FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

Close again, but still not enough

Unlike previous games against the league’s best teams, where the Lakers often looked uncompetitive for most of the night, this time it lasted only about five minutes at the start. They fought well for the rest of the game and even made a late push, but still fell 120–113 to the Denver Nuggets.

At this stage of the season, when the Lakers need to make a push in the standings, there are no moral victories. But a positive takeaway from this game is that the Lakers made several comeback runs and looked competitive against a very good team.

At the end of the day, results matter most, and the Lakers dropped a game and a half behind Denver in the standings.

Today’s notes:

A relaxed start put the Lakers in catch-up mode all night

Dončić vs Jokić: perpetual chess in 4-on-3 basketball (VIDEO)

Shotmaking not at the level needed to outscore the NBA’s best offense (VIDEO)

Scrappy effort rattles Jokić into an uncharacteristic high-turnover game (VIDEO)

Lakers’ free-throw rate continues to decline

1-A relaxed start put the Lakers in catch-up mode all night

The Lakers opened this game like it was still warmups, and Jamal Murray jumped on them early. Austin Reaves was late on a switch on the first ATO play and fouled Murray on a three-point attempt. Marcus Smart and Deandre Ayton repeated the same mistake a couple of possessions later, and Murray swished a wing three.

Ayton then missed a bunny in the paint, followed by Dončić and Ayton being out of sync on a pass on the roll. Murray capped the stretch by hitting another contested three over Dončić.

Timeout, JJ Redick. Nuggets 11, Lakers 0.

Ayton and Dončić had another mishap on a lob pass, followed by a couple of bad defensive possessions.

Another timeout. Denver led 16–3.

Ayton then left the game with a knee injury, Jaxson Hayes entered for him, and the Lakers finally started playing. Without Ayton, and with Maxi Kleber missing his second consecutive game, the Lakers battled hard for the rest of the night, playing a lot of small ball while trying to catch up against Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets.

Source: NBA official website

They got as close as one point with two minutes left, but that early 13-point hole significantly reduced their margin for error. The Lakers needed a high-level scoring game, but only produced an OK one, which wasn’t enough despite all the effort.

2-Dončić vs Jokić: perpetual chess in 4-on-3 basketball (VIDEO)

When the two best advantage creators in the game, Dončić and Jokić, go head-to-head, games often come down to which team executes better in 4-on-3 situations. The Lakers doubled Jokić all night, and the Nuggets, after trying a couple of possessions against Dončić in drop coverage, quickly reverted to hedging and blitzing for most of the game.

The Lakers scrambled around Jokić, often leaving the corner three open, which resulted in 14 Nuggets corner-three attempts, many of them wide-open looks. On the other end, Dončić and Reaves attacked Jokić all night, with the Nuggets trying to protect him by showing two defenders and leaving the role players open.

As a result, players like Hayes, Smart, Rui Hachimura, and Jake LaRavia ended up with higher-usage games. Hayes, who did a great job attacking the rim with Jokić scrambling away from the basket, was particularly effective, scoring a season-high 19 points.

3-Shotmaking not at the level needed to outscore the NBA’s best offense (VIDEO)

In my first point, I mentioned that the early hole meant the Lakers needed a high-level shotmaking game to overcome the Nuggets. Dončić, James, Reaves, Hayes, Smart, and Hachimura made several good plays against Denver’s scrambling defense and mustered several runs.

Overall, the Lakers had a good shooting night, making 43 percent of their threes, but the Nuggets topped that by shooting 45 percent and grabbing a couple of key offensive rebounds against the undersized Lakers.

But the Lakers also missed several layups. Jake LaRavia missed all three of his open three-point looks, even airballing the last one badly. Dončić missed a couple of important shots in the fourth quarter, and Smart missed two key consecutive threes with less than two minutes remaining. Maybe James attacking the rim against a scrambling defense would have been a better option than going with Smart’s outside shot. But Smart has made several big threes for the Lakers this season.

In the end, there were just too many missed opportunities against an offense that won’t give you many.

4-Scrappy effort rattles Jokić into an uncharacteristic high-turnover game (VIDEO)

Before the game, I made a deep dive into how ball control and limiting turnovers are the key elements preventing the Lakers’ good offense from catching the Nuggets’ elite one at the top of the NBA. Of course, the Lakers went out and proved me wrong by having one of their lowest-turnover games of the season while pressuring Jokić into matching his season high with nine turnovers.

If there is one positive takeaway from this game, it is that the Lakers played with the right amount of physicality and force on defense for the second consecutive game. After making a stand against Zion Williamson in the prior game, they made several big plays against Jokić and others.

Even more encouraging is the fact that the three main stars, Dončić, Reaves, and James, were leading the charge. Reaves had three steals and drew a charge, Dončić had four steals, and James added three steals and a block.

5-Lakers’ free-throw rate continues to decline

I mentioned the Nuggets’ slight edge in shooting, but in the end the decisive gap came at the free-throw line. The Lakers were playing small, scrambling, and aggressively, so the foul discrepancy was somewhat understandable. The Nuggets more than doubled the Lakers’ 15 free-throw attempts, getting to the line 31 times.

Source: Cleaning the Glass

However, there were again several situations on Dončić’s and others’ drives that were called fouls earlier in the season but were not called here, which frustrated the Lakers as officials let play continue, something noted during the game by the Lakers’ analysts.

Source: Raj C. post on X

I wrote about the NBA’s league-wide declining foul rate in early January and have mentioned it in several game observations since. The Lakers are probably one of the teams most affected by this change. There is a clear decline in their free-throw rate for a team that led the NBA in that category for most of the season but has now dropped to third place.

Dončić and Reaves have both seen a significant drop in their free-throw attempts:
Dončić: 11.8 FTA per game (Oct–Dec) → 8.9 FTA (Jan–Mar)
Reaves: 8.6 FTA per game (Oct–Dec) → 5.5 FTA (Jan–Mar)

Source: Cleaning the Glass

The trend has been clear for a while now, and the Lakers have had plenty of time to adjust. They also benefited from the same “more contact allowed” whistle in recent games against Zion and again tonight while defending Jokić. But the bigger issue, as I wrote back in January, is players once again having to adjust to a different whistle in the middle of the season. We saw the same thing happen during the 2023–24 season.