After defeating the Houston Rockets 4-1 in the second round of the Western Conference Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers are continually running a small ball lineup against the Denver Nuggets.
The Nuggets have one of the most dominant big men in the league in Nikola Jokic, who is effective in both transition and half-court.
Having Dwight or Javale run the center spot may be able to slow down Jokic, which as a result, will slow down the whole tempo of the Nuggets offense.
Markieff Morris is not the Lakers Big Man
Throughout the first three games of the series, JaVale McGee was starting at the center position for the Los Angeles Lakers, with Dwight Howard getting majority of the minutes off the bench.
But, last night prior to game 4, Coach Frank Vogel made a change to the starting lineup.
The Los Angeles Lakers are moving Dwight Howard into starting lineup for Game 4 vs. the Nuggets, replacing JaVale McGee.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 25, 2020
Coach Vogel made the change as he has liked what he has seen from Dwight in the first three games.
Dwight’s primary role is to be a rebounder and defend.
Throughout the first four games, McGee has averaged 9 minutes of playing time.
Dwight Howard, on the other hand, has been averaging 16.5 minutes of playing time.
But, oddly enough, the Los Angeles Lakers have turned to Markieff Morris as a big man in crunch time.
Morris, who is averaging 13.25 minutes per game this series and scoring an average of 3.5 points per game is not the man to be running at the center spot late in the fourth quarter.
In last night’s game 4, although the Los Angeles Lakers were able to grab key offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter getting a bunch of second-chance opportunities, they were able to do so cause of the foul trouble Jokic was in.
Jokic had 5 fouls with about 7 minutes left in the fourth quarter and was forced to be taken out of the game.
Anthony Davis needs to do better rebounding
There is no denying that Anthony Davis is one of the best big men in this league.
After signing his contract with the Lakers, he made it clear to them that he wants to run the power forward position.
As a result, the Los Angeles Lakers signed C Dwight Howard.
But, throughout this series against Denver, although Davis has produced offensively, he is not rebounding nearing enough for someone his size.
So far, Davis has averaged 6.5 rebounds per game, but in the last two games he had 0 rebounds at halftime.
The knock on Davis throughout his career was that he was soft and often found himself injured.
In last night’s fourth quarter, it seemed that Davis injured his ankle after a jump shot.
Anthony Davis goes down with an ankle injury in Game 4 😰pic.twitter.com/ephBO90fER
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) September 25, 2020
Davis was able to walk it off and finish the game.
There is no news on how serious the injury is, but after the game last night, Coach Vogel touched upon the injury.
Frank Vogel on Anthony Davis’ ankle injury: “We’ll see how it responds overnight, responds to treatment. Yeah, there’s always concern with an injury like that. It was good for him to play through it, but we’ll see how he responds overnight.”
— Ryan Ward (@RyanWardLA) September 25, 2020
The Lakers are one win away from the NBA Finals, in which it seems they will be facing a young and hungry Miami Heat team who get up in your face on defense and make you earn every bucket.
Davis has been great thus far for the Lakers, but he needs to start working the boards more as a center and help this team win their 17th Larry O’Brien trophy.
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