| 25 May 2009
Denver Nuggets 120, Los Angeles Lakers 101
There are two areas that will guarantee a Nuggets' victory in just about any game: 1. Denver's bench outplays the Lakers' bench and 2. The Nuggets' front line rebound and score on second chances. Those two things happened in this game, and the Nuggets not only won but by a very wide margin.
The Denver bench was superb tonight. They were lead by J.R. Smith's 24 points and hot shooting from deep. Smith had been atrocious throughout the first three games against the Lakers, but he broke out of his funk tonight when the Nuggets needed it most. He picked up the scoring load with Carmelo Anthony having an off night (15 points on 3-16 from the field). Smith was making plays on defense, getting into the open court, finishing around the rim and hitting from deep. He even exhibited some of his playmaking ability with a number of fancy passes that led to very easy baskets from Nene, Chris Andersen and Kenyon Martin. But Smith was the only bench player that had it going tonight; he was joined by Linas Kleiza's 10 points in just 13 minutes and Chris Andersen having a Birdman-like game.
Andersen was a rebounding/shot changing machine. He finished with 14 rebounds (4 offensive), two blocked shots (along with many changed shots) and a few spectacular dunks. No team or fan base gets excited or inspired so much by a player as the Nuggets and their fans do by Andersen. The Pepsi Center crowd wants to see him make plays because they love cheering for him. His teammates seem to put forth even more effort when he is throwing down dunks, skying for rebounds and swatting wildly at shots. He's a guy that makes watching basketball fun.
Andersen wasn't the only big man who had a night. Kenyon Martin had arguably unquestionably his best game scoring 13 points on 5-11 from the field to go along with 15 boards and two blocks. He bounced back in a big way after his game three no-show and made his presence felt on both ends of the floor. Nene meanwhile is quietly putting together an incredibly well-rounded series against the Lakers. He has scored double-digit points in three of the four games without having to take more than 9 shots in any contest. He had 13 rebounds tonight grabbing 7 on the offensive end. For the second game of the series, Nene showed off his playmaking ability by throwing in 6 assists. His quickness has also given Andrew Bynum fits and gotten the opposing big men into early foul trouble throughout this series.
There were a lot of fouls called in this game which gave it a very herky jerky feel. Maybe the game seemed out of hand according to the referees involved because they had an itchy trigger finger when it came to technical fouls. Anthony, Martin, Smith and Luke Walton were all called for techs, but none of those (along with a flagrant foul called on Bynum) felt all that necessary. I'm not going to get into a whole discussion about how terrible the refs are because it's all been said before, but I will say that more often than not their involvement just slows the whole proceedings and makes the product harder to watch. Both these teams are much more fun to watch when there is a flow to the game, and it's a shame that the officials can rob that from us. Wow, this soapbox makes me feel so much taller. I can see Michael Redd's bald spot from up here.
Why the Nuggets Won This Game
The Nuggets normally use a barrage of points and timely defense to blowout their opponent in the second or third quarter and hold their big lead for the remainder of the game. This game wasn't that type of win for the Nuggets. Denver didn't destroy the Lakers over a twelve-minute stretch in the first three quarters, yet they still held an eleven point lead heading into the fourth. This game was their "Stairway to Heaven." Their lead was slowly building throughout the game. They showed their greatness throughout putting together a near-perfect performance across the board. Smith played the role of John Bonham with his back-to-back threes like crashing cymbals to close out the final crescendo.
Why the Lakers Lost This Game
The Lakers' supporting cast played about as poorly as a group of eight guys can play. Kobe Bryant (almost went a whole Lakers recap without mentioning him) put together a pretty good game, but he was almost forced to shoot too much with how bad Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza, Derek Fisher and the Lakers' bench played. Bryant having double-digit three-point attempts could mean he is on fire from deep, the defense isn't allowing him to get to the lane, or he feels the need to take ill-advised shots to make up for the rest of his team. This was a combination of the last two. Odom, Ariza and Fisher combined for 13 points on 4 of 19 shooting which only puts more pressure on the rest of the team (read: Kobe) to cover their lack of production. The Lakers can't win with three of their top six basically taking the night off.
Heading into Game 5
The Nuggets have turned this into a best of three, but they'll need to win game five to have a realistic shot at winning the series. They have the momentum after an absolutely dominating performance tonight. The Lakers don't react too kindly when they get beat as badly as they did in game four. They followed up double-digit losses to the Rockets in the previous round with blowout wins in each of the next games. Los Angeles will need a better showing from their role players and will need to stop the Nuggets from repeatedly getting into the key.
Prediction: Lakers win convincingly
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