On the morning of April 23, Beijing time, in the second leg of the first round of the 2023-24 NBA playoffs, the defending champion Denver Nuggets continued to sit at home to face the challenge of the Los Angeles Lakers of the Purple and Gold Army. In this campaign, the Lakers' three cores James, Davis and Russell all played well, and they also took the initiative on the court in the first three quarters, but unfortunately at the last moment, the Lakers' defense had a huge problem, and the Nuggets attacked repeatedly to tie the score, and at the last moment, James's empty three-point shot failed, and the Nuggets Murray completed the whistle kill, and finally the Lakers lost 99-101, and the series temporarily fell behind the Nuggets 0-2.
In this game, the Lakers almost achieved the ultimate in the first three quarters, and the main center Anthony Davis had a big double-double of 32 points and 10 rebounds before the end of the third quarter of the game, but unfortunately, after entering the fourth quarter, Brother Thick Mei only got one rebound in nine minutes on the court, and then he made no other contributions, and completely became a spectator. D'Angelo Russell, another core of the Lakers, also performed well in today's game, he shot 3 of 3 three-pointers in the first quarter and 3 of 4 three-pointers in the second quarter, but like Davis, his performance in the second half was also strained, and the tiger was the best portrayal of the Lakers today.
After losing this game, the Lakers have fallen behind 0-2 in the series, and this game also exposed their three fatal flaws. First of all, the Lakers' bench lineup performed too badly, in the whole game, the Lakers' bench except for Prince, who scored 6 points on 2-of-3 shooting, the rest of the bench players did not score a point, and more than 90% of the team's scores were obtained by relying on the starters. On the other hand, the Nuggets, who scored a total of 18 points off the bench today, are not surprising that the Lakers lost by such a significant margin.
Secondly, the Lakers' defense is still full of holes, especially for Jokic's defense, Davis can't limit Jokic's play on the inside, and throughout the second half, Jokic played on the inside, especially at the last critical moment, the Lakers let the Nuggets score smoothly almost every round, and gave up the victory in vain.
Third, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham is too rigid in employing people. In today's game, the two core Reaves and Hachimura of the Lakers are in very different shapes, but even so, at the last moment, Ham still insisted on putting the two on the court, Hayes, who was in good shape before, only played 6 minutes today, Dinwiddie only scored a total of 10 points, Reeves and Hachimura combined to shoot only 1 of 7 three-point shots, as long as one of them was accurate, the Lakers actually won today.
With James, Davis and Russell already playing to the extreme, the Lakers are still unable to snatch a win from the Nuggets, and this sense of despair will only make the Lakers completely lose confidence, and the dream of hitting the championship this season will eventually come to naught.