It would be an understatement to say reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets have had the Los Angeles Lakers’ number in recent years. Entering a primetime matchup in Denver on Saturday night, the Nuggets had run off a 14-1 stretch against the Lakers (including two straight decisive playoff series wins).
However, none of those games involved Luka Doncic, who is still in the early stages of his tenure with the Lakers. In essence, Saturday against their biggest tormentor presented the Lakers with two golden opportunities — a chance to validate their new-look roster with Doncic, as well as a chance to see how they might fare with Denver when preparing for the matchup like a playoff game.
As it turns out, the Lakers passed their first major test of the Doncic era with a convincing 123-100 road win.
According to head coach JJ Redick, the Lakers won in large part because the team was willing to sell out and then some for the game. Los Angeles prepared for this regular-season tilt in late February as if it were actually a playoff environment.
It all started with Redick all but forgoing sleep entirely after a late Thursday win in Portland to craft a specific and detailed game plan for the Nuggets:
Yeah, the Lakers wanted this one bad:
"I thought our guys conviction to execute a game plan and stick to a game plan was excellent," JJ Redick says. Redick said he basically hasn't slept since the Lakers walked off the court in Portland. Said LAL played harder than he envisioned.
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) February 23, 2025
The defensive strategy Redick instituted for Los Angeles was particularly notable because it’s not something Denver necessarily sees every night in the context of a long 82-game campaign. They’re much more accustomed to seeing it in best-of-seven contexts, and they’ve seldom seen it from the Lakers, even when they might have tried before.
The Lakers, in effect, blitzed Jokic with two or three defenders on almost every offensive possession. Most of the time, with Jokic on the floor, all four non-Jokic defenders usually kept at least one foot in the paint, with everyone ready to collapse the defense on the best NBA player in the world without hesitation. Perhaps more importantly, the Lakers’ off-ball defenders were more willing to gamble and take risks in the tight passing lanes, taking away much of Denver’s bread and butter in the restricted area, leading to 20 turnovers for the Nuggets.
It was devastatingly effective.
This made bog-standard entry passes for the other Nuggets virtually impossible and turned Jokic into even more of a willing playmaker than usual (he had just seven shot attempts). Unfortunately for Denver, its other role players simply could not make their open shots.
It’s worth noting the Nuggets never earnestly adjusted from anything non-vanilla on offense. Whether or not you think it’s right or wrong, that’s not their style to show their potential playoff hand. Through a decade with Jokic, Denver has seen every coverage for its talisman center. While impressive, none of what the Lakers schematically did was unprecedented for the Nuggets, who, most of the time, choose to hold back from a schematic standpoint when it’s not the postseason. But that doesn’t excuse Denver’s casual effort.
When the Lakers matched their playoff-like game plan with a prerequisite intensity, the rest was history.
It’s just a one-game sample size, but it seems clear the dynamics of the Nuggets-Lakers rivalry have shifted. That much is apparent with the addition of an elite creator like Doncic and a coach like Redick willing to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s in preparation. And even if the tide hasn’t completely shifted in the Lakers’ favor, it’s evident the Nuggets will need to take their purple-and-gold counterparts much, much more seriously moving forward.
The Nuggets’ next counterpunch on L.A. is worth monitoring for what might soon transform into the NBA’s premier rivalry.
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