Lakers-Nuggets Game 2 reaction: Jamal Murray & Jokic lead 4th quarter comeback | Draymond Green Show

What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show. Man, this Conference Finals has been fun to watch. Although I must say it's annoying to watch and I will continue to remind you of that. But in saying that, as a basketball fan, It's always fun to watch guys in the battle, you know, just trying to do what you can to put yourself in a better position to be the team that's moving on. And so we're gonna break down this game. As you know, we're gonna break down this series. We'll talk about both series. Really, really, really locked into this Nuggets-Lakers series, but I'm locked into both. We'll talk through both of 'em. Yeah. But let's get right into it. The Nuggets take a 2-0 lead, beating the Lakers 108 to 103 in game 2. A game that the Lakers pretty much dominated for majority of the game. If you are the Denver Nuggets, I saw Coach Mo, Coach Malone, comments about being up 1-0. And everybody talking about the Lakers and how their adjustment has won them the series. And he said, we're sitting here at 1-0 and everybody's pretty much talking like we lost the series. And I'll tell you this, one of the worst things in the playoffs that can happen is when you blow a team out in game 1 and then you come back game 2, like it's always a natural letdown. That team that you blew off is pissed off. Draymond Green blew out, is pissed off. You're naturally just gonna relax just a little bit. And that's just enough to make game 2 really tough and game 2 really tough to, and not only really tough, but makes it even tougher to win in an already tough environment to win in the playoffs. It's hard to win playoff games. Yeah. That makes it a lot tougher. So when you leave game 1, like the Nuggets did, where everyone's essentially talking about the Lakers as if they won game 1, it allows you not to naturally relax. Now, in saying that, you look at the start of game 2 and you say one of two things. Either you still relaxed Or the Lakers just came out with their adjustments that they made, which we'll get into. With the adjustments that they made, pissed off, they came out guns blazing. In fact, they did. How did that happen though? How did— so as you all know, doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Jared Vanderbilt went back into the starting lineup for Dennis Schroeder. Something that we spoke about a couple days ago that could possibly happen. Although I didn't think it would be Schroeder to come out of the lineup. I thought it would be D-Lo to come out of the lineup. They went Schroeder and that was that. Now we also saw LeBron James guarding Joker. A lot more than we did in game 1. One thing that I noticed that the Lakers was doing is they went Rui, they went LeBron, they went AD. They did not give Joker a steady diet of anything. They gave him different looks. At some point, at times, Bron was just fronting with AD on the backside. At times, AD was guarded straight up. At times, they sent the double team. They did a bunch of different things. Now you'd say, all right, logically you should go back to the film and see which one of those worked, right? Which one of those were stifling Joker? Which one of those were, what was, which coverage we were in when we were making our runs? Quite frankly, I think most of them worked. I actually think most of the coverages, most of the adjustments they made on Joker worked. I thought when they were sending the double team, and I'm gonna get into a couple specific plays, but when they were sending double team, I thought it was good. I thought they invited the first pass out. And so for those who don't understand, if you go, we call it a fire, which is if Joker catches the ball on the post, the first wing, that guy fires, which means they go on the trap Joker on the block or right off the block where they were trapping him. Which then puts you into what we were describing last game, or what I was explaining last game, which is a full rotation. Next guy goes over, next guy rotates over. Guy who's leaving the trap fires out to the weak side corner or to the man in the dunker. But most often than not, you're firing out to the weak side dunker because you wanna keep either Bron or AD on that weak side dunker, man, which is Aaron Gordon. Because if you fire outta the trap, which is usually a guard because the guard was the man rotating down on the trap. If you now rotate out of it and that guy just rotates to Aaron Gordon and dunker, good luck. Aaron Gordon's offensive rebounding, Aaron Gordon's dunking the basketball. So you actually need to keep Bron and AD in that spot for rebounding position. So that guard is then, that guard then needs to get all the way out to the weak side corner. They were successful in guarding that way. They didn't give up many backdoors out of it. They didn't give up many shots out of it until they did. One play in particular, it was at a very, very, it was at kind of a turning point in the game. And they fired, KCP was right there on the wing. They kick it out to KCP, rotation doesn't get there fast enough. KCP hits a 3. That takes the lead from 42 to 35. It makes the lead 42-35, takes the score from to 42-35. The significance of that. And so as I told you all, when for me, I like to educate on the game of basketball. And so one thing that I understand people don't realize is how to actually watch a game and how to watch film. And so when I'm watching film, when I'm watching the game, I'm also looking at turning points. And a big turning point in the game was the LeBron mishap on the dunk, because that takes a— that takes an 8-point lead to a 10-point lead. You get a timeout there. Everything's rolling, right? Yeah. Draymond Green bobbles the ball, ball goes outta bounds. At that time, I think if I'm not mistaken, it was 40 to 32 and ball goes outta bounds. Nuggets come back down, they don't score. Lakers come down, don't score back, don't score Nuggets. Lakers come back down and they score. But the rhythm is off. Like it's no longer, the game's no longer flowing like it was flowing leading up to that. And then you get the Joker, you get the Joker kickout 3 from KCP. Now that gets KCP going because if you remember, KCP had 2 quick fouls, didn't have a rhythm. Now you get the other guys going. See, initially Joker was scoring, but he weren't getting any assists. And remember, we spoke about this. Joker not having assists, that is the key. At one point in the game he had 12, 2 and 2, and the Lakers were dominating. Then he had 14, 2 and 2, Lakers were dominating. And so now the game stops, the flow stops, and that turns to the advantage at that time of the, of, to the Denver Nuggets. 42. 42 to 35, that happens. And then they, they, they start to walk the Lakers down. Now they were doing a great job of keeping all the other guys out and taking Joker's passing away. And towards the end of the third quarter, end of the second quarter, I'd say maybe about 5, 6 minutes to go, the Nuggets started to create transition opportunities. And once they started to create transition opportunities, that then opened the game up for Joker. Right. Now all of a sudden he's getting assists in transition. The assist total goes from 2 to 5 really quick. And now you're playing a totally different ball game. So now they get, they start to get out in transition and they start to make plays in transition. Joker's gotten loose. Good luck from there. Now another thing happened and Denver Nuggets, you may wanna talk to your ball boy about this. I'm just watching the game and they're getting out in transition. It's 2 minutes to go. And a half, right around 2 minutes, maybe a little under 2 minutes. And the ball goes out of bounds. The ball boy stops the game by walking over there and wiping up sweat off the floor. So the referee has to pause. And at this time, the Denver Nuggets has taken control of the game. What that allowed— —To happen is, if you all don't know, Joker runs to the referee, he gets the ball out fast. If nobody's looking, he's gonna throw a long pass for a home run layup. If not, still get the ball out fast and you can push the pace because the defense is walking back, they're not set. You push the pace, now they're like, "Oh, oh, we gotta play defense." And now it's essentially just like you're in transition playing against a scrambling defense, which is how they had started taking control of the game. In transition. Lakers transition defense has been bad all year. First team, their second team transition defense has been bad. They were number one defense after the All-Star break with the new team, the new roster. They were still 25th in transition defense. So that has been an area of concern for the Lakers all year and it's showing up in a major way in this series. Yeah. As it's shown up at times in previous two series, it's really showing up in these first two games of this series. Plus you got altitude, let's not forget about that. So now they end up playing against a set defense and they have start making their run. In making their run, the guy stops the game, they come down, they don't score. Lakers didn't score to make it 51 to 48. Got another stop on a Joker miss. Lakers come down, doesn't score. Nuggets come down, don't score again. Rui then makes it 53 to 48. They scored on a couple free throws. Those are run breakers. And so I hope they can identify that the guy who actually broke their run up was their ball boy going out to wipe the sweat up off the floor. Hey, my man, when the game goes down the court, then you come out and wipe that up. The, the, the game's going down the floor. It's one thing if they're staying on that They're standing on that side of the floor, then yes, safety, of course. But they're about to take off down the floor. Let them take off, then go wipe that up so they can get their transition opportunity. That really stopped the game 'cause Joker had 3 assists during that 2-3 minute span, and they all were coming off transition. And he had one off the cut where he caught it in the post. He lobbed it up to Bruce Brown. Bruce Brown made an incredible catch, an incredible finish. But other than that, everything was coming outta transition for them. And, and even a couple plays where he didn't get the assist, but the hockey assist, for those that don't know what the hockey assist is, that's I pass it to Steph, Steph passes it to Klay, I hit Steph, he hits Klay. I don't get an assist for that. Steph's getting assist, but in hockey both guys get the assist. So we call that the hockey assist. So he had a couple hockey assists during that stretch as well that won't quite show up in the stat sheet, but That really stopped their run going into the break. Gave the Lakers something going into the break. And now you come outta the break if you're the Nuggets and you're like, all right, we made our run. And it's one thing when you make that run, if they're able to take that from 49 to 48 to 50 to 49. When you make that run and you don't end up ahead, That's like a— if you're in a boxing match, that's just like another jab, right, to slow the guy down. Another jab, and you like, man, I just put a good combo together. Guy keep hitting me with a jab to slow me down. That's a jab in the heavyweight fight as we're watching a heavyweight fight. It's a jab. The jab kept working. And so that slows them down going into the half. They come out of the half, doesn't play great in the third quarter either. And they eventually figures it out in the fourth. Another key moment that I thought in the game, in this segment as well, is Bron, they were up 10, the Lakers were up 10, and Bron was at the scorer's table. By the time Bron was able to check in, they were up 2, and Darvin Ham had to take a timeout. And I thought that was really important because As I've told you all, I think Bron has to really control this series, dominating the basketball, getting them into the things that they want to because Denver has a good defense, but they also have a couple holes on their defense that you can exploit if you get guys in the right position. And Bron being caught at the scorer's table from where the lead was 10 points all the way down to it was 2, the entire momentum of the game changed. And I thought that was a really key moment. Denver goes on the 8-0 run, and that really allowed the Nuggets to get their footing, allowed them to change the game, allowed them to get out in transition, and now they're rolling. So you end the game with Joker with 23, 17, and 12 assists. Didn't quite get 30, but he got 12 assists. So in turn, you end up allowing all the other guys to get going. Now, what ultimately ended up winning the Nuggets the game was Jamal Murray's performance in the fourth quarter. Jamal Murray had 23 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter and totally took the game over. He was 5 for 6 from 3 in the fourth quarter. Lakers scored 24 points in the fourth quarter. Jamal Murray had 23 points in the fourth quarter. And if you watch it, all of the buckets really came on switches. They're switching, Jamal Murray's getting to his shot. He had a couple buckets on AD, he had a couple buckets on Bron, which goes back to my theory. This is a Jared Vanderbilt series. Jared Vanderbilt has to play menace. And I know the thing is going to be, Oh, but they needed shooting on the floor. But Jared Vanderbilt has never provided you shooting. So it's almost like, oh man, the other guys are struggling with shooting the basketball. We need to get more shooting on the floor. But your guys who shoot for you are struggling to shoot basketball. There's not really anyone else on your roster that's changing that. Maybe you go Malik Beasley. I don't know. Austin Reeves has been shooting the lights out. But guys have really been struggling to shoot for them all, all postseason long. Like this isn't like some, oh man, they just went cold. For the most part, with the exception of maybe 2, 3 games, they've been cold from 3. They're not a great 3-point shooting team. That's just not their strength. So to all of a sudden go, oh man, we need to get more shooting. Denver hasn't necessarily shown the ability to really stop you from getting to the rim. They haven't really shown that ability. So I'm not sure if what everybody is making of the shooting is the actual thing. Again, the Denver Nuggets have been rolling with Aaron Gordon, who hasn't provided any shooting at all. Now you can say, oh yeah, but Jamal Murray was hitting shots and other guys were hitting shots. Yeah, but they're still giving you a guy to help off of, to cover all of that and to take some of those shots away. So maybe it's not the shooting, and maybe it's Jarred Vanderbilt you need in there to take Jamal Murray away, to take Jamal Murray out the game. Because guess what? He had a very tough first quarter. He had a very rough first half. Jarred Vanderbilt played more in the first quarter than the first half. So I actually think this is a Vanderbilt series, and I think— Yeah. Dennis Schroder has been very important for this team. Ja'Marr Murray may not be the matchup for Dennis Schroder. I still think Dennis Schroder can affect, I still think Dennis Schroder can affect their defensive outcome. For instance, say if I got Jarrett Vanderbilt on the floor and he's guarding Ja'Marr Murray and I got Dennis Schroder on the floor, say he's guarding KCP. He's gonna get underneath KCP. It doesn't allow KCP to put the ball on the floor at all because Dennis Schroder is a really good defender. And if your handle isn't absolutely incredible, he's gonna get to some of that. So you take KCP coming outta the corner downhill to his right hand, you kind of take that away. Michael Porter Jr. doesn't really take advantage of his size and, and mismatches. He may go to the mid post, but if he goes to the mid post, and you crowd the paint, then he's taking tough shots, which I'd prefer Michael Porter take tough shots and some of the things that they've been getting to. So you could put Dennis Schroder there as well. I'm not saying you need to take Dennis Schroder off the lineup or lessen his minutes because I think that would be the wrong thing to do. But I do think you have, like, it's absolutely necessary that Jarv Vanderbilt plays more minutes. That is what will allow them to better guard Jamal Murray. That's 2 games in a row now Jamal Murray's had 30 points. He's, he's gotta be a priority. Has to be a priority. And, and I mean, if he's not a priority, he's now showing you that 2 times in 2 nights, he can beat you. AD didn't have a great game. I thought he played a really good game, really good floor game. Stats can't always be measured by scoring. Finished the game 18 points, 14 rebounds on 4 for 15 shooting. Why it's very important for AD to have good games, but not even so much have good games, but be extremely aggressive is Joker is his matchup. You have to make him work on both sides of the floor. The Lakers are capable of doing that because they have AD. AD didn't play a very good game, or a very aggressive game, I should say. Because like I said, I thought he played a good game, but he wasn't extremely aggressive on the offensive end, which allows Joker to sit back, which allows him to get a little more rest. It doesn't put as much pressure on him. It doesn't put as much pressure on their defense. And so I thought the Lakers needed a much more aggressive AD. They're gonna continue to need a much more aggressive AD, not only to make Joker defend, but I also don't think they have the team to where AD can't be aggressive and they can still win. Now you can say, hey, they were winning the entire game and Draymond Green got going. And yes, that's a fact. But if you have Anthony Davis being extremely aggressive and you are winning the entire game, all of a sudden your lead isn't 2 the whole game, it isn't 4 the whole game. Yeah, you get it to 10, 10 and it goes right back down. Now you start to extend that lead because AD is playing aggressive. You put it a little, a little more outta reach. You make it a little tougher for them to make a comeback. So I thought they needed a much more aggressive AD and they're going to continue to need that down as this series goes on. Let's get into a couple things that happened during the game. The D'Angelo Russell flagrant foul I thought was extremely soft. Draymond Green, um, he goes up to block the shot. This is the playoffs. Um, like flagrant foul. And then everybody say, oh man, the NBA is soft. And as I've told you all before, I agree. Uh, but we blame it on players. We say, oh man, these guys are soft for that. And we blame it on players. No player did anything for that flagrant foul. Quite frankly, I don't think the player who was given a flagrant foul should have been given a flagrant foul. But that doesn't make players soft. The rules are a lot softer. But I can't necessarily say, oh man, guys are softer because they caught a flagrant foul. So like, if that's a flagrant foul, Like, is that what we're selling? Or like, do we need to go revisit these flagrant foul rules? Which quite frankly, I'm in favor of. Like, let's, let's revisit these flagrant foul rules because I just cannot agree that that's a flagrant foul. Like, how do you, like, or like, do you softly foul and give up a layup? Or do you make sure you don't give up the 3-point play? Yeah. And so I wasn't too thrilled with the flagrant foul as you can see by my tweet. That's soft. That is soft. Soft, very soft flagrant foul. Like, can we be better with that? Like again, I'm watching the game as a fan right now. I'm not watching as a player. I'm watching as a fan right now. That's like, I don't know if that's what I'm paying my cable bill to see. I don't really pay cable bill to watch movies. I pay cable bill to watch sports. I'm not sure That's what I'm paying to see. Like, come on. Like, it's the playoffs. It's supposed to be harder. It's supposed to be tougher. I don't know. Maybe you all think differently and maybe that's why I always end up with a bunch of flagrant foul points. But I am just not rolling that that's a flagrant foul. I can't roll with that. And going into game 3, a couple things that I think both teams need to do differently. I think the Lakers, as I've told you, need to play more Jarred Vanderbilt. I also think the Lakers need to get into more screen and roll. The way, the way the, the way that Denver is guarding the screen and roll is they're sitting in the middle and they're pulling over like extremely hard, which is actually the way we started off the series. They're pulling over extremely hard. Forcing you to make the, the, the advanced pass and they're, they're getting the late contest on the shooters. However, I think one adjustment for the Lakers would be to move that pick and roll over a little bit more, like move it down the floor a little bit more. So it's a lower angle pick and roll as opposed to the high angle pick and roll that they're getting. They're gonna need D'Angelo Russell to play better to, and in particular to take that away. Yeah. Like to, to that coverage. D'Angelo Russell is the guy that they have on their roster that can make shots out of the pick and roll against that coverage. Dennis Schroder can also get downhill more. I didn't think Dennis Schroder was aggressive enough offensively, and I think they're gonna need him to be more aggressive outta that pick and roll to, to keep that defense honest. I also think that will allow them to get downhill more and take advantage of the, the lack of rim protection that the Denver Nuggets do not have. There was a time where I thought they also needed to go more AD and LeBron pick and roll. If you go AD-LeBron pick and roll, tight pick and roll on one side of the floor, that puts Joker in a tough situation 'cause now you got Bron coming downhill. If he helps, you got AD on the drop off. AD can either get all the way to the rim or shoot his little floater. You put Austin Reeves in the slot so that guy can't pull all the way over and help. Austin Reeves is shooting the light side of the ball. If I put Austin Reeves in the slot, if that guy pulls all the way over to help, I'm hitting Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves been knocking it down. What that also does is that put Michael Porter Jr. back where? As the bottom low man rotating over on a driving LeBron James or a, a diving Anthony Davis. Now you're allowed to manipulate their defense a little bit more. You're able to get the pieces where you want the pieces in order to allow you the highest level of success. And so I think they needed to go more of that. And again, that goes along with the theory that LeBron James has to have the ball in his hands in order for them to win this series. The reason— And the most important reason that it is vital that LeBron James has the ball in his hands throughout this series is because Joker has the ball in his hands the entire series. Joker doesn't have it, Jamal Murray's making the decision, but more often than not, Joker has it. Which means, as if LeBron James has the ball all the time, outside of the pick and roll that I think they can take advantage of At times. Now you got the chess match, Joker versus LeBron, which is needed because that's what they're doing. Lakers, you have a guy who's made an entire career out of doing that thing. You need it more than ever right now because that's all they're doing. They're giving the ball to their MVP. They're allowing him to make plays. You need to allow LeBron James to make plays, to manipulate that defense. Sees the court differently than most. If not all, most, with the exception of a few, it would be all, with the exception of a few people. You need that. So you're back at home, little different, no altitude. I expect to see 40 minutes from LeBron, 40+ minutes, 40+ minutes from AD. And I think they need to take advantage of that pick and roll with LeBron James and AD. Put Joker in a tough spot. You possibly get him in foul trouble. That possibly changed the game for the Lakers. I think that's gonna be very important for them. And if I am the Denver Nuggets, if they go, if they go LeBron on Joker, which the Lakers did and I thought it was very successful, I'm gonna put LeBron in more pick and roll actions, making him have to guard the pick and roll as a big. 'Cause he's never guarded the pick and roll as a big. It's very uncomfortable. He's doing a good job of it when he has to do it. But it's a very uncomfortable space. And if we just go at that, go at that, go at that, can we get LeBron to make mistakes? And can we put AD in a tough position on the backside? Now I have Joker in the pocket. I have Aaron Gordon on the backside. Can we put AD in a position to make some mistakes? Can Joker use his floater? Can he get some passes in space? I think that helps. I think they're also gonna need to continue to, or run Aaron Gordon in more pick and rolls because they clearly need him on the defensive side of the floor. So they can't really afford to take him off the floor. So how can you use that against him? Spacing for the Lakers from a defensive perspective, offensive perspective, they need to, uh, the Nuggets need to bring, uh, Aaron Gordon into more pick and rolls. We'll see if they do. Ultimately, I got the Lakers coming home. Yeah. Winning Game 3, making this a 2-1 series. And we'll talk about Game 4 when it's time to talk about Game 4 after we check out what happens in Game 3 and we have a better understanding of what's going on there. Uh, Shams reported that the Warriors, that there has been no significant extension talks as of late and the Warriors are bracing and Bob Myers are bracing to, for a separation. I tweeted, that sucks. That does suck because again, as I told you all, Bob is one of the guys that I rode in with, that I've been on this journey with for 11 years. And we've all been plugging away each and every year to try to deliver championships. It's what makes us go. That's what we're all in it for. And so to know that there's a possibility that he may not be, here does not sit well with me. It's frustrating. Number one, most importantly, I've built a friendship, a relationship with Bob Myers that even if he is gone, when I'm gone, both of us no longer here, Steph no longer here, like those days will come once upon a time at some point, 'cause you can't play basketball forever. That relationship will still be like this. Now that is a relationship that I've built that will last for the rest of my life. Someone I confide in, someone I trust. And so to know that like he may not be here, like that sucks, that hurts because I've appreciated going to work with him every day for the last 11 years and the things that he's taught me. I think in life we all need people who hold us accountable and he holds me accountable at a totally different standard. And he don't hold me accountable like, oh, I'm the general manager of the team. Like, that's trash. He holds me accountable as a man. He holds me accountable as a leader. He holds me accountable from a friendship standpoint. And I couldn't be more thankful. And I think in life it's so important to have friends that are willing to hold you accountable, that are willing to tell you that your shit stinks. And Bob, If your shit stinks, Bob is one of those guys that he don't know how to lie. Like he'll be like, ah, like he'll come into a conversation like trying to figure out how to like say this to you without just blurbing like the truth in your face. And before you know it, it's just like blah. Like there's the truth for you and you deal with it how you deal with it. But one thing you do is you respect it because he's just going to give you the truth no matter what. And for me in my life, that's so huge. You know, we all get in these positions. Like when we get in the positions that we're in, you run out of people that's that's willing to tell you the truth. Because how may that affect them? Like, it may affect what you're doing for them. It may affect, like, it can affect. And so you start to run out of people that are willing to tell you the truth. And for me in my life, he's been one of those people that I have to, that will tell me the truth in any situation. But yet almost like a parent figure and like, yep, that's the truth. And here's where you fucked up at. Now here's how we're gonna change it. Here's how we fix it. And by the way, I'm in this with you, I'm walking through it with you, and here's, here's our plan, here's what we're doing, here's how you can be better. Not like, oh, you messed that up, you're out of here, get out of my face. Like, no, here's— now that's where you went wrong. Maybe you could have done that this way. Next time you can do that this way. Here's how we get better. And so I'm so appreciative of him. So to see that news It's not any news that like I didn't know, you know, like I knew that that's a possibility. He doesn't, he has not signed a contract extension and his contract is up in 2 weeks. So I know that's a possibility or a month or whatever it is. I know it's a possibility. Like I've known that all year, but it's like if someone has, an illness, if they didn't go on and not survive, it doesn't make the blow less because you knew they had an illness. Like, you're still hurt that you no longer had that person. So just because I've known this doesn't make the blow less if that was to happen. And then you start seeing that, like, come out, like, it doesn't make it less of a blow. Because you may lose one of your guys that's been in it with you. The ups, the downs. It's been in it. So that sucks. And quite frankly, I hope something is worked out and Bob is back next year. I also hope I'm back next year. But that's a whole nother story for another day. Till next time, that's a wrap from this episode of the Draymond Green Show. Peace. Peace. What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward.