I have witnessed some awful Lakers playoff losses in the past. The 31 point beating in Game 7 to the Suns in 2006 and the 24 point collapse to the Celtics in Game 4 in 2008 were spectacular displays of basketball ineptitude. Thursday night's horror show wasn't much different. Denver Nuggets played like a team with a mission and rolled the Lakers, 113-96, to tie the series and force a Game 7 at Staples on Saturday.
Essentially, the game was over in the starting minutes. The Nuggets opened a 13-0 lead that they would never give up. The Lakers, lead by seemingly the only effective player in Kobe Bryant, got them as close as four points but Denver went on another run in the 3rd quarter and the rout was on. As pathetic and listless as their performance in Game 5 was in Game 6 they surpassed that level of mediocrity.
Except for Kobe's performance (31pts., 13-23), despite battling intestinal flu that required him to have a total of four IV bags of fluid, no one else stepped up to support his effort and keep the game close. The most glaring was pitiful effort of the frontcourt. Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum provided little defense on the interior and contributed even less on offense. Gasol (3 pts., 1-10, 3 rebounds) invoked memories of his 2008 performance against the Celtics in playing soft around the basket neither boxing out or posting up with any confidence. Bynum (11 pts., 4-11, 16 rebounds), after being dominated by Nugget reserve JaVale McGee in Game 5, was able to rebound (many of his own missed shots) but helpless keeping slashing Nuggets out of the paint or denying Kenneth Faried a rebound. No sense of urgency or intensity by the bigs. In a possible close-out playoff game?!
The rest of the team had little to offer. Ramon Sessions was the second leading scorer on the team with 14 points but could not defend Ty Lawson, who had a career playoff high 32 points, or Andre Miller. Devin Ebanks (10 pts., 4-9), starter in name only, played limited minutes. No bench player reached double figures. Matt Barnes didn't look completely healthy and was a non-factor.
The conspiracy theorist inside would like to believe that the Lakers tanked another game to give Metta World Peace, returning from a seven game suspension, a tune-up game against the Nuggets before moving on to face the Oklahoma City Thunder. I'd like to believe that but I can't deny my eyes. Lakers were flat and unmotivated.
Denver deserves a ton of credit. While the Lakers seemed content to surrender the perimeter the Nuggets executed and made their wide-open jumpers. Lawson dropped 5 of 6 from behind the arc and the team as a whole shot 51%. They were relentless and able to run their style of basketball with little to no resistance from the Lakers.
So now Game 7 is looming for Saturday night at Staples Center with a rested Metta back in the starting line-up. Kobe for one can't wait to have him back.
"He's the one guy I can rely on, night in and night out, to compete and play with a sense of urgency, with no fear," Bryant said. "I'm looking forward to having that by my side again."
Let's hope Gasol and Bynum decide to join in that sense of urgency to avoid a repeat of that 2006 series with the Phoenix Suns where they had a similar 3-1 series lead that they eventually gave up and lost.
Comments
Post a Comment