Getty ImagesKobe Bryant goes in for a dunk in the Lakers’ 119-92 victory over the Nuggets in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. With the win, Los Angeles reaches the NBA Finals for the second straight year.
This was as dominant a performance as you are going to see at this level. This is what Phil Jackson and Tex Winter dreamed of when they constructed the triangle offense around a superstar scorer: passing, cutting, working the ball in and out of the post, taking advantage of double-teams.
If ever a game proves the silliness of the “defense wins championships” cliche, this is it. The Nuggets could not stop the Lakers’ offense, and they couldn’t stop it because it was just too good. The Lakers shot 57 percent, only the third team to crack that number against a solid Denver defense this season, according to Basketball Reference. They made 9-of-16 three-pointers, all 24 of their free throws and turned the ball over just three times in the last 30 minutes of game time. The Lakers may have taken five high-degree-of-difficulty shots in this game. Everything else was easy–wide-open jumpers, driving layups, dunks and short shots off of cuts and screens.
Denver’s defense wasn’t great. The effort was off-and-on, and there were a few instances of miscommunication. But I’m not sure it mattered.
The Lakers scored 119 points on about 88 possessions. As someone who crunches these numbers every day, I can tell you that you just don’t see these kinds of numbers in an NBA game. That works out to about 139 points on 100 possessions. That’s like an NFL team scoring 65 points without the benefit of six turnovers. The best offense of the Jordan Bulls teams averaged about 115 points per 100 possessions, and the Steve Nash Suns approached that level of efficiency at their peak.
It started with Kobe’s 35 points and 10 assists. He took easy shots, didn’t force anything and got the post guys involved. Twenty points each for Odom and Gasol (who made my over with 12 field-goal attempts), and don’t overlook Pau’s six assists, either.
As for the Nuggets, they ended up at a respectable 43.8 percent from the floor (about what they averaged in this series), but they got very little from Billups (2-of-7 for 10 points), Nene (3-of-7 for eight points) and a rough 6-of-17 shooting day from Melo.
And the Lakers finally protected their defensive glass, limiting Denver to seven offensive rebounds after giving up 14, 11, 20 and 14 in the four previous games. If there’s a chink in the Laker armor, it’s defensive rebounding. When they do that well, they are tough to beat.
Denver will be kicking itself for missing chances to win Game 1 and Game 3, but the fact remains that as the series went on, the gap between the teams grew larger. The Nuggets played well for the bulk of the series, they had their chances, but it appears the better team won. Heck, the Nuggets had won 16 straight home games before this series, and the Lakers took two of three in Denver. They deserve huge credit for that.
Great season from Denver, and it’ll be back at this level next year. But the Lakers served notice tonight that they can still play as well as anyone in the league.
11:40: James Worthy (!) presents the Western Conference championship trophy to the Lakers and urges them to go on and win the title. A Big Game James signing! Some highlights from the post-game interview-fest:
Odom: “I wasn’t gonna let a bad back keep me out.”
That’s it. No one says anything interesting. I’ll give the Lakers this: That was as calm and blah of a conference-title celebration as you’ll see. Granted, the game was a blowout, so there wasn’t much tension to release after the game. But they made it clear with their demeanor that this was expected and, really, meaningless to them. I hope Cleveland and Orlando were watching.
11:34: It’s over: 119-92, Lakers.
Kobe, talking to Doris Burke, says the Lakers simply figured out how to attack the defense. He also says he was happy to take advantage of single coverage.
11:30: With 1:36 to go and LA up 114-90, Phil Jackson removes Kobe, and the game is officially over. Congrats to your Western Conference champions, the Los Angeles Lakers. There will be no Game 7.
11:27: You know who was right tonight, by the way? Magic Johnson. The other hosts spent the pregame show talking about how this LA team isn’t as good as last year’s team, how they lack the killer instinct to put teams away, and on and on. At the end of the segment, Magic laughed and reminded everyone they were talking about a team that was one game away from the NBA Finals. He also mentioned how Boston played two seven-game series on the way to the Finals last season.
For at least one night, the Lakers played like the Lakers.
11:26: Judging by own daily experience on the New York subway, I think any plan to hijack Pelham 1-2-3 would fail because of extensive train traffic or a sick passenger.
11:23: Ariza hits a fading jumper off of his wrong foot as the shot clock expires. Just that kind of game. 110-87, LA, with 3:15 to go.
Time to start thinking about next year for Denver. Birdman and Dahntay Jones are unrestricted free agents. Otherwise, the core is intact.
11:19: The most relevant questions to ask right now are: Who on the Lakers guards Dwight Howard? Or LeBron James? The Lakers defense is very creative, but either the Lakers’ bigs (Gasol, Bynum) or their small-forward types (Ariza, maybe even Kobe) are about to have their hands full with one of the NBA’s superstars.
11:17: Our first flagrant of the game! Hooray! We couldn’t get through one game without one. Billups hits Gasol right across the top of the head as brings his arms down to try and strip the ball from Pau. Not the worst flagrant we’ve seen in the playoffs. 103-82, Lakers, with 5:15 to go.
11:16: Random stat that sort of epitomizes the game: Birdman has zero points and zero shot-attempts in 16 minutes. Nobody has it for Denver tonight.
11:12: The Denver rally ends quickly, courtesy of Kobe. Kobe drives past Smith for a layup, then hits a three over Smith, and the lead is back to 101-82 with 6:13 left. Kobe has 35 on 12-of-20 shooting. Check out that line. As good as it gets from Kobe tonight.
So who would the Lakers rather play in the Finals?
11:11: Wow!! Smith makes a three, and Anthony somehow makes an ill-advised step-back jumper in transition–the kind you’d take if your team was down by 10 with a minute to go. 96-82, with 7:00 left.
11:09: Van Gundy pronounces Denver dead with 8:43 left and the Lakers up 94-74: “Denver has had such a great season. It’s a shame it has to end like this.” Melo responds with a three. And Kobe responds with a dunk. 96-77, and it doesn’t appear we’re going to get a game here, folks.
11:06: The Lakers are shooting 58 percent from the floor right now. Know many times all season a team has shot 58 percent against Denver for a full game? Once, according to Basketball Reference. One time. The Lakers are just awesome tonight.
11:04: The Lakers have baskets on each of their possessions, and Gasol has assisted on two of them. When they run the triangle through the post, they are a scary team the way their bigs can pass. The last basket? A Walton dunk from Gasol. Yes, Walton dunked. Rather emphatically. 90-69, LA, with 10:20 left. You could get really great odds on a Denver comeback now.
11:02: Odom hits a lay-in, then a three, and it’s 88-67, Lakers. This one feels over, and Karl brings Melo off the bench with just a minute gone here in the fourth. Why not start the quarter with him? This feels over.
FOURTH QUARTER
11:00: Hold up those four fingers, folks, because we’re going to the fourth quarter. Does Denver have a rally in them? I’m saying no, they don’t.
10:56: A really fun sequence for a hoops junkie on Denver’s last possession of the quarter. Billups was dribbling out the clock well above the top of the key, and Odom moved up to the foul line to send Chauncey the message that there’d be no penetration. This left Birdman open for a possible lob on the left side of the rim, except Billups knew Odom could rush back to challenge it and Gasol could slide over from the other side of the rim to help.
And Billups dribbled, and Andersen waited, primed to leap. And the game sort of froze like that for three or four seconds as Billups debated it. He finally tossed the lob, and sure enough, Gasol knocked it away. Vujacic recovered the loose ball and Smith fouled him in transition. Sasha drained both to make it 83-67, LA, at the end of three.
10:53: Van Gundy on Denver’s defense: “This is just too easy.” And: “Denver is better than this.” And: “It’s a shame Denver is playing their worst playoff game in an elimination game.” But wait! Kleiza hits a three, and Denver is on an 8-0 run to cut the lead to 12 at 79-67 with about 55 seconds left in the quarter.
Thing to monitor: The Lakers bench is in the game now. Prime time for a Denver rally.
10:49: Signs of life for Denver as Smith hits a three to cut the lead to 15 at 79-64. Van Gundy notes that Karl has pulled Anthony here late in the third period–earlier than he usually would. Is Melo tired? Or is Karl just going to play him the entire fourth quarter?
10:47: Luke Walton just made a jumper so wide-open he could have tied both his shoes and still had time to line up the shot and make it. Terrible defense. Why was he so open? Because Fisher came off a curl screen and the Nuggets double-teamed him 20 feet from the hoop for some reason. Now Kobe makes a jumper, and the lead is 20. 79-59, with 2:30 left.
10:45: Why does Gasol blow on his hands before every free throw? He looks like a pitcher trying to stay warm. 73-57, LA, after Pau hits two.
10:43: And things get worse for Denver, as Kobe powers into Billups off the dribble and pulls up for a 12-footer that goes in off the glass, plus the foul. Denver just can’t stop LA’s offense right now. 71-55, LA, the biggest lead of the game with 5:00 left in the third.
10:42: Karl to his team in the huddle: “You’re acting like it’s a 25-point lead.” That is not a good thing for a coach to be saying to his team right now. 68-55, Lakers, after two straight Walton scores. (Note: not a typo).
10:40: Martin hits a baseline 17-footer off a Billups pass, and it’s down to 62-53, LA. The Lakers will give him that shot all day.
10:37: Stay thirsty, my friends.
10:35: Jones fouls Kobe on a needless reach-in in the backcourt. I’m beginning think Dahntay Jones may not be a smart NBA player. Meanwhile, Gasol hits back-to-back shots in the post, and Jackson says he must shoot more than 10 times per game. Yes!! He’s up to six field goal attempts, so it looks like I picked my over/under well. Not that I’d ever condone gambling. Not in this economy. 62-50, Lakers, with 8:22 left in the third.
10:32: Kobe hits a pull-up off the dribble, and Jones doesn’t jump with him to challenge. Maybe he couldn’t stop his momentum in time. But Denver has to bring a defensive urgency here that it hasn’t shown so far. 58-43, LA with 9:45 to go. Biggest lead of the game so far. The Lakers are just picking Denver apart on offense with great spacing and beautiful passing.
10:28: Kobe air-balls a wide-open three-pointer. And I mean, wide-open. I think I could have drawn rim on that one. And what does Denver do in response? Dahntay Jones immediately picks up a technical for arguing with the officials about an allegedly illegal screen that sprung Kobe. You know what? It was an illegal screen. But you can’t pump your fist at the refs and make crazy gestures in an elimination game. You just can’t. Just remember that if Denver loses by one (Kobe made the free throw).
ReutersThe Lakers’ Kobe Bryant is double-teamed by the Nuggets’ Dahntay Jones (left) and J.R. Smith during Los Angeles’s 119-92 victory in Game 6 of the NBA’s Western Conference finals.
THIRD QUARTER
10:22: Halftime question #4: If you’re the Lakers, and you can only sign one of them after this season, do you pick Odom or Ariza? Van Gundy just picked Ariza. Did Ariza’s great first half have undue influence there, or is that the right choice?
I know Odom seems like he’s been in the league forever, but he’s only 29.
10:18: Halftime question #3: Will anybody off the LA bench step up other than Odom, or will the top six Lakers basically have to play this one out? The only Lakers with neutral or negative numbers in the plus/minus column so far are Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar. Shannon Brown, such a a spark in Game 5, didn’t even get in the game.
10:15: Halftime question #2: Why does Michael Wilbon insist on calling Magic Johnson “Earvin”? Bob Cousy called Red Auerbach “Arnold,” but that was different–he was a player, and Auerbach was his coach.
10:13: Halftime question #1: Do you know how hard it is to score 53 points in a half in which you turn the ball over 11 times? That’s what LA just did. They shot 60 percent from the floor, largely by working for really good shots when they didn’t cough up the ball. Kobe is playing a masterful game, with 18 points and six assists at halftime. He’s feeling the double-team when it comes and making the right pass, and when Denver guards him one-on-one, he’s punishing them.
As for the Nuggets, they are just not making shots. They are 14-of-38 from the floor, and they can’t blame the refs so far. They’ve got 13 free-throw attempts to just five for the Lakers.
10:06: What an emphatic finish to the half by the Lakers! Gasol dunks on the first of the two-for-one, Billups hits 1-of-2 from the line on the other end, and Kobe follows with a corner three to put LA up 53-40 with seven seconds left in the half. Kobe rejects a Melo lay-up at the buzzer, and it’s all Lakers to wrap the half at 53-40.
Kobe to Doris Burke: “If a guy is guarding me and has his hands down, I’m gonna shoot it.” Exactly. Subpar defense by too many Nuggets.
10:03: Kobe hits another jumper over lazy defense, and it’s 46-39 Denver. Jackson: “This is not the same physical Denver defense.” And another jumper by Kobe, and it’s LA up by nine. Kobe suddenly has 15, and Billups follows with a turnover. The crowd is quiet now. LA can go for a two-for-one possession here with 46 seconds left in the half.
10:01: Lazy defense by J.R. Smith, as he doesn’t even bother to rise up and challenge Kobe on a jumper from the elbow. It goes in. Shane Battier would have had a hand in Kobe’s face. Come on, J.R. This is an elimination game! Meanwhile, Ariza hits another three–his third–and it’s 44-37, LA with about 2:05 to go.
9:59: Fun stat: Nene, Melo, K-Mart and Billups so far: 6-of-22 from the floor, and Denver is at 36 percent overall. And yet it’s a six-point game. Thank J.R. Smith and 10 Laker TOs for that.
9:55: Billups misses a three, and the Nuggets have missed eight straight from deep. Still 37-33, LA, with 3:15 to go.
9:53: Fisher hits a three, and the Lakers are on fire from the field early–shooting nearly 60 percent to 40 percent for Denver. But the Nuggets are right there at 37-33, LA, and the Lakers commit their tenth turnover to help keep the game a toss-up early. Fisher and Ariza are 6-of-8 so far.
9:49: The teams have 15 turnovers between them midway through the second quarter, nine for LA and six for Denver. A combination of good defense, officials letting them play and some bonehead decisions. Which team will start valuing the basketball first? 34-33, LA, at the midway timeout.
9:48: Kobe posts up Carter again, and Kobe leaps over the double-teamer to find Odom for an easy hook shot. Denver: Stop doing this. 34-33, LA with 6:15 to go.
9:45: The Nuggets need to stop wasting three or four defensive possessions per game with Anthony Carter guarding Kobe. They try it again here, and it’s such a mismatch in the post that Linas Kleiza must double-team, and Kobe finds a wide-open Walton for the lay-in. In a series this close, a few possessions like this can cost you the whole thing. 32-31, LA.
9:41: Smith drives and scores, then hits a step-back jumper off the screen/roll, and the Nugs have their first lead at 31-30 with 8:41 to go. For the record: Smith has taken seven shots total, four two-pointers and three from deep. He has 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting. Keep driving, J.R.!
9:39: Luke Walton commits his own dumb play by grabbing Anthony while the Nuggets are inbounding the ball from the sideline–an automatic two-shot foul, and one made even worse because there were just two seconds on the shot clock. As his Dad would say: “That was the dumbest foul in the history of modern American basketball.” Melo makes both and it’s 30-27, LA.
9:38, part two: Another Denver brain fart, as Anthony Carter gets the ball off a steal and throws a hail-mary to Chris Andersen on the fast break, a pass that has no chance of succeeding. He could have thrown two easier passes that would have set up a 3-on-2 for Denver. Instead, Gasol intercepts, the Lakers push and hit Vujacic for a corner three. A five-point swing. 30-24, Lakers with 10:00 to go.
9:38: Doris Burke asks Phil Jackson about how the Lakers are handling the Denver double-teams on Kobe. Jackson: “They’ve pulled off their double-teams.” A polite way of saying: “Did you watch the first quarter, Doris?”
SECOND QUARTER
9:33: It’s 25-20, LA, after a fast first quarter with just six total fouls called. Let’s hope the smooth rhythm lasts.
9:30: Ariza hits a wide-open three, and he’s got 10 points already! 24-18, LA, with 53 seconds left in the quarter. Mark Jackson says it’s “inexcusable” (his favorite word) to give Ariza that much space. But is it really? Ariza is a career 30 percent three-point shooter. You can’t guard every weapon the Lakers have, and smart teams have been living with open Ariza and Fisher three-pointers all postseason.
9:29: Kobe just embarrassed J.R. Smith with a blow-by for an easy lay-in. Wow. Denver hasn’t double-teamed Kobe on the perimeter as aggressively so far as they did in Game 5.
9:26: Lost in these LeBron-Kobe puppet commercials is the fact that Lil’ Penny was the best NBA puppet in history.
9:25: Billups hits a three to bring the Nugs within 17-16, and Denver is 2-of-2 from deep. This team is 14-of-48 from three in the last two games, so it is due to make shots. But that make was not an accident. Smith broke the LA defense down with penetration, slipped a nice interior pass to Nene, who kicked out to an open Billups. Sometimes basketball looks so simple.
9:23: Smith hits his first three-point attempt, proving me wrong immediately. 13-11, LA. Make that 15-11, as Gasol finds Odom (just in the game) underneath for an easy lay-in. I’ll say it again: NBA basketball does not get better than watching Gasol and Odom pass the ball in the post.
9:21: A great example of how Denver has to play at the 5:22 mark: Melo gets the ball on the right wing, and Gasol rotates over from the left side of the lane over to lurk on the strong side, leaving a huge gap in the middle. K-Mart cuts right to the gap, and Melo finds him. Martin goes up for the lay-in, and Bynum, late rotating, hacks him. Martin makes one of two, and it’s 11-8, LA.
9:20: J.R. Smith is already in the game for Denver, by the way. Very quick hook for Dahntay Jones. Smith really needs to shoot better and take more twos for Denver to win this series. It’s not a coincidence he played his best game in Game 4, when his ratio of two-point attempts to three-point attempts was about even. He’s a creative player, but he loses that creativity when he takes 10 threes and three twos, as he did in his miserable Game 5.
9:15: Kenyon Martin takes Bynum off the dribble for a baseline spin and lay-in. That’s what K-Mart needs to do, especially when he’s isolated on the wing like that. One note: He got the ball in that position after Anthony drove into the lane, drew three defenders and kicked to Martin. It’s hard to overstate how crowded the lane is when Melo gets there. The fact that he gets to the rim at all is proof of how skilled he is. 9-7, LA, at the six-minute timeout.
9:12: Great moment between Dahntay Jones and Kobe. Jones sort of tapped in a Nene miss and caught the ball when it came through the basket. He went to hand it to Kobe, whom he had just out-jumped for the tip-in, and Kobe just looked at Jones and let him drop the ball on the floor. Just refused to take it. Great stuff. You have to love the dislike that builds up in these long series. 7-5, LA with about 8:00 to go.
9:09: Ariza makes a three to make it 5-0 LA, and on the other end, Martin misses an ugly one-handed runner that almost breaks the rim, as it’s thrown up with so little touch. Martin has taken Denver’s first two shots, and LA couldn’t be happier about it.
9:07: And after a stop on the first possession of the game, Nene throws away a simple outlet pass to Billups. Kobe steals it and draws a foul on Chauncey. The Nuggets’ small mistakes are killing them. Gasol scores, and it’s 2-0, LA.
9:06: And we’re off. I’m setting the over/under on Gasol field goal attempts at 10, and saying the Lakers lose if they hit the under.
FIRST QUARTER
9:01: Do you think Kobe gets angry when the road public address announcer doesn’t introduce him last?
9:00: I don’t care if John Tesh wrote it; I really miss the NBA on NBC theme.
8:58: Is the Heineken commercial where the men go crazy screaming about a walk-in closet full of beer and the women go crazy screaming about a walk-in closet full of clothes more insulting to men or women?
8:53: And one last note on officiating: We’re two days away from the anniversary of maybe the most infamously-officiated game in NBA history: Game 6 between the Kings and Lakers in the 2002 Western Conference finals. That’s the game in which the Lakers shot 27 foul shots in the fourth quarter. Read that number again. Needless to say, the Kings lost. One of the all-time great teams not to win a title.
8:51: And in case you missed it, here’s the Interesting but Ultimately Meaningless Stat of the Night: Teams have trailed a conference top-seed 3-2 in 43 playoff series since the league went to its current playoff format. The top seed has won 41 of those series. But there’s a counter stat! Chauncey Billups has been on eight teams that trailed 3-2 in playoff series, and his team has come back to win half of them.
8:50: On a more light-hearted but equally crucial note: The Birdman is back to his normal hairstyle tonight, the GelHawk. He went with a new sloping style in Game 5 that came to a slight peak near his forehead. The Nugs lost, and he rightly ditched the new do.
8:45: A little pregame chatter: The bad news for the NBA is that the officiating has once again become perhaps the dominant story of the playoffs. As you probably know by now, an anonymous Nugget told a reporter the Lakers “paid $50,000 to win [Game 5],” referring to the $25,000 fines against Phil Jackson and the team for Jackson’s criticism of the officiating in Game 4. George Karl voiced similar complaints.
I ask the WSJ readers: Is this legit? The free-throw attempts in Game 5 were about even (35-30, in favor of LA), and the refs whistled Denver for 30 fouls to 22 for the Lakers–not a huge gap. But 14 of Denver’s fouls came in the fourth quarter, compared to just three called against LA. Obviously, a few of those Denver fouls were desperation attempts to stop the clock late.
ESPN’s John Hollinger took a detailed look at the reffing in Game 5 and concluded there was no pro-Laker conspiracy, just two refs letting a lot of contact go and one calling a tight game.
But if the calls shift in Denver’s favor tonight, expect a lot of eye-rolling from fans.
2:15 p.m. ET: It’s do or die for the Nuggets tonight at the Pepsi Center in Denver, where they’ve lost just once since early March. Of course, that loss was in Game 3 of this series, and the Lakers come to Denver fresh off a Game 5 win in which they looked like the clear-cut superior team for the first time in this series.
And they did so with a more balanced scoring attack than they showed in the prior four games of this series. After averaging nearly 40 points per game on more than 20 shot attempts, Kobe Bryant scored “only” 22 points on 6-of-13 shooting in Game 5. He dished a series-high eight assists and punished the Nuggets when they double-teamed him on the perimeter. Six Lakers took between seven and 15 shots, and Lamar Odom scored 19 points and grabbed 14 rebounds after averaging fewer than seven points and four rebounds per game in the first four games.
Of course, this set off the always-simmering debate about Bryant: Do the Lakers play better when Bryant shoots less, or does Bryant shoot less only when his teammates show they are ready to play better?
After his success as playmaker in Game 5, expect Bryant to adhere more to Phil Jackson’s triangle offense and to keep his dribble alive against the traps (if they come) while patiently probing the defense for holes.
As for the Nuggets, they reverted a bit to the team that we saw in the first three games of the series–the one overly dependent on Carmelo Anthony’s scoring. Melo scored 31 points in Game 5, but no one else topped a dozen for Denver. A lot of the credit for that has to go the Lakers’ defense, which played with a frantic intensity befitting of a crucial Game 5. They helped aggressively on Anthony to make sure the paint was crowded when he managed to penetrate, and they limited Denver to 36 points in the paint overall. They held the Nuggets to 7-of-24 (29 percent) from three-point range for the second straight game, and J.R. Smith, so good in Game 4, missed nine of his 10 threes and 10 of his 13 field-goal attempts. The Lakers also took care of the defensive glass after giving up 20 offensive rebounds in Game 4.
The Lakers’ 23-7 run over about 11 minutes bridging the third and fourth quarters is the defining stretch in this series so far. They will need to bring that kind of defensive effort to close the series in Denvre.
"We'd go up seven, eight points and trying to get the building to erupt," Martin said. "We've done that so much during the season and throughout the 2009 NBA playoffs. So, we figured that's the way it was going to be. And it's not always going to be that way. You've got to grind it out sometimes, take the tough two or get to the line and score points that way." 
"A bounce of the ball here and we're up 2-0," Kobe Bryant said. "A bounce of the ball here and they win Game 1." 
WATCH HIGHLIGHTS
"Our heads are still high. We're still standing tall, we're still confident," Anthony said. "We did everything but win the game. We can take that as a good sign. We're going to respond, I guarantee you we respond." 
"It's obvious," Cavs guard Mo Williams said, echoing the must-win sentiment. "My grandma knows that. Yeah, it's a must win. Hell yeah." 
In his Lakers playoff debut, Pau Gasol made a statement that not too many other Lakers have made in the playoffs: at least 36 points, 15 rebounds and 8 assists.