Recent Play Details

Dating back to 2002 in the Finals or Conference Finals, game 2 home favs of less than 6 are 5-11 (31.2%) SU / 2-14 (87.5%) ATS.  IF they were the better team & expected to win, the spread would go up and that’s when they continue to dominate.

The Lakers started game 1 like a feel out game going small with 3 guards and that turned out to be a disaster vs the length of Denver.  The Nuggets out rebounded LA like crazy in the 1Q.  In addition to that, DEN only scored 2 fast break points after the 1H and that shows that the Lakers Defense (best in the playoffs) can play a lot better than they showed to start game 1.  They made an in game adjustment of putting Rui on Joker and AD on Gordon so he can float on D and help protect the rim.  That tremendously improved the team defense/helped LA get back into the game and I’d expect them to go back to that especially seeing Joker not score the entire 2H as well as D’Lo being benched in the 2H.  They also started playing bigger lineups in general (Vando guarding Murray) and had success there as well.  I feel like they’ve figured out how to have success vs DEN and coach Ham stated that they didn’t wanna show too many adjustments too early in the series and that they have more.  Game 2 La will be adjusted to Altitude and give that effort we saw in the 2nd half from tip off.  They have to choose to make Jokic a scorer or a passer… they cannot let him do both and in my opinion you take away everybody else.  The Lakers started hunting Murray to help get him in foul trouble/make him work on defense and I’d expect more of that because they had success and tired his legs.  On top of that, Jokic is a terrible pick and roll defender so I’d expect both Murray and Joker in a lot of P&R actions.  The Lakers played a terrible game 1 and only lost by 7.  They are more than capable of winning game 2 outright, but we’ll play it safe and take the points.