The Lakers are about to find out how far they can go with James and Davis. Lakers guard Austin Reaves said, “Who knows where we’d be without them.” “I know it's going to be a tough hill to climb up, but we still have an opportunity to play good basketball and play the best basketball of the series in Game 3.”Įven with James and Davis not having great games, they didn’t leave discouraged. So that's the confidence that we should have. So until a team beats you four times then you always have an opportunity to come out of it. “We have an opportunity to go home and play great basketball and hold serve. “What you take out of it is the fact that this is not the NCAA tournament, it's the first team to four wins,” James said. They don’t think they’re that far from a victory. The Lakers lost the two games in Denver by a combined 11 points. "If you're not tired in the postseason, I mean, everybody's tired," he said. James, 38, claimed fatigue wasn’t a factor. In general terms, he's going to make you work, he's going to make you go in your bag of tricks to try to slow him down." "You got to change coverages, and I won't get into any details about what we plan to do going forward, but that's just the way it is. “Joker is one of those guys, you got to change matchups,” Ham said. The Lakers have defended Jokic with multiple players - Davis, James, Rui Hachimura - and that’s coach Darvin Ham’s plan. The 6-11, 284-pound Serbian is the kind who scores, passes, rebounds and is averaging a triple-double through 13 playoff games. He’s a bear, and not just your average bear. Their offense is tremendous, their defense improved and two-time MVP Jokic is dominating in the playoffs. 1 seed in the West and have been since December. Their opponent isn’t Memphis or Golden State. They don’t need anyone to tell them that’s not good enough in the conference finals. His overall statline looked fine, but it didn't provide the game-altering impact. “So, I'll be better.”ĭavis was 3-for-9 shooting in the second half, and James is 0-for-10 on 3-pointers in the series. “I'm going to continue to shoot those shots and I got to be better, more efficient, help the team win,” Davis said. He had 40 points in Game 1 and followed it with a poor offensive game, a trend that has become noticeable in the playoffs. ![]() They might be able to get away with James going for 22 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds, but they can’t win with Anthony Davis scoring 18 points on 4-for-15 shooting with four turnovers along with 14 rebounds, four assists and four steals. LEBRON JAMES: Youngest son leaving Sierra Canyon, per reportīut the Lakers aren’t going to win many games at this stage with James and Anthony Davis scoring a combined 40 points on 13-for-34 shooting. He made shots, and sometimes it's a make-or-miss league."ĬONTENTIOUS CALL: Did Lakers D'Angelo Russell commit flagrant foul? ![]() ![]() "Hate to be on the other side of it, but I don't feel like we had many breakdowns when he was doing what he was doing. "It's no surprise to anybody, he's done it before," James said. But that didn’t stop Nikola Jokic from getting a 23-point, 17-rebound, 12-assist triple-double or Jamal Murray from a game-high 37 points, including 27 in the second half and 23 in the fourth quarter on 6-for-7 shooting. James complimented the Lakers’ defense, which held Denver’s potent offense to 43.8% shooting. "We improved from Game 1 to Game 2,” James said, "and if we can do the same thing from Game 2 to Game 3, we put ourselves in a position to win.” Do the Lakers have enough to overcome a 2-0 deficit?įortunes change quickly in a seven-game series, and James knows that as well as anyone. But they were emblematic of a larger concern. Those missed shots didn’t decide the outcome of Denver’s 108-103 victory over the Lakers in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals Thursday. Watch Video: Can Nuggets handle bright lights of facing Lakers in conference finals?ĭENVER - The images of LeBron James losing the basketball as he went up for a breakaway reverse dunk, of getting a point-blank shot stuffed by the rim and missing another layup late in the fourth quarter will haunt the Los Angeles Lakers until the next game.
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