(LOCK THREAD) The LeBron James- 23-24 NBA Thread - 40K POINTS+(Part 1)(NO INSULTING)

[zimpy27]

So I'm excited to see what strategies they employ against Denver. They've had a year to work on these.

I think Dinwiddie and Vincent will slow Murray down, Murray was the actual reason Lakers lost last series. He was dominant. He scored 7 points per game more than his playoff average but took the average amount of shots. So his accuracy gave Nuggets 7 more points a game than usual. That was the difference.

That was A difference. It is worth remembering that Jokic put 28/15/12 on them over the series, and on just shy of 60% TS. There was no way LA was making up that offensive difference. Murray was huge, but Denver dropped 124.3 ORTG on their faces: the Lakers never had a chance. They also got smoked on the offensive glass.

And all of that was WITH Reaves managing 21/3/5 on 73.8% TS, which is unlikely to repeat. While Lebron and AD both rocked big numbers on over 60% TS themselves.

They're pretty badly outclassed against the Nuggets.

If Murray scored with same efficiency that he did the rest of the playoff run then Lakers win 3 of those 4 games. That's all I meant. His out of this world shooting in the Lakers playoff series lost them the series because it was out of ordinary. Jokic was average for him against the Lakers.

[tsherkin]

If Murray scored with same efficiency that he did the rest of the playoff run then Lakers win 3 of those 4 games. That's all I meant.

I don't agree with that. I see what you mean in terms of the raw +/- of it, but that is also not exactly how that would work.

Jokic was average for him against the Lakers.

That's not a legitimate argument, though, because you tried to dismiss that 28/15/12 performance by saying Murray was the reason LA lost. No, he was A reason they lost, but Jokic was losing his mind all over LA's face at the same time. Murray was a brutal scoring force, but there are multiple ways to influence games. Jokic's passing and eating LA's lunch on the boards coupled to his scoring and comparatively low turnover rate was a HUGE factor. And you can't simply isolate what Murray was doing without including Jokic due to gravity and playmaking.

[The Master]

Lakers can easily win this if Russell plays well and LeBron is better than Murray.

Yeah, in general, LeBron had awesome 'numbers' a year ago, but in reality he was 24-10 on 55TS% in G1-G3 (and went supernova in the 1st half of G4 when the series was already lost), that was just not enough to keep Lakers in that series from scoring standpoint, he said himself that he's better physically than a year ago - and first and foremost, his 3pt shot is in much better territory than ... ever, not to mention last year's slump.

It's hard to navigate what we can realistically expect from 'healthy' LeBron at this point: he was 26-8-8 on 71TS% in the IST, and now he's been (without play-in game) 28-8-10 on 68 TS% post all-star game. The basis was his 3pt shot (>40%) - if can keep up his percentages in the playoffs, yeah, I guess we can expect superstar-level impact on superstar-level usage. He's 47% from spot up 3s this year, last year in the playoffs he was 30% - if he had been 42%, he would have had 26 PPG on 62 TS% instead of 24.5 PPG on 58TS% (even with atrocious 6/35 from pull up 3s, he would've been 34% from 3s with such spot up shooting), and that ignoring further issues with ankle. It is not necessarily how it works, just pointing out that we may actually underestimate how elite spot up shooting may open the game for LeBron in the playoffs even at his age. LeBron was a year ago from 2PT FGs + FTs: 19.3 PPG on 67 TS%, this is still an elite result if he can reproduce his RS output from 3pt line in the postseason.

That on its own should make this series closer. Russell and Reaves were 28ppg on 61ts% against Nuggets and now are 34ppg on 61ts% in RS, so that's another factor, considering Schroder being a 5th-best scorer with 7ppg on terrible %s.

I'll go with 2-4 series with some chances to make it even more difficult for the Nuggets: Lakers should be better offensively and Nuggets should be worse - probably not enough to overcome -6 net discrepancy though.

[zimpy27]

If Murray scored with same efficiency that he did the rest of the playoff run then Lakers win 3 of those 4 games. That's all I meant.

I don't agree with that. I see what you mean in terms of the raw +/- of it, but that is also not exactly how that would work.

Jokic was average for him against the Lakers.

That's not a legitimate argument, though, because you tried to dismiss that 28/15/12 performance by saying Murray was the reason LA lost. No, he was A reason they lost, but Jokic was losing his mind all over LA's face at the same time. Murray was a brutal scoring force, but there are multiple ways to influence games. Jokic's passing and eating LA's lunch on the boards coupled to his scoring and comparatively low turnover rate was a HUGE factor. And you can't simply isolate what Murray was doing without including Jokic due to gravity and playmaking.

Not using +-, literally meaning the points added by hitting at a far higher TS% against Lakers than other teams in playoffs.

Jokic had 27.8ppg @59.8% TS against Lakers and 30.6ppg @64% TS for rest of playoffs
Murray had 32.5ppg @65.1% TS against Lakers and 24.5ppg @56.7% TS for rest of playoffs

And for the playoffs:
Jokic was assisted on 56% of 2s and 71% of 3s.
Murray was assisted on 28% of 2s and 58% of 3s.

Lakers had no one to defend Murray. That's all I was trying to point out, Murray's outsized impact to average on Lakers was the difference. I'm not saying Jokic isn't better than Murray, but accounting for expectation, Murray's explosion was the critical blow.

[tsherkin]

Not using +-, literally meaning the points added by hitting at a far higher TS% against Lakers than other teams in playoffs.

Right, fair enough. But same end result.

Lakers had no one to defend Murray. That's all I was trying to point out, Murray's outsized impact to average on Lakers was the difference. I'm not saying Jokic isn't better than Murray, but accounting for expectation, Murray's explosion was the critical blow.

It was a huge performance, no question... but again, Jokic. It isn't just about scoring volume/efficiency. It's about impact of playmaking. It's about impact of 32% DRB. It's about his own scoring contribution and how that warped the floor. It's not as simply parsed as "hoorah, Murray's scoring performance," because a chunk of that came as a result of attention paid to Jokic. And then again because Jokic was bullying the piss out of them in his own way. Murray was a monster and a huge part of that victory, that isn't my contest, it's just how you're characterizing it, is all.

[zimpy27]

Not using +-, literally meaning the points added by hitting at a far higher TS% against Lakers than other teams in playoffs.

Right, fair enough. But same end result.

Lakers had no one to defend Murray. That's all I was trying to point out, Murray's outsized impact to average on Lakers was the difference. I'm not saying Jokic isn't better than Murray, but accounting for expectation, Murray's explosion was the critical blow.

It was a huge performance, no question... but again, Jokic. It isn't just about scoring volume/efficiency. It's about impact of playmaking. It's about impact of 32% DRB. It's about his own scoring contribution and how that warped the floor. It's not as simply parsed as "hoorah, Murray's scoring performance," because a chunk of that came as a result of attention paid to Jokic. And then again because Jokic was bullying the piss out of them in his own way. Murray was a monster and a huge part of that victory, that isn't my contest, it's just how you're characterizing it, is all.

Murray had his worst stretches being defended by Gabe Vincent. This was why Lakers paid the guy, they saw that they had no one to defend him last playoffs.

So having Gabe and Dinwiddie is actually pretty valuable for the Lakers. I think it has an impact but not sure if it's enough.

[PistolPeteJR]

So I'm excited to see what strategies they employ against Denver. They've had a year to work on these.

I think Dinwiddie and Vincent will slow Murray down, Murray was the actual reason Lakers lost last series. He was dominant. He scored 7 points per game more than his playoff average but took the average amount of shots. So his accuracy gave Nuggets 7 more points a game than usual. That was the difference.

That was A difference. It is worth remembering that Jokic put 28/15/12 on them over the series, and on just shy of 60% TS. There was no way LA was making up that offensive difference. Murray was huge, but Denver dropped 124.3 ORTG on their faces: the Lakers never had a chance. They also got smoked on the offensive glass.

And all of that was WITH Reaves managing 21/3/5 on 73.8% TS, which is unlikely to repeat. While Lebron and AD both rocked big numbers on over 60% TS themselves.

They're pretty badly outclassed against the Nuggets.

This is all true, but LeBron and AD weren’t as healthy as they are today, for starters. Also, Denver isn’t as deep as they were last year. And this Lakers squad at least has been able to play together for a whole season vs playing for a dozen games before the playoffs.

There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument here. It’ll be interesting to see.

[tsherkin]

Murray had his worst stretches being defended by Gabe Vincent. This was why Lakers paid the guy, they saw that they had no one to defend him last playoffs.

So having Gabe and Dinwiddie is actually pretty valuable for the Lakers. I think it has an impact but not sure if it's enough.

I don't think it will be, but it shall certainly be an interesting subplot, regardless!

This is all true, but LeBron and AD weren’t as healthy as they are today, for starters.

I don't honestly think that's going to matter.

There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument here. It’ll be interesting to see.

Yes, it will be interesting to watch, no doubt.

[Jdw38]

As much as I like Lebron, I do not have much confidence in the Lakers chances against the Nuggets, but I will be pulling for them. Anything is possible, not least due to the possability of injuries. You simply have to hope that LeBron and AD have the health, and esp. in the case of LeBron, motor/stamina to really put pressure at the rim and get the Joker in foul trouble a couple games in the series and so throw off the rhythm of the Nuggets. I hope AD plays like he has something to prove, at times he seems not fully committed, surely some that is due to his history of injury. You also have to think they have devised schemes to put LeBron and AD in positions to return the favor of the kind of offensive exploitation Joker will no doubt conduct. DLO simply has to be a factor, and must give Murray some competition.

[Slava]

Not using +-, literally meaning the points added by hitting at a far higher TS% against Lakers than other teams in playoffs.

Right, fair enough. But same end result.

Lakers had no one to defend Murray. That's all I was trying to point out, Murray's outsized impact to average on Lakers was the difference. I'm not saying Jokic isn't better than Murray, but accounting for expectation, Murray's explosion was the critical blow.

It was a huge performance, no question... but again, Jokic. It isn't just about scoring volume/efficiency. It's about impact of playmaking. It's about impact of 32% DRB. It's about his own scoring contribution and how that warped the floor. It's not as simply parsed as "hoorah, Murray's scoring performance," because a chunk of that came as a result of attention paid to Jokic. And then again because Jokic was bullying the piss out of them in his own way. Murray was a monster and a huge part of that victory, that isn't my contest, it's just how you're characterizing it, is all.

Murray had his worst stretches being defended by Gabe Vincent. This was why Lakers paid the guy, they saw that they had no one to defend him last playoffs.

So having Gabe and Dinwiddie is actually pretty valuable for the Lakers. I think it has an impact but not sure if it's enough.

I think the series will be decided on offense. Lakers need to run and gun, shoot up a higher volume on threes than they are used to and hope to make enough of them to even the margins. There’s no hope of containing Denver, they’re the better half court team.

[Ian Scuffling]

As much as I like Lebron, I do not have much confidence in the Lakers chances against the Nuggets, but I will be pulling for them. Anything is possible, not least due to the possability of injuries. You simply have to hope that LeBron and AD have the health, and esp. in the case of LeBron, motor/stamina to really put pressure at the rim and get the Joker in foul trouble a couple games in the series and so throw off the rhythm of the Nuggets. I hope AD plays like he has something to prove, at times he seems not fully committed, surely some that is due to his history of injury. You also have to think they have devised schemes to put LeBron and AD in positions to return the favor of the kind of offensive exploitation Joker will no doubt conduct. DLO simply has to be a factor, and must give Murray some competition.

Well said and I think you nailed the salient points. It's just crazy to me that as Lebron fans, we're still in year 21 putting so much pressure on his back to perform at such a high level. It's legit because he's still delivering, somehow, though. The dude is a freak.
That goes for his "haters" as well. They still think he's GOAT material, with their expectations of him at this advanced stage and age. LOL...He is healthy this year, which bodes well, obviously. I just don't see how they slow down Joker. I can see making life much more difficult for Murray, though. Hopefully, Gabe can relive his defense against him. And of course, the DLO variable. If he can play great, and it has to be great, they have a definite chance, providing they slow down Murray. I can't wait.

[rk2023]

Even with Lakers being better and being more of an offensive team with the ability to force more issues and exploit more than last year, Denver just has way too much BOTD (in general and in this matchup) for me to pick LAL.

I have Nuggets in 6 right now (perhaps 5) - a game 1 Lakers win and having the series tied 2-2 at 4 might change my mind, but this team is a wagon. I wouldn’t say anybody they start is a substantial (-) on defense - and KCP / Gordon are excellent. On the offensive side, Joker has been flanked with three excellent 3P and mid-range shooters and one of the best cutters in the game. He’s the control tower that makes it all work, with the amount of both set and improv reads he makes and scoring skills he has. This is a generational talent (alongside Steph and Duncan, behind LBJ, for Mount Rushmore this century) in the making.

It is what it is, as I feel a 2-3-6 of OKC MN PHX instead would get LA to the conference finals again. But it’s moot if you can’t get through Denver at either point.

[tsherkin]

I think the series will be decided on offense. Lakers need to run and gun, shoot up a higher volume on threes than they are used to and hope to make enough of them to even the margins. There’s no hope of containing Denver, they’re the better half court team.

Yeah, LA's only real pathway is to win the transition battle. They're going to get bullied on the offensive glass and won't be anywhere near as good in the halfcourt, so they need to be connecting from downtown and going nuts in transition. They WERE 8th in the league in 3P%, but 28th in 3PA, which is a large problem for them.

Seasonally, they were at 115.9 ORTG, which was 15th in the league (and were 16th on D). Denver, at 118.5, was 5th (and also 8th on D). That disparity is going to be a problem, especially if Reaves doesn't go as bonkers as he did last year.

In the WCFs last year, LA posted 117.9 (+3.4 over their RS performance)... and permitted 124.3 from Denver.

It'll be interesting to see. LA is going to need a lot of contributions from guys other than Lebron and AD to get this done, because they're sitting in a bad offensive hole and Lebron isn't even in his mid-30s anymore. There's only so much he can dial it up.

As a Laker, he has not generally been able to summon a lot of dominant scoring performances. His passing has been excellent and he's had a couple of mid/high 20s type of series, but by and large he doesn't have that top-tier nuclear mode anymore. Further, he's averaged sub-59% TS in both of the last two postseasons, which is of some concern going up against an offensive titan like the Nuggets.

It's also worth noting that one of Lebron's weaknesses remains FT shooting. He's going to give up a lot of points at the line. Not to a Shaq-like degree, but he's shot < 70% from the line in 3 of his last 6 postseasons, and that's going to be something to watch, as it meaningfully undercuts his efficiency. He was also in Cleveland the last time he was able to summon .400+ FTr on a postseason; he doesn't have that in him anymore at the age of 39, unsurprisingly, which also hurts his upper bound as a scoring threat in the playoffs.

Obviously, there's much to be made about his relative health going into THIS postseason.

Circling back to the team level. LA is the worst offensive rebounding team in the league and they post the 3rd-lowest 3pt volume in the league. Both of these things are going to fight them pretty hard in this series, particularly since Denver is quite good at both.

Of course, we'll have to watch the games. Lebron might just go bonkers. Or AD might go bonkers. Or Reaves might just replicate what he did last year, so who knows? 2020 was pretty impressive, and Lebron was about a 28/10/10 player on 60.5% TS / 126 ORTG in the WCFs against Denver last season.

[lessthanjake]

I think the eight-game losing streak against the Nuggets oversells the gap between the two teams. Obviously Jokic is the best player on either team. Meanwhile, I don’t think the Lakers match up particularly well with the Nuggets schematically. Those are obviously major factors. But, in a more general sense, I don’t really think the Lakers are meaningfully less talented than the Nuggets. Of course, Jokic is better than Davis, but Davis is still a top-10 player, and LeBron is still a better player than Jamal Murray. Meanwhile, the Lakers have talented guys in their supporting cast. So do the Nuggets, but the Nuggets also have a playoff bench rotation that is definitely a real question mark in terms of whether it can hold up (it’s basically really young guys + ancient Reggie Jackson & Justin Holiday). There’s really not some big talent gap here IMO.

That said, if Murray plays how he has often played in the playoffs, then there *will* effectively be a significant talent gap, because he has often played like a top-tier superstar in the playoffs. Combine that with Jokic, and it'll almost certainly be too much. But if the Nuggets only get regular-season Murray, then I think it's a close matchup on paper. Of course, Jokic is likely to create huge problems for the Lakers defense, because AD can't seem to guard him (no shame in that, but it does seem to be the case). But the effectiveness of the Nuggets' two-man game (which will very likely be their crunch-time go-to) will naturally be a lot lower if one part of that two-man game isn't nearly as effective as he often has been in the playoffs. That can have a huge impact on the results of close games. Not to mention that regular-season Murray could shoot them out of a game or two. Personally, I expect a reversion to the mean from Murray in these playoffs. I expected it last playoffs too, and it didn’t happen, so maybe he just is a consistent playoff riser. If that’s the case, then the Lakers have little chance IMO. But with a reversion to the mean from Murray (which I personally think is more likely than not), I think the series could definitely go either way. And, honestly, I think that about virtually any matchup the Nuggets can get. The West is really deep with very talented teams this year, and so, as incredible as Jokic is, any team is a threat if Murray is merely his regular-season borderline-all-star self.

[EmpireFalls]

Even with Lakers being better and being more of an offensive team with the ability to force more issues and exploit more than last year, Denver just has way too much BOTD (in general and in this matchup) for me to pick LAL.

I have Nuggets in 6 right now (perhaps 5) - a game 1 Lakers win and having the series tied 2-2 at 4 might change my mind, but this team is a wagon. I wouldn’t say anybody they start is a substantial (-) on defense - and KCP / Gordon are excellent. On the offensive side, Joker has been flanked with three excellent 3P and mid-range shooters and one of the best cutters in the game. He’s the control tower that makes it all work, with the amount of both set and improv reads he makes and scoring skills he has. This is a generational talent (alongside Steph and Duncan, behind LBJ, for Mount Rushmore this century) in the making.

It is what it is, as I feel a 2-3-6 of OKC MN PHX instead would get LA to the conference finals again. But it’s moot if you can’t get through Denver at either point.

What is BOTD

[rk2023]

Even with Lakers being better and being more of an offensive team with the ability to force more issues and exploit more than last year, Denver just has way too much BOTD (in general and in this matchup) for me to pick LAL.

I have Nuggets in 6 right now (perhaps 5) - a game 1 Lakers win and having the series tied 2-2 at 4 might change my mind, but this team is a wagon. I wouldn’t say anybody they start is a substantial (-) on defense - and KCP / Gordon are excellent. On the offensive side, Joker has been flanked with three excellent 3P and mid-range shooters and one of the best cutters in the game. He’s the control tower that makes it all work, with the amount of both set and improv reads he makes and scoring skills he has. This is a generational talent (alongside Steph and Duncan, behind LBJ, for Mount Rushmore this century) in the making.

It is what it is, as I feel a 2-3-6 of OKC MN PHX instead would get LA to the conference finals again. But it’s moot if you can’t get through Denver at either point.

What is BOTD

Benefit of the doubt

[Todeasy]

I understand the pessimism going into this series, but I really do think the Lakers could win and I don't think it would take some out of this world divine intervention.

[rk2023]

I understand the pessimism going into this series, but I really do think the Lakers could win and I don't think it would take some out of this world divine intervention.

How say you?

I’d say that building off my last post, my viewpoint is that the Lakers *can* certainly win this - but I’m not sure about it. They have a lot of demons to erase in a game tho though. If Home court hasn’t been stolen into Game 3, wrap the series up imo.

[Todeasy]

I understand the pessimism going into this series, but I really do think the Lakers could win and I don't think it would take some out of this world divine intervention.

How say you?

I’d say that building off my last post, my viewpoint is that the Lakers *can* certainly win this - but I’m not sure about it. They have a lot of demons to erase in a game tho though. If Home court hasn’t been stolen into Game 3, wrap the series up imo.

Oh I wasn't talking about anyone in particular, and I think we're in agreement that they're quite unlikely to win this series. I'm more going against the idea that the only way that they CAN win is an injury or a miracle. I think there's quite a few small factors that if they swung the Lakers way, could change the results, with the cheif amongst them being the playcalling and coverages.

[tsherkin]

Oh I wasn't talking about anyone in particular, and I think we're in agreement that they're quite unlikely to win this series. I'm more going against the idea that the only way that they CAN win is an injury or a miracle. I think there's quite a few small factors that if they swung the Lakers way, could change the results, with the cheif amongst them being the playcalling and coverages.

What is it which makes you think they can hang with the Nuggets in a 7-game series?

Playcalling didn't help the Lakers last year when they rocked a .271 FTr vs. Denver's .187 and still got swept, even as Reaves played at a level well above what we can expect from him this season.

The biggest issue is that LA doesn't really have a prayer of defending Denver, so they have to make up for it with offensive performance they haven't shown themselves capable of producing. It's kind of a nearly-zero margin for error in this series for them as a result of that disparity. If this was 2014 Lebron and they had a more interesting bench, I think I might be feeling it a little more but this is likely to be a pretty rough outing for the Lakers.

I guess what I'm asking is more:

1) How do you think they'll manage the large gap in offensive ability?
2) What makes you think they'll be any better at defending Denver this season?
3) Knowing they already had a large gap in FTr in their favor last year and got worked on the offensive glass, how do they overcome that this time?
4) What competitive advantage do you think they have in this series which would allow them to win?


EDIT: I realize you aren't saying they're going to, FWIW. I'm just trying to explore the other side of the argument.