Jokic has been solid, Malone has been creative, and the rest of the players on the roster know their role. The Nuggets defense deserves a hell of a lot more credit than it gets. The switching worked because Jokic, staying close to the rim as a helper, would scram onto the rolling DeAndre Ayton and free his teammate from a physical mismatch: Go back to Game 2 of the Suns series and you’ll see Nuggets coach Michael Malone try this late, putting Jokic on Josh Okogie. If Denver wants to avoid rotation altogether, they can go with a seldom-used strategy that worked in small doses during the Phoenix Suns series: let Aaron Gordon guard Anthony Davis and put Jokic off-ball, likely onto one of Jarred Vanderbilt or Rui Hachimura. The Nuggets have a ton of smart, experienced rotation defenders on their roster and cover-up ball movement designed to capitalize on the tagging that goes into taking away the Davis’ roll. The Nuggets have been playing Nikola Jokic higher against ball screens, letting him come out with soft shows before recovering to the paint. Davis, however, needs a little more planning to get the ball in space, and Darvin Ham has frequently utilized ball screens to best capture AD’s athleticism. LeBron is strong, smart, and versatile enough to get his in different ways. The Lakers’ offense really revolves around their two star players in LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Denver Nuggets: Put Aaron Gordon on Anthony Davis Both teams have aces up their sleeves to utilize and can do a fair amount of cross-matching in the frontcourt, making this an incredibly fun series for X’s and O’s nerds like myself. Despite being league-average throughout the regular season, the team has been buoyed by Nikola Jokic and his semi-aggressive ball screen defense. This Nuggets team is no slouch on defense, either. Surrounding LeBron James and Anthony Davis are more specialty shooters, other big wings with varying impacts, and a coach who has learned how to unlock all their superpowers on the fly. Since their battles during the 2022-23 season, the Lakers have completely revamped this roster into the juggernaut that has them in the Western Conference Finals. Throw out the regular season matchups between the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers. That should make for some fantastic tactics and tricks, especially aimed at taking away the incredible star power that every team boasts. The final four teams standing all have a good amount of versatility on offense and defense they can win a game in a variety of ways. The postseason is like a giant game of chess, with tactical strategies being levied both ways throughout the course of a best-of-seven war. They say that a playoff series doesn’t begin until the first adjustment is made.
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