Lakers: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s overlooked impact in Game 1

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope played a big role in the Los Angeles Lakers winning Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

The Los Angeles Lakers are three wins away from being NBA Champions after routing the Miami Heat, 116-98, in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. The main story coming out of this game is the fantastic play of Anthony Davis and LeBron James as well as the injuries to Goran Dragic, Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler.

One massively overlooked aspect of this game was the contributions that Kentavious Caldwell-Pope made. On paper, you can look at the game that KCP played and think that he was decent — contributing what he normally contributes.

He went 3/10 from the floor, 2/6 from three and 5/5 from the free-throw line. He scored 13 points and played solid defense with two steals and a block.

However, it was when KCP made his points that were so big for the Los Angeles Lakers. Without KCP, the Lakers may not have won this game. I’m serious.

The Lakers were down 25-12 early in the first quarter and that is when KCP went to work. He scored eight points in under a minute and a half for the Los Angeles Lakers, making two three-point shots and both of his attempts from the charity stripe. By the time he was done, the score was 28-22.

Yes, there was a lot of basketball left to play and yes, the Lakers were far better than the Heat for the rest of this game. However, without that short moment, who knows what happens? What if the Heat go down and drain eight points of their own and KCP misses his threes and makes one of his free throws?

This game could have been 33-15. That moment from KCP caused a spark for the Lakers. While they absolutely could have still won the game without this moment, it is undeniable that this moment had a much bigger impact on the game than given credit for.

We discuss this and more on the latest episode of the Lake Show Life Podcast.

I discussed KCP’s impact at length in the latest episode of the Lake Show Life Podcast, which posted today and broke down Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

Other segments discussed include the update (and changing) of our purple and gold role players of the series, our betting results for Game 1 and picks for Game 2 as well as the discussion of whether or not the Miami Heat deserve the done chain.

Is it too soon to give the Heat the done chain? The Lakers looked significantly better than the Heat and we did predict Lakers in five. Find out whether we award them the done chain in the episode.

Do you think the Heat deserve the done chain? Let us know in the comments of this article of by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts!