Tuesday, April 29, 2008

BREAKING DOWN ROUND 1

MAN, What a series for the lake show. We know that the Nuggets seemed to self implode really from game one of the series, but lets just see how and why it happened.

1. LAKER DEFENSE
The Lakers played great half-court defense throughout the series, stifling Denver's 1 on 1 attack by funneling Iverson and Anthony into the bigs, or by forcing them to take outside shots after dribbling the ball for an eternity. The fact is, the Nuggets just weren't sharing the ball and as a result became one dimensional. How can you expect guys like Carter, Camby, and Martin to be effective if they're never seeing the ball? The frustration of not being able to easily score against the Lakers in the halfcourt really took its toll on AI and Carmelo, and caused them to lose their cool.

2. LAKER OFFENSE
As they say everywhere across the globe, the best defense is a good offense. This was very noticeable in this series, as Denver played terrible one on one oriented offense while the Lakers picked apart the nugget "defense"- and they're lucky if it can be called that- with unbelievable passing and unselfish team play. The adage also rings true in a different sense. Everybody knows that the Nuggets love to score in transition, whether its a fast break, or a quick change of possession that leads to mismatches for deadly scorers like AI and Carmelo. The best way to defend against a team who loves to score off transition baskets, is to take and make good shots near the basket that don't create long rebound advantages for the opposition. Also, the Lakers didn't concern themselves with attacking the offensive glass, instead opting to run back and make sure Denver had no easy transition opportunities. The Lakers stuck to this game plan for the most part and that's why they were successful in their sweep.

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