Monday night featured two of the most exciting games of the NBA playoffs thus far, one of which concluded with an unbelievably crushing loss for the Los Angeles Lakers. After leading by as many as 20 points, LA once again crumbled down the stretch and allowed the defending champions back in the game.
What would have been a series-changing win for the Lakers quickly deteriorated and the Nuggets, rallying behind the energy of their ferocious home crowd, stormed back to take their first lead since the first quarter in the closing minutes of the contest. With just over a minute left and Denver trailing by three, Aaron Gordon made a gutsy save that led to a game-tying Michael Porter Jr. three ball.
The Nuggets' clutch time offense was electric once again, and the Lakers were simply a deer in the headlights. Denver's comeback was capped off, unsurprisingly, by a clutch step-back jumper from Jamal Murray at the buzzer. After struggling for much of the game and shooting just 9-for-24, Murray once again came through in the heat of the moment to put LA away.
The loss dropped the Lakers into an 0-2 series hole, and put them in an incredibly challenging position heading back to Los Angeles. Teams to own homecourt advantage and go up 2-0 hold an 89-5 series record in the first round all-time.
Anthony Davis: "We have stretches where we don't know what we're doing on both ends of the floor ... Just got to get it right on Thursday [in Game 3]."
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) April 23, 2024
Anthony Davis gave shockingly honest criticism of Lakers' coaching
After the loss, Anthony Davis spoke with the media, where he did not hold back his true feelings about how things went for his squad. He told ESPN NBA reporter Dave McMenamin "We have stretches where we don't know what we're doing on both ends of the floor ... Just got to get it right on Thursday ."
In this moment, most of the time players are careful to conceal their feelings of a coaching or personnel failure for multiple reasons. For one, they do not want to go placing the blame on others or pointing fingers when they know the optics around doing that are questionable at best. But guys also usually consider making an admission like AD's to be a sign of weakness in some way.
If you are in the midst of battle with a high-level team like the Denver Nuggets, you do not want to be putting it out there that your team does not have it all together or that things are more difficult than they may appear to an outsider. Now, you may be allowing your opponent to gain an even greater mental edge over you.
Now, Davis' words are certainly an indictment on the Lakers' preparedness, and much of that does fall on the coaching staff. Certainly, plenty of fans agree with that notion, given the replies to McMenamin's tweet. But AD making a statement like this is still extremely troubling, especially given the fact that there is a very miniscule chance they can clean up this big of a problem in just three days.