The Los Angeles Lakers gave the Denver Nuggets their best punch, or close to it, in the first half of Game 1.
LeBron James had a sensational first quarter and put up 12 points to give his squad a 10-point lead. The Nuggets hit the offensive glass relentlessly in the second quarter to close the gap, but still, the Lakers finished the first half with a 60-57 lead. It would take another 24 minutes of focused and crisp basketball, but Los Angeles was on the right track. Perhaps Saturday would finally be the day. Could the Lakers grab their first victory over the Nuggets since December of 2022?
The answer was, resoundingly, no. Denver had other plans. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had other plans. And those plans were a double-digit defeat.
Denver entered the halftime break in need of a spark. Some spirited discussions in the locker room may have fueled their resurgence, but the biggest thing that changed for the Nuggets was a complete and total shooting regression. They made just 26 percent of their first-half three-pointers but then hit a sweltering 47.3 percent of their long-range looks in the second half.
Caldwell-Pope accounted for four of Denver's nine second-half made threes, and all of them occurred in the third quarter. That's when the Nuggets really broke the game open and outscored the Lakers, 32-18, in the period. This allowed Denver to enter the fourth quarter with a 10-point lead... an advantage they maintained up until the final buzzer.
In our series preview, we outlined the importance of making D'Angelo Russell work defensively. One of Denver's biggest keys in the series is limiting his performance on both ends.
The Lakers stashed Russell on Caldwell-Pope in Game 1, and so Denver ran sets involving their starting shooting guard. That's the beauty of this relentless Nuggets offense. They'll find your weakest link and gnaw at it repeatedly. Russell is integral to Los Angeles' success; they're 20-6 this season when he scores 20 or more points. But he's also their weakest defender. Head coach Darvin Ham can't just yank Russell because they need his scoring. And yet, if he's not scoring the ball well—like he was on Saturday when he went just 6-of-20 from the field—then he's exploitable.
Here's an example. Denver began this possession by having Nikola Jokić set a screen for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. That screen put Russell a step behind the action before Denver's play even developed.
Caldwell-Pope then set a ball screen for Jamal Murray in a guard-guard pick-and-roll, and Los Angeles' base coverage for these types of actions is to hedge, or "show." This means that the screener's defender, Russell, jumps out to the ball-handler, Murray, before frantically recovering back to his man, Caldwell-Pope. The hedge essentially functions as a very brief switch and then switch-back to momentarily put two defenders on the ball. It's done to throw off the timing of an opponent's screen-and-roll game and take away off-the-dribble shots. Murray is one of the best pull-up shooters in the league, so it makes sense to defend him this way. Here's a screenshot of Russell "hedging" the Murray and Caldwell-Pope two-man action.
Russell set up the hedge correctly but then made a fatal mistake. He stuck with Murray far too long and tracked him all the way to the opposite side of the floor. Realistically, he should've stopped "hedging" at about the logo... or just switched with Austin Reaves altogether. Meanwhile, Caldwell-Pope slipped out of his screen and relocated to the right wing. James can't help because Michael Porter Jr. was on the same side of the floor as Caldwell-Pope, and giving up a wide-open corner three-pointer to MPJ is equally as unconscionable.
The Nuggets weren't done hunting Russell. Later, they ran a play where Caldwell-Pope sprinted from the right block to the top of the three-point line for an uphill DHO (dribble-handoff). Once again, Russell made a big mistake. Look at how late he was trailing this action. He allowed KCP to get a full two-step lead on this cut toward Jokić.
Caldwell-Pope received the handoff, took a dribble to his left, and prepared to shoot, and look at where Russell was. He hadn't even fully gotten around Jokić's body.
Spencer Dinwiddie tried to "stunt," or lunge as an off-ball defender, at Caldwell-Pope to throw off his rhythm, but this was essentially a practice shot for a 40 percent three-point specialist. Russell's rearview contest was far too late to make a difference; a fan in the first row had a better chance of affecting KCP's follow-through.
Caldwell-Pope would finish the evening with 12 points, and you could make the case that they were the most important 12 points of the entire game. They helped the Nuggets gain solid footing and, more significantly, tipped the scales in Denver's favor in one of the biggest battlegrounds of the series.
Russell was the Lakers' X-Factor in our series preview for a reason; if he plays well, Los Angeles can make this a series; if he doesn't, things start to look more daunting for the Lakers. Coach Ham may have to start pondering some tough questions if Russell's offense can't outweigh what's so far been harmful defense.
Caldwell-Pope deserves all the credit for shining a light on Russell's weaknesses. He constantly made himself available as a screener and off-ball mover in Game 1, and now his squad holds a 1-0 series lead. We said it in our series preview...
Caldwell-Pope and the Nuggets landed the first punch. They made Russell work defensively, and now the Lakers are swimming upstream.
Game 2 kicks off on Monday at 8:00 p.m. MT at Ball Arena. Coverage is on TNT.