LOS ANGELES — Even for those who fervently believe in what we call Lakers Exceptionalism, it is time to face facts.
This series, this exercise in futility against the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets, might as well be over now. It likely will officially end Saturday night in downtown L.A., in much the same manner that the previous 11 meetings between the teams have been decided.
If the script holds, the Lakers will stay close for a while. Eventually, though, the Nuggets will put together a run and impose their will, that will be that, and the blame assessment among the fan base will begin in earnest.
Thursday night, and not for the first time, fingers were pointed in the direction of D’Angelo Russell after he missed all seven of his shots, and all six 3-pointers, in a game the Lakers lost, 112-105, to go down 3-0 in the first-round playoff series.
“It’s unfortunate, man,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “You know he had some good looks that he just did not knock down. It’s as simple as that, similar to Game 1, he was able to bounce back in Game 2. And I expect him to bounce back in Game 4.”
And that wasn’t the worst of it. A viral video made the rounds after the game that appeared to show D-Lo scrolling through his phone messages on the bench while his teammates were in a timeout huddle.
D’Lo refusing to take part in the huddle now. https://t.co/GjGz17ZNp0 pic.twitter.com/rRL39WSK5z
— Lakers All Day Everyday (@LADEig) April 26, 2024
Ouch. Not a good look, even beyond the question of why in the world a player would have his phone with him on the bench.
But this was a night when a number of the flaws of this Lakers team stood out. Anthony Davis finished with 33 points, LeBron James had 26 and Austin Reaves 22, and everyone else had 24 combined. And it is evident, when you watch the Lakers for any length of time, that the 39-year-old James is this team’s only consistent player, the one guy you can depend on night after night. Otherwise, it’s feast or famine, even with Davis.
The Lakers also gave up 14 offensive rebounds, and as Davis noted afterward, “Sometimes it’s, you know, the guards on bigger guys. But other times it’s just simple boxing out or just going to get it. You know, there’s times today where guys miss shots and got their own rebound. I think, you know, everyone is anticipating the other guy going to get it instead of one of us going to get it.”
That, too, is an indictment.
Patterns keep re-emerging in this matchup, and they favor the defending champs. Denver wiped out the Lakers’ skinny 53-49 halftime lead Thursday night, putting together a 22-8 run that ate up nearly 6½ minutes of the third quarter and then adding a 10-2 run at the end of the period for an 83-71 lead.
As Austin Reaves noted afterward, Denver has outscored the Lakers in the third quarter in each game of this series, and in two cases it hasn’t been close: 32-18 in Game 1, 34-22 in Game 3. (In Game 2 they outscored the Lakers by five in the third quarter and 12 in the fourth).
“Our third quarters have been atrocious,” Reaves said. “If we want to fight our way back into this one, we obviously have to be good for all quarters – but the third quarter especially.”
And why has this been an issue?
“I think they just get more detailed,” Reaves said. “Their execution picks up, (and) they’re a little more locked in than we are coming out of the half. You know, we’ve seen Denver throughout the year. They take advantage of any opportunity. You know, credit to them. They’re a well-coached team. They play hard and do things the right way and play ball the right way. So we got to put together 48 minutes to beat a team like this.”
By itself, those words are praise for Denver coach Michael Malone and a team that has demonstrated it can put it all together against anyone. (And how they wound up the second seed in the West is beyond me, even as hypercompetitive as this conference has been all year.)
But taken in another context, this is a comparison between the coaches that Ham cannot possibly win, especially in the eyes of his critics on social media who likely will take those words, and those of Davis after Game 2 suggesting there were times the Lakers didn’t know what they were doing on the court, and will consider that sufficient evidence that coaching is the issue.
Is it? Or are these Lakers a pretty good team in a tough conference that wound up saddled with the worst playoff matchup possible?
Either way, I believe I mentioned before the series that if everything went right – specifically, if the Lakers were to tighten up the fourth quarter “and try not to depend on (LeBron) to bail them out,” they might have a puncher’s chance against Denver.
Then again, I didn’t anticipate that it would be the third quarter that would cause so much torment. Either way, that puncher’s chance appears to be just about gone. No NBA team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series, and these Lakers certainly don’t seem capable of pulling it off against these Nuggets.
But they’ll soldier on.
“You lose, you go home,” James said. “So you come out with the mindset of, let’s get one, force a Game 5, and then go from there. As long as you still have life, then you obviously believe. You play till the wheels fall off.”
Problem is, right now those wheels are awfully wobbly.