's shooting feel is very good, and many players on the team scored in double figures.
On the other hand, on the Lakers side, although James got 25 points and 9 rebounds in this campaign, his shooting rate of 9 of 23 shots in the whole game was not high, and Wei Shao rebounded in this campaign, he scored 19 points on 7 of 15 shots, and 0 mistakes in the whole game. But unfortunately, the overall performance of the Lakers is far inferior to the Nuggets, whether it is the intensity of the offensive end, or the oppression of the defensive end, there is a huge gap between the Lakers and the Nuggets, which also led to a fiasco for the Lakers.
Before the Lakers had a wave of consecutive wins, at that time many people thought that the Lakers were about to return to the right track, but from the current point of view, the Lakers are back on track and play the performance expected by the outside world, they still have a big gap. The team can't win against the strong team at the moment, and when facing the weak team, they don't have the strength to win steadily. The team currently has a lot of problems, and to get back on track, Vogel needs to continue to adjust the squad to put players in a position that suits them best