Five Key Questions In The Denver Nuggets Vs. Los Angeles Lakers ...

In a reunion of last year’s Western Conference Finals teams, the second-seed Denver Nuggets led by Nikola Jokic will face LeBron James’ seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the NBA playoffs, as Denver begins the quest to defend their 2023 championship, the franchise’s first ever.

Denver drew the Lakers after Los Angeles, who initially finished eighth in the West, defeated the seventh-place New Orleans Pelicans in the play-in tournament to secure the seventh playoff seed. This will be the third time in five years the two teams will have matched up in the postseason, and while due in part to that fact they are deeply familiar with each other, some significant differences make this, as Nuggets head coach Michael Malone called it after a recent practice, “a different series.”

“Guys are coming off a 57-win season, and we understand what we have in front of us,” Malone said. “And I think the biggest challenge is, everybody keeps talking about how we’ve beaten them eight games in a row, and as I told our guys today, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“This is a different team, a different series, and it will be a hell of a challenge to beat the Lakers again in the playoffs,” Malone added.

The eight consecutive Nuggets wins over the Lakers which Michael Malone referred to extend back over 15 months ago to January 9, 2023, when Denver beat L.A. in their final regular season matchup last year, and includes the Nuggets’ four-win sweep in the conference finals, and three-win sweep of this season’s series. Additionally, the Lakers have not beaten Denver on their home court at Ball Arena in over a full two years.

But even though this recent dominance might seem to indicate that the Nuggets have L.A.’s number, the current incarnation of the Lakers is arguably their strongest going into the playoffs since the 2020 bubble. Since the mid-February All-Star break, the Lakers have had the league’s 12th-best net rating at plus-3.6 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass, including the fourth-best offense at 119.7. And with one of the greatest players of all time in LeBron James, alongside Anthony Davis, another multiple All-NBA player, they are not a team to be taken lightly.

Although the betting odds heavily favor the Nuggets (-350) over the Lakers (+275), the challenge Malone cited is very real, and Denver winning is far from a foregone conclusion. So what will be the keys for the Nuggets to once again defeat their most prominent foe in the postseason? Here we look at five questions around the series, the answers to which just might tilt the balance.

Can the Lakers slow down the “dynamic duo” of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, and their deadly two-man game?

Perhaps the most definitive area of dominance over the Lakers which the Nuggets have established over their recent matchups is L.A.’s seeming inability to both to mitigate Denver’s offensive potency when they have both Jokic and Murray on the floor and to find ways to score at the other end.

According to data from PBP Stats, Denver has absolutely obliterated the Lakers during the minutes they’ve played against them with Murray and Jokic sharing the floor together over their last eight games, averaging a blistering net rating of plus-14.3 points per 100 possessions (by way of comparison, the Boston Celtics’ plus-11.3 was the league’s highest net rating this regular season).

The Lakers have essentially thrown their entire kitchen sink at specifically Jokic, starting off in last year’s playoffs with Davis guarding him, then quickly switching to the “Rui Hachimura adjustment” which proved to be less effective than hoped, and ultimately throwing whatever they could at the wall, including James (who arguably guarded Jokic better than any of his other teammates), but to little avail.

If L.A. can’t find a way to at least limit the damage Murray and Jokic inflict, none of the other swing factors may end up mattering much, and Denver could be busting out brooms.

Will LeBron James (and Anthony Davis) keep turning back the clock?

LeBron James has played a league-high (and astonishing) 56,597 total career minutes among active players, more than 10,000 more than Chris Paul at second. And although he at this point practically seems to be more Terminator than human, the grind and fatigue that comes with playing deeper into the playoffs at a far more intense level does raise the question of whether he can stave off a dropoff in performance.

Anthony Davis, for his part, is 31st among active player career minutes at 25,409, but the larger concern than his mileage is the wear and tear he’s endured through a series of injuries throughout his time in the NBA.

This sets up a potentially worrisome situation for the Lakers, who almost certainly can’t survive this series without both of their top stars playing at or near their ceiling, but if they can power through and stay healthy, they will stand a far greater chance of making it a competitive matchup.

Can Christian Braun, Reggie Jackson and Peyton Watson effectively replace the production and impact of Denver’s departed free agents Bruce Brown and Jeff Green?

Coming off the bench last season, Bruce Brown was one of the league’s best free agency acquisitions when the Nuggets signed him over the offseason, and was an absolutely critical contributor to their title success. Veteran journeyman Jeff Green, though having his ups and downs throughout the regular season, also proved to be an invaluable part of Denver’s rotation.

Now-sophomore Christian Braun also made his mark as a rookie, especially in the Nuggets’ Finals series, but played an overall more limited role than Denver will need from him this year. Additionally, Jackson has replaced Brown as backup point guard, and Peyton Watson is effectively playing in the vacuum of minutes opened up by Green’s departure.

The flip side of the lethal Jokic-Murray combo cited above is the Nuggets having to survive the minutes when Jokic is off the court. Jackson has been an important producer for Denver this season, especially with Jamal Murray missing 23 games, but has been inconsistent. And Braun and Watson are still very young and largely unproven, and the Nuggets are making a huge gamble on them to deliver in crucial, high-leverage playoff games.

If overall these bench players can be on the positive, or at least neutral side of the ledger rather than being liabilities, it will give Denver a tremendous boost towards winning the series.

How well will both teams’ “other” starters support the efforts of their respective star duos?

For Denver, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are the three supporting starters who play alongside and back up their Jokic and Murray star duo. For the Lakers, it’s Hachimura, Austin Reaves and D'Angelo Russell. Both teams need consistency and efficiency, as well as effective defense, from these secondary cast members.

Porter and Russell are the third-leading scorers for their respective teams, and either team could be in trouble if they don’t get sufficient production from them. And players like Gordon, Caldwell-Pope and Hachimura will be downright crucial on defense, not only in executing their own assignments, but in the domino effect of that boosting the offensive games of their star teammates from the potentially negatively-impacting grind of doing the same.

If either team’s main role players either step up bigtime or fail to do so, it will have a very realistic potential of swinging the entire series.

Which team will win more “battles of the margins” in areas like paint scoring, rebounding, turnovers and free throw rate?

In the Denver-Los Angeles matchup in last year’s playoffs, it was a mixed bag in terms of which team had which advantages in areas such as turnovers, points off turnovers, rebounds, paint points and free throw attempts, and if that happens again – or if alternately one team wins the majority of these battles-within-battles, it could reach a tipping point that sways the series.

As the chart above shows, Denver had a considerable advantage over the Lakers in last year’s playoffs in rebounding, including offensive rebound percentage, points off turnovers (despite a minimal turnover percentage difference), and fast break points.

L.A., on the other hand, beat the Nuggets fairly handily in outright free throws and free throw rate (something the Lakers have come to be notorious for), as well as points in the paint and bench points.

These respective advantages for both teams probably more or less balanced out in that WCF series, with Denver’s more efficient shooting (they had an effective field goal percentage of 57.5% to the Lakers’ 53.1%) playing a large part in tipping the scales. But margins can be slim in the playoffs, and either team checking more of these boxes would heavily boost their chances of surviving the first round.