LeBron James laid on the hardwood floor covered in beer and popcorn after crashing into fans sitting courtside. One of them handed him a towel to wipe himself off. He stared at the action back on the court in disbelief and shook his head. It was a rare moment of frustration in a game that began with such promise for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Just as James had to wipe himself off after the courtside collision, the Lakers will now have to dust themselves off and get up off the mat after suffering yet another loss at altitude on Thursday night.
Nikola Jokic made history with another triple-double, and the Denver Nuggets held serve at home with a 108-103 win over the Lakers in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals.
Jokic finished with 23 points, 17 rebounds, and 12 assists. Jamal Murray led the Nuggets with 37 points.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
"He was special," said Jokic of Murray's performance. "He won us the game. He scored 20-something in the fourth quarter. He got us the lead, his energy. He played 40 something -- 42 minutes. I think he was amazing. Yes, maybe in the first half he struggled to make shots, but when it mattered the most, he made shots and he won us the game basically."
It was Jokic's seventh triple-double of the 2023 NBA Playoffs, tied with former Laker Wilt Chamberlain for the most during a postseason run in NBA history.
"After Game 1, everyone talked about the Lakers. The Lakers are down 1-0, but they figured something out. No one talked about Nikola [Jokic] just had a historic performance. He's got 13 triple-doubles now, third place all-time," said Nuggets' head coach Mike Malone after Game 2. "What he's doing is just incredible. But the narrative wasn't about the Nuggets, the narrative wasn't about Nikola. The narrative was about the Lakers and their adjustments. So you put that in your pipe, you smoke it and you come back, and you know what, we're going to go up 2-0."
Sports
Get today's sports news out of Los Angeles. Here's the latest on the Dodgers, Lakers, Angels, Kings, Galaxy, LAFC, USC, UCLA and more LA teams.
The Lakers led for most of the game, but a fourth quarter flurry of three-pointers by the Nuggets created an avalanche that Los Angeles was unable to recover from.
"The three-point line is what killed us in the fourth, but I didn't see many breakdowns though," said LeBron James of the five consecutive three-pointers the Nuggets made in the final quarter. "Only one of them was uncontested. All of them was great contests. Two of Jamal's threes was right in the face of me and AD. The Michael Porter Jr one by our bench was right in the face of AR after a transition, they were in transition. Bruce Brown had one as well with a contest."
Murray and Michael Porter Jr. combined for 10 three-pointers in the game, as Denver went up by as many as 12 points thanks to their hot-shooting midway through the final frame.
Anthony Davis had 18 points and 14 rebounds. James once again fell one shy of a triple-double in defeat, scoring 22 points, 10 assists, and nine rebounds.
"I think we improved from Game 1 to Game 2," said James following the loss. "And if we can do the same thing from Game 2 to Game 3, we put ourselves in a position to win."
In a classic example of adjusting to the adjustment, Denver knew the Lakers would limit the amount of time Anthony Davis would guard Nikola Jokic one-on-one in Game 2.
The Lakers put the smaller Rui Hachimura on Jokic during the fourth quarter of Game 1, and rallied from a 21-point deficit to get within three points on several occasions.
Appearing to find success with that adjustment, Lakers' head coach Darvin Ham decided to start the longer Jarred Vanderbilt in Game 2, and put him on Jokic on defense, thereby allowing Anthony Davis to roam the paint and protect the rim.
The move worked early on, the Lakers won the rebounding battle in the first half, 29-25, and mostly contained Jokic and the Nuggets supporting cast.
"By starting Vando, I wanted to insert some energy and some size and athleticism into the lineup," said Ham of his decision. "So getting him out there, allowing him to put a bigger body on Murray, I thought it was effective. We're going to have to guard Jokic by committee. AD [Anthony Davis] does the best job that he can possibly do in a one-on-one, but Joker is one of those guys where you have to change the matchups. You got to change the coverages."
Denver, clearly expecting the defensive adjustment by the Lakers, made a concerted effort to disrupt the strategy by getting out and running in transition. By running the fast break on offense, the Lakers did not have time to set up their half-court defense. Denver out-scored the Lakers 22-21 in fast break points, but the disparity was much larger prior to the fourth quarter.
Hachimura made the difference late in Game 1, and he dominated Denver again when he was on the court in Game 2. At halftime, Hachimura was the game's leading scorer with 17 points off the bench on 7-for-7 shooting.
"I'm just trying to be aggressive on both ends and especially their bigs," said Hachimura of his performance. "So, I think for this series the coach has been telling me, it's going to be a big series for me. So, I was ready for this. And yeah, but we lost this Game 2 and it was tough one for sure, yeah."
Hacimura's perfect shooting half was tied with Lamar Odom for the best shooting half by a Lakers player in the postseason in franchise history.
But Hachimura cooled off in the second half and finished the game with 21 points. Austin Reaves had 22 points and another five three-pointers in the loss.
"We can't get down. I mean, Denver's the one seed for a reason. They're a really good basketball team and quote, unquote they did what they were supposed to do here," said Reaves after the loss. "Obviously, we don't love that, we wish we could have got one, two, whatever. But it's time for us to lock in on Game 3, see what we did in this game, last game that worked, didn't work, areas that we could get better, watch film and like just move on."
Denver was down by 10 points with less than three minutes remaining in the third quarter when they started to catch fire from downtown. They proceeded to hit nine three-pointers over the final 15 minutes of the game, including five straight during one stretch midway through the fourth quarter.
"Once you see a couple go in, I can get it rolling," said Murray of his hot-shooting in the fourth quarter. "I was able to just find a little separation and just rise up over the top and make some shots."
Murray finished with 23 points in the fourth quarter alone. It was his fourth career 20+ point final quarter of his playoff career, more than any other player in the last 25 years.
In an instant, the Lakers went from up 11 to down 12. They made one last-gasp effort to keep it close, by hitting a handful of threes of their own, but Davis missed a couple wide-open three-pointers and James missed a reverse layup that sealed their fate.
"I liked both the looks. Made the first. Second one was back rim. And the next one in the same exact spot, rims in and out. So, I liked all the looks that I got today," Davis said of the missed threes down the stretch. "Just a lot of them was short. I'm going to continue to shoot those shots and I got to be better, more efficient, help the team win. So, I'll be better."
Just as the Nuggets got hot from three late in the game, LeBron is on the opposite end of the spectrum. James is more cold than a chef's knife from distance during the series. He has missed 19 consecutive three-pointers in the fourth quarter since Game 2 of the first-round series against the Grizzlies and is 0-for-10 from the three-point line this series so far.
"I mean, he can shoot all he wants. It's LeBron James," said Reaves when told of James drought from downtown. "I don't think anybody bats an eye when he shoots a shot or questions his shot. So, yeah, we want him taking whatever he feels comfortable with, just because he's a winning basketball player for his whole career and that's all he wants to do, he wants to win."
Denver is now a perfect 8-0 in the playoffs at Ball Arena and have a 2-0 series lead as it shifts to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4. However, the Lakers are also perfect at home this postseason with a record of 7-0. They say a playoff series doesn't begin until a team wins on the road, and we wouldn't be surprised if this series is tied up at 2-2 when it heads back to Denver next week.
"We still got to play with the same desperation as we did tonight. We came out with an L but doesn't give us any more comfort. We can't go into any postseason game with comfort, just because you either haven't lost at home or you're going back home," said James. "I think it's even more you got to be on edge, because when you go home you get in your own bed, get around your family, everybody's being cool and jolly and everything. Nah, you got to be even more on edge when you go home. So, we got to understand that going back and being down 0-2. There's no reason for us to get comfortable."
Game 3 will tipoff on Saturday at 5:30PM PT from Cyrpto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
