LeBron James and Anthony Davis gave it their all to keep the Los Angeles Lakers afloat against the Denver Nuggets. They played with such passion and emotion that showed in every well-executed play. The expectation for most of the Purple and Gold faithful is to take it one game at a time and see if they can force a seventh game in this NBA Playoffs series. But, one someone disagrees. Whether it's because he's a key figure of the Boston Celtics or just a realist, Paul Pierce harshly predicted the team from California's fate.
“Good news is Lakers win. Bad news they gotta fly to Denver to end series,” he wrote on X.
Paul Pierce may just be telling his truth here but the future is uncertain. The Lakers have held quite massive leads heading into the clutch before crumbling to the Nuggets. Now, LeBron James and Anthony Davis have figured out how to be better in their schemes without the need for Nikola Jokic or Jamal Murray to pop off such that they get beaten in the final two minutes.
The former Celtics player did not stop there. He even put out that the Lakers are going to go down crashing once the altitude hits and the atmosphere favors the Nuggets.
“Pride game fa The Lakers. This over in 5,” Paul Pierce declared.
All he could be pointing out here is that the Lakers finally got a win over Mike Malone's squad after continuously falling short last season. While they may have the morale-boosting win as of the moment, everything might be fairly superficial once Nikola Jokic plays with a chip on his shoulder.
There are a lot of ways for the Lakers to prove their former adversary wrong. They can continually play and execute well in forcing the former MVP to defend the elbow or perimeter more. But, only time will tell if this prediction does hold true.
Glimpses of hope for the Lakers
Being down three games to one is surely not any team's ideal situation in the NBA Playoffs. But, this Lebron James and Anthony Davis-led Lakers squad is starting to look different. They have the personnel to gun for the rim a lot or play delay action to get baskets. Their defensive coverage schemes also match fairly well with the Nuggets. This is why it is very easy for them to get into early runs and take the lead.
But, the main issue is how they salvage broken zones and plays. They often just lose momentum after just one bad set and that snowballs into big issues for the Lakers. It is also a reason why the Nuggets keep coming back despite being down by at most 20 points.
They have now found the effective plays to exploit Jokic in drop coverage and disallow Aaron Gordon's backcuts from working on offense. All this squad needs is to find the consistency to play these matchups well. As cheesy as it may sound, the fourth game of this NBA Playoffs series played out differently because everybody did not look dejected or complacent. That's all they need if they want to prove Pierce wrong.
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