NBA Playoffs: LeBron James Struggles With Ailing Foot As the Lakers’ Confident Strategy Begins to Fail

LeBron James used to be the Swiss Army knife of the playoffs, controlling it on one end while dumping cold water on your best player.

Everybody witnessed it against Derrick Rose more than ten years ago, and now Rose’s opposite was spending significant amounts of duration in front of LeBron James, draining him of any remaining energy as he attempted to pull off an upset.

In the Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, neither James nor the rest of the Lakers were able to stop the Denver Nuggets’ ferocious offence. Jamal Murray took centre stage in the fourth quarter to lead the Lakers to a 108-103 victory at Ball Arena.

The fact that James’ shooting has stopped for this series shows that he is, in reality, 38 years old and no longer has a limitless supply of energy.

Murray recovered from a slow start to score 23 of his game-high 37 points in the fourth quarter, unfazed by any defence the Lakers threw at him.

While he fought valiantly against Nikola Jokic, he failed on all six of his 3-point attempts, and neither he nor Anthony Davis appeared to have the energy to stave off the Nuggets in the fourth.

To the joy of the Ball Arena crowd, he missed one of those breakaway dunks that players seem to make their entire lives.

Additionally, despite leading by 11 points early in the third quarter and appearing to have the Nuggets on the ropes several times, the Lakers were unable to completely eliminate them. James described the unusual incident as “horrendous.”

“Unforced turnover by myself. Obviously, that sucks that that ball squirted out of my hand like that, whatever the case may be, maybe hit my knee or whatever.” “Those are plays on momentum.”

James remarked.

The Lakers are currently in trouble after dropping two straight games for the first time in more than two months and failing to win a road game, unlike against their first two playoff opponents.

“They are unbeaten at home, just like us. We were aware (know) that it would be difficult”, according to Lakers coach Darvin Ham. “An especially challenging one. We made that statement before we had even played a single game. We had anticipated a lengthy series, so we had to buckle down and buckle up”.

according to Lakers coach Darvin Ham.

Davis was hurt during the regular season and missed several weeks of action after James stepped on his foot late in the fourth. Although he told everyone he would participate in Game 3 on Saturday, this only serves to highlight how tenuous this Lakers strategy actually is.

Stars must be stars, and the Nuggets’ top players once again excelled while the Lakers’ regulars struggled to keep up. This Lakers thing only works if the stars are stars, and not just any stars, but stars across generations.

If James and Davis execute to their standards, Rui Hachimura’s stellar performance (making his first eight attempts) will be emphasised even though he was only postponing the inevitable on Thursday.

The Lakers’ combo played 40 minutes each again, and given that they play every other day and must travel between the two locations as well as between the games, you wonder whether weariness will become an issue if it hasn’t already.

Davis hasn’t missed a game in two months; his most recent absence was on March 15; this is his longest run of straight games played since the 2020 Orlando bubble, when everyone had a four-month break before returning to action.

Everyone is exhausted in the postseason, James remarked, “I mean, if you’re not.”

Following his 40-point outburst in Game 1, Davis had his first postseason dud in a long time, which was probably fairly inevitable.

Although the Nuggets were hitting seemingly everything in the fourth quarter, going on a streak of five straight 3-pointers that turned a 2-point Laker lead into a 12-point Nuggets lead in a span of four minutes, he didn’t have nearly the impact on the game that one has come to expect. He scored 18 points, pulled down 14 rebounds, and blocked four shots.

Jokic had the luxury of playing the decoy during that period, with Michael Porter Jr., Bruce Brown, and Jamal Murray all launching adrenaline-charged jumpers that caused Brown to chirp at the Lakers bench and Murray to mimic his famous “Bang!” call to Mike Breen after his final triple at the 4:57 mark.

While still giving room to Murray, who is still destroying the Laker guards, Jokic, the two-time MVP, managed yet another triple-double with 23 points, 17 rebounds, and 12 assists.

While Porter Jr. hasn’t gone off in this series, the Lakers must watch out because he will in the next two games. Porter Jr. made four triples for a total of 16 points.

The Lakers have choices and confidence in this situation. Theoretically, D’Angelo Russell and Dennis Schröder are due for comeback performances, especially after returning home for two games.

Austin Reaves has teams prepared to back up the Brinks truck in July with yet another good performance.

The Lakers haven’t yet shown they can handle the Jokic question, though. Ham was a member of the Detroit Pistons team in 2004 that defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals by letting late-prime Shaquille O’Neal have his own and shutting down everyone else.

“Yeah, we have AD, but if you can call up Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace, Elden Campbell, tell them I’ve got a one-day or a series-long contract for them.”

The day before the game, Ham said.

No one could stop Shaq one-on-one, but we had some extremely strong bodies that we could go at him with on that squad, they said.

Even those defenders from previous generations would be in awe of Jokic’s brilliance.

When Davis is on a player, he is less effective as a team defender even if Davis can win his fair number of contests.

LeBron James – SF – LAL – #6

APR 15 – MAY 19 2023

23.5 Pts 49.4 FG% 1.5 3PM

23.3 3P% 37:45 Min

You run the risk of James running out of gas before he can close if you keep James on him for extended periods of time. In the waning seconds of Game 1, James missed a go-for-it 3-point attempt, and in Game 2, he took much too many shots.

James is shooting only one of his 20 3-point attempts in the fourth quarter of the playoffs, for a 23.3% clip.

“He was open, and they are using him as leverage. He made a lot of 3-pointers, Ham claimed, and he let them fly. “Once more, like I say all the time, love and live in the paint. Because of this, several of these 3-point shots are now lot more rhythmic and open.

The Nuggets are in a groove right now, and although if coach Michael Malone’s usage of the “no respect card” sometimes seems like a sleazy ruse, they’re utilising it as motivation to push closer and closer to the Finals.

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