Lakers-Nuggets, Game Three: Los Angeles Wins Mirror Match

The parallels between Los Angeles’ 103-97 victory in Game Three of the Western Conference Finals and the shape of the first two games of the series are so similar, one must think that the team’s are following a premeditated script.

Consider:

• In each of the three games, the winning team has played completely lackadaisical, uninspired basketball over the initial 18 minutes of each contest.
• In this case, the Lakers’ bigs time and again lollygagged in transition, allowing the Nuggets to feast on 19 fast break points.
• Kobe Bryant completely disintegrated the triangle in the second quarter to call his own number. A few easy layups (mostly generated by Denver’s own sloth in transition) were balanced out by a number of forced, missed jumpers.
• The Lakers' interior rotations were deplorable until the final quarter. Worse, their habit of loading up the strong side zone to stop Carmelo Anthony was picked apart by a complete lack of communication. When top-side cutters would sprint down the lane, the weak-side guard (usually Sasha Vujacic), would neither carry the cutter to a help defender, nor would he even announce the cutter entering open space alerting the weak side help defender to step up. Because of this, Chris Andersen recorded 13 first-half points.
• Like Game One, Denver couldn’t so much as complete a simple inbounds pass late in the game. While Anthony Carter has an excuse for his gaffe (A 6'2" guard should never be asked to inbound the ball due to his lack of height and ability to be shielded from the action by a larger defender), there’s no excuse for Kenyon Martin’s pathetic attempt to get the ball to Carmelo Anthony late in the game.
• Like the first two games, J.R. Smith made a handful of brain-dead decisions that undermined the Nuggets, in this case committing a boneheaded taunting technical after a three to end the third quarter, and later, trying to strip Kobe with a minute left, allowing him to sink a go-ahead three ball with no contest and only a minute remaining.
• Like the initial two games, the winning team’s star player came up huge in the fourth, with Kobe scoring ten points in the game’s final 3:06.
• Like the first two games, the Nuggets couldn’t defend without fouling, committing 31 team fouls total—plus three technicals—with four players recording at least five violations.
• Like the first two games, Andrew Bynum was frequently caught out of his defensive stance, and was tardy in recognizing the flurry of action happening around the basket whenever the ball was zipped from one side of the court to the other.
• Like the opening two games, Trevor Arixa was a revelation, playing above-average positional defense, menacing loose dribbles and errant passes, attacking the rim, and plugging his three balls.
• As in Games One and Two, Chauncey Billups launched all manner of quick shots early in the shot clock, but unlike the first two games, his rush jobs didn’t go in.
• Like the initial two games, Kobe Bryant was routinely beat off the dribble and had trouble navigating through screens. He even committed a dumb foul on a Chauncey Billups three, giving the Nuggets a four-point play.
• And like Game One, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom made quality rotations late in the game to get in position at the basket before Anthony and Billups could use their strength and athleticism to beat the bigs inside.

However, there were some new developments as well. While Derek Fisher struggled again with his shot, his defense on Chauncey Billups was exemplary. With Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar routinely overpowered by Billups’ strength, Fisher remains the only strong body on the Lakers (aside from Kobe) who can deal with Billups’ powerful drives to the basket.

This is why it was curious as to why Phil Jackson assigned Fisher to J.R. Smith late in the fourth quarter. Because Smith has such a profound speed advantage over the leaden-legged Fisher, Smith was able to drive and discard Fisher for a number of pull-up jump shots in crunch time.

It’s shocking as to why fans don’t call Dahntay Jones out for the goon he is. While fans channel all their outrage on players who flop—harmless bodily fibs told to sell a call—Jones gets a free ride for shoving an airborne Bryant from behind with two hands, a dangerous play that can often result in serious injury under many circumstances.

Had Manu Ginobili, for example, committed the foul, no doubt the blogosphere would be ripe with the outrage of fans voicing their outrage at his perceived “dirtiness,” yet Jones gets off by the league, and by the court of public opinion, scot-free.

After a pair of uneven performances, K-Mart was downright dreadful. Aside from his botched inbounds play, he missed a layup, committed a needless off-the-ball foul on Lamar Odom, and bailed Bryant out with a foul after he was trapped in the corner with 20 seconds to go and the Nuggets down two.

That was only in the final 1:46. Martin spent the rest of the game missing open shots, playing defense with his hands and not his feet, and being a genuine non-factor.

Nene too was often guilty of playing defense with his hands and not his feet—a systemic problem of the Nuggets. Because they have so many fundamentally-impatient players, because they play with a commitment of aggression that often borders on recklessness, and because so many of their players have histories of poor basketball IQs, they often are forced to reach, grab, and tug to compensate for being in the wrong place at the right time.

The Nuggets' three-point shooting was dreadful, with Denver only shooting 5-of-27 from the bonus land.

In the end though, the Lakers persevered because they corrected their mistakes in the fourth quarter, and because the Nuggets committed theirs in the game’s final minutes.

However, it would be strongly advised that whichever team plans on winning the series smashes the looking glass into a thousand pieces. With this mirror seducing the two ball clubs into mentally lazy and uninspired play, there’s no shadow of a doubt that the team that breaks the mirror won’t get seven years bad luck, but, on the contrary, will receive the best chance of winning the series in seven games—or fewer.