The Los Angeles Lakers suffered a 114-103 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 of their first-round series on Saturday night. It was the Lakers' ninth straight defeat at the hands of the Nuggets and their head coach Darvin Ham says they can't expect their opponents to beat themselves.
"S***, I mean it’s tough. A championship team is not going to beat themselves too often," Ham said. "They may start off a little slow, miss some shots here (and) there, turn the ball over every now and again, but you can't beat yourself. We got to step up."
(starts at 0:20 mark):
The Lakers should have learned the lesson by now that the Nuggets are not going to beat themselves. They are just a well-oiled machine that executes to perfection down the stretch and that is what happened in this game as well.
The Nuggets started off slow here and were down by as many as 12 points in the first half. There was no sense of panic, however, and by the end of the third quarter, Denver was up 89-78.
The Nuggets went up by as many as 15 points in the fourth quarter, but the Lakers managed to cut the deficit down to seven with just over five minutes remaining. From then on, however, the Nuggets executed better to keep the Lakers at arm's length and won.
If you feel like you've seen this story before, well it's because basically all of the meetings between these sides over the last year have followed the same script. At this point, there is no reason to believe that things will change in the next week or so.
The Lakers could end this losing streak against the Nuggets in this series, but their postseason will end in this round. You do wonder what the future would hold for Ham if they do lose as I expect. He has come under fire all season and an early exit might well lead to him losing his job.
Darvin Ham Reveals The Lakers Have Some Adjustments To Throw At The Nuggets
Ham revealed during his postgame press conference that the Lakers did not play all their cards in Game 1. (starts at the 7:44 mark in the above video):
"Adjustment-wise, we do have a couple more things that we can throw at them, so we're comfortable where we at," Ham said. "Hate (that) we lost. You want to try to start the series off in a good way."
I do wonder what new adjustments the Lakers can throw at the Nuggets at this point. They seem to have tried all different kinds of things in these nine meetings but the end result has always been the same.
One of the big issues for the Lakers in Game 1 as per Ham was the offensive rebounds they gave up. The Nuggets had 15 of them and they resulted in 18 second-chance points.
Ham stressed that the Lakers have to grab those rebounds, but that's easier said than done considering the Nuggets just have a huge frontcourt with Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon, and Michael Porter Jr. Giving Jaxson Hayes extended minutes certainly isn't the solution, so it would be interesting to see if Ham can find another way to solve that problem.
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