3 Takeaways From Lakers' Game 1 WCF Loss To Nuggets

What can we learn from an opening defeat?

Last night in Denver, your Los Angeles Lakers looked to be well on their way to an epic blowout defeat at the hands of the top-seeded Nuggets, trailing by as much as 21 points midway through the third quarter of the Western Conference Finals opener. 

Then, LA showed signs of life late with some tactical adjustments, and suddenly rallied the rest of the way to make the game fairly competitive late. At its closest, the contest was just a three-point Denver margin, before the Nuggets strung together enough offense and Los Angeles laid enough eggs for the matchup to conclude with a narrow Denver win, 132-126.

Here are three takeaways from a surprisingly close Game 1:

3. There isn't really any stopping Nikola Jokic. There's just learning to live with Nikola Jokic.

In 42:26, the All-NBA Nuggets center poured in 34 points while shooting 12-of-17 from the field (3-of-3 from deep) and 7-of-8 from the foul line, grabbed a whopping 21 boards, dished out five dimes, and blocked two shots. LA tried to do its darnedest to stifle him, with both Anthony Davis and Rui Hachimura draped all over him (which we'll talk about a bit more in a second), but he was still making circus shots. That's just something Los Angeles will need to live with as the series trudges on. 

2. A power forward needs to guard Nikola Jokic for the rest of this series.

After kicking things off with 6'10" starting center Anthony Davis defending Jokic, Darvin Ham made a second half adjustment, shifting reserve 6'8" power forward Rui Hachimura onto the 6'11", 284-pound Big Honey. Per ESPN, the matchup was weirdly successful. Across six plays with Hachimura as his primary defender, Jokic scored just 0.67 points per play, while shooting 0-of-2 from the floor and turning the ball over twice. On 15 plays, Davis allowed Jokic to score 1.53 points per, on 10-of-13 field goal shooting, while the big man turned the ball over twice. Jarred Vanderbilt, typically a better defender who's far more limited on offense than Hachimura, could also be an option here.

1. Darvin Ham overthought his gimmicky starting lineup decision.

Ham made a tactical change in what wound up being a 122-101 closeout Game 6 win over the Golden State Warriors, during the second round of the playoffs. LA's head coach promoted guard Dennis Schroder into his starting five and sent power forward Jarred Vanderbilt to the bench to counteract the Warriors' own three-guard lineup, which featured Stephen Curry, Gary Payton II and Klay Thompson flanking a small-ish frontcourt of Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green. It was a resounding success in that matchup, but the Nuggets are an entirely different, and much bigger, beast. Denver gobbled up rebounds, enjoying a 47-30 advantage over the Lakers on the night. It's time for Ham to either bring Vanderbilt back into his first five (which had been his starting lineup for the first 11 games of the playoffs), or to move Hachimura into his starting lineup.

It was a fairly encouraging defeat for LA, all told. The Lakers just need to steal one game on the road in this series and defend their own homecourt. Game 2 tips off tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m. PT, on ESPN.

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