2023 NBA Western Conference Preview
Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokic will take center stage in what promises to be a fascinating contrast of styles.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets will tip off the Western Conference Finals on Tuesday night. Both teams are coming off of six game series in the second-round, but that’s about where the similarities end.
The Nuggets have been winning with a high-power offense built around Nikola Jokic, a two-time MVP and the best offensive focal point in the game. He’s an incredibly efficient post scorer who also happens to double as one of the best passers to ever walk the earth. Send a double his way and you’re toast.
Jokic sees everything several steps ahead of his opponents and Denver has surrounded him with intelligent cutters and knock down shooters. Opponents have no good choices.
Jokic is coming off a series in which he averaged 34.5 points, 13.2 rebounds, and 10.3 assists per game. The Nuggets tore the Phoenix Suns’ defense to shreds in his minutes, scoring a whopping 123.8 points per 100 possessions when Big Honey was on the floor, per NBA.com.
The Lakers have made their bones on the other end of the court, surrendering just 106.5 points per 100 possessions for the full course of the Playoffs. Their stinginess is driven by Anthony Davis’ brilliance.
The Brow is an freakishly quick elastic man with incredible timing defending in the pick-and-roll and as a helper. He’s already successfully anchored Los Angeles’ efforts against offenses led by arguably the most explosive guard in the league (Ja Morant) and the greatest shooter in the history of the sport (Curry).
Davis’ postseason performance to-date has been exceptional, but Jokic will pose a new problem to solve. His effectiveness as a scorer is built on craft and touch. Jokic can be a brute at times, but he doesn’t need a physical advantage to score efficiently (that’s good news for Denver, as Davis is most certainly the more gifted athlete).
If the Lakers can lean on their star big man to defend Jokic one-on-one, then they’ve got a real chance in the series. If they need to consistently send help, it will likely be death by dunks, layups, and threes. Jokic is just too good of a facilitator when opponents send multiple players his way.
Even if Davis can negate the need for a double, Los Angeles will still need to deal with the two-man game Jokic runs with Jamal Murray. Chasing around Curry will likely prove have been good practice in some regards, but accounting for Jokic has a handoff hub and screener is a much different calculus than dealing with Draymond Green and Kevon Looney.
The Nuggets have too many threats to stop entirely, but that doesn’t mean the Lakers can’t slow them down. Los Angeles is a massive team with arguably the best defender on the face of the earth at its center, capable of orchestrating nearly any scheme.
The question is really just whether or not any scheme will work against Denver.
Should the Lakers find a strategy that keeps the Nuggets relatively in check, they’ll also have to find a way to take advantage of Denver’s weak points on the other side of the ball.
The Nuggets play an aggressive style of defense to make up for Jokic’s shortcomings defending in space. They play him up to the level of screens or send an all out blitz, trusting their bevy of long, athletic forwards/wings/guards to make the right rotations as opponents attempt to ping the ball around enough to maintain an advantage that yields a juicy look.
The Lakers have a basketball super computer in LeBron James who should theoretically be able to take advantage of a scrambling defense, but its not clear if he’s healthy enough or if he has the shooting around him to really make Denver pay.
The only way the Suns were able to consistently punish Denver last round was to either play at a breakneck pace or hope for truly insane shooting performances from Devin Booker and Kevin Durant or both. The Lakers don’t have individual offensive weapons of that caliber.
James stands out as a massive pivot point in that regard. He’s not looked fully healthy in the postseason, and he’s most certainly not been the kind of all-encompassing offensive force he was when he went to the NBA Finals every year for the better part of a decade.
If James can play a leading on-ball role then he will have ample opportunity to create offense by picking on mismatches against the likes of Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Michael Porter Jr. He hasn’t been that player in the Playoffs and it hasn’t hurt the Lakers yet, but it will at some point if it doesn’t change.
Los Angeles can’t win a title with 75% of James.
X-Factor: Anthony Davis’ ability to defend Jokic is what will define this series. He’s been legitimately incredible through the first two rounds. If he can limit Jokic he’ll cement his case as the best defensive player in the world and may very well send the Lakers to the Finals as a result.
Prediction: Taking Denver in five is tempting. Jokic is really, really good, and Denver’s defense proved itself against a Phoenix team with some extremely potent offensive weapons. It not hard to imagine them performing even more effectively against Los Angeles.
Betting against the Lakers to make this a long series at the very least seems foolish though, esoecially given how good Davis has been and the fact that they still have James, even if he’s not 100%. Nuggets in seven.