In case you missed it, Jamal Murray hit one of the greatest shots in Nuggets franchise history—and perhaps, one of the wildest game-winners in the history of the NBA playoffs. You've probably seen it a million times by now, but hey, let's run the tape back one more time. This is one of those shots that never gets old.
For as magical as the ending of Game 2 was, it didn't exactly feel that way for most of the night. A 1-1 series seemed destined up until the end of the third quarter.
The first half was all Los Angeles. Anthony Davis put up 24 points on 11-of-12 shooting. He looked like prime Dwight Howard mixed with Hakeem Olajuwon... or something of that nature. Meanwhile, the Laker defense held the Nuggets to just 44 points at halftime. Los Angeles continued to take it to the defending champions out of the break and grew a 20-point lead in the third quarter.
Denver couldn't make a shot. Through three quarters, they connected on just 26-of-68 field goals (38.2 percent) and 7-of-30 (23.3 percent) three-pointers. Their defense, however, was a different story. Head coach Michael Malone significantly adjusted his defensive assignments at the halftime break.
First Half:
Nikola Jokić → Anthony Davis
Aaron Gordon → LeBron James
Michael Porter Jr. → Rui Hachimura
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope → D'Angelo Russell
Jamal Murray → Austin Reaves
Second Half:
Nikola Jokić → Rui Hachimura
Aaron Gordon → Anthony Davis
Michael Porter Jr. → D'Angelo Russell
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope → LeBron James
Jamal Murray → Austin Reaves
Yeah, talk about seismic changes to the game plan... and effective ones. Denver held Los Angeles to just 40 second half points.
Moving Aaron Gordon onto Anthony Davis was an absolute game-changer. Davis reached 32 points at the 7:15 mark of the third quarter. He would not score another point for the rest of the game. Gordon completely shut down.
Moving Jokić onto Rui Hachimura was another stroke of genius from Denver's coaching staff. Hachimura is having an abysmal series up to this point and is shooting just 27.3 percent from the field. He's been a complete non-factor from the perimeter.
Here, Jokić essentially acted as a third defender that clogged up the painted area against this LeBron James and Davis pick-and-roll—at the expense of a wide-open Hachimura three-pointer. That's by design, by the way; Jokić was just carrying out the game plan. Denver has felt comfortable with conceding three-pointers to Rui since the regular season. He's missed 75 percent of his long-range looks through two games of this series. Seems like a pretty viable strategy.
Hachimura isn't even in the same vicinity of a pick-and-roller as Davis. He's not a high-flyer whatsoever. He's not a monster on the offensive glass who can clean up misses. And he's a full three inches shorter than the 6'10 Davis, making him a much smaller target for passes.
Los Angeles has been diligent about putting Jokić in the pick-and-roll throughout this series. That's not because Nikola is a poor pick-and-roll defender, for the record, as some have been so quick to throw out. The two-time MVP commandeered the NBA's third-best pick-and-roll defense in the regular season. It's beyond time to retire that narrative.
No, Los Angeles is likely involving Nikola in the pick-and-roll to exhaust him. Make him work on both ends. Move him around a lot. Davis was able to get some good shots by simply rolling hard and getting behind the defense. From there, he's just a very large target for passes.
Now, compare that to when Hachimura was used as a roller. Notice a difference? He doesn't put pressure on the rim and isn't a giant outlet for Laker ball-handlers to pass to. He sort of just... drifts into the middle of the floor while the offense stalls out.
Rui being used as the screener meant that Davis was stashed off-ball, many times in the corners. That's not a comfort zone, especially compared to his dominant pick-and-rolling. Driving to the rim from the side of the floor—instead of up top—gave him difficult angles to finish from. Davis is a career 29.7 percent outside shooter, so it's not like he's producing hard closeouts while chilling in the corners.
All of this completely threw the Lakers out of rhythm. Davis went cold as he perished away from the ball, and Gordon made things tough when he did get his touches. Jokić, meanwhile, could focus almost entirely on affecting the ball-handler in pick-and-rolls; Hachimura was that unthreatening as a screener. Notice how, here, he completely ignored Hachimura on this side pick-and-roll to instead assume rim-protecting duties against James and force a miss.
"I think it just kept us out of rotations a little more, and we kept AD from rolling as much to the rim," Michael Porter Jr. said about the adjustments. "Aaron played really good defense, and then obviously, Joker played good defense on the perimeter while having to guard a perimeter player."
However, the game didn't really flip until the end of the third quarter. That's when the Nuggets got some offense into the game. Denver's reworked defensive alignments had the Laker offense trudging through sludgy mud, and then this happened.
The dunk. Oh, that wonderful dunk. A Kentavious Caldwell-Pope poster over the top of Taurean Prince. Caldwell-Pope is mostly a layup-finisher in transition, but the Nuggets desperately needed an energy boost. He provided it. This would end up being the second-most astonishing moment of the night (I'm sure you can guess number one, hah). Fans erupted the second the ball popped through the net. KCP brought the Ball Arena crowd back to life.
Now, the Nuggets were cooking with gas. A strong stretch from Denver's reserves in which Christian Braun scored 4 huge points made it a 9-point game, and then Jokić checked in at 9:41 in the fourth quarter.
Murray hit a tough layup at 9:21 in the fourth, which may sound anecdotal, but it was an incredibly important moment in Game 2. Jamal, up to that point, was not having a good night by his standards. He had scored just 6 total points on 3-of-16 shooting before that fateful bucket. That shot got him going. He hit a stepback midrange shot two minutes later. Then it was another tough layup after a nasty hesitation move that froze Austin Reaves. Now, Murray was really feeling it. The Lakers were playing with fire.
"That's Jamal Murray right there. I mean, he can struggle, he can struggle, he can struggle. He sees one go in, and he's never shying away from the moment [and] the spotlight," Malone said.
Denver then posted Jokić up against Davis and let him go one-on-one. The message was simple—take it right at one of the greatest defenders of this generation. Jokić obliged and drove directly into AD's chest only to finish with soft and balletic spinning buckets. The way he's able to blend power and finesse is uncanny. There was some symbolism in these two plays. It almost felt like Jokić was saying, "The first half was about you... now it's about us" during the pair of overwhelming post-ups. That got the game within 2 points.
Denver eventually knotted things up on a hilariously broken play. Jokić tried to draw a foul on a three-point shot, and Gordon somehow saved the ball while tip-toeing along the baseline before finding Porter Jr. with a pass. MPJ drained one of his 6 three-pointers of the night in a crowd of two defenders. It was an unbelievably gutsy shot. "I think the good teams win even when they play bad, and bad teams always find a way to lose games, even when they’re up," Jokić once said. This game-tying bucket certainly felt like one of those moments.
D'Angelo Russell made a layup to give the Lakers a two-point lead, but then Murray hit a stepback two-pointer over James to keep things tied up. Talk about some heavy foreshadowing, by the way... Murray nailing a stepback over a Laker star.
Denver finally got a miss when James whiffed on a wide-open three-pointer. Porter Jr. scooped up the rebound with 14 seconds remaining, and Malone elected to not call a timeout.
The Nuggets went down and ran a double pick-and-roll with Jokić and Caldwell-Pope screening, which got Davis switched onto Murray. With just two-and-a-half seconds remaining, Jamal drove hard to his right, stopped, and erupted into a stepback over Davis. The rest is history.
"There is a Playoff Jamal. The proof's in the stats. What he does in the postseason is just incredible. A lot of guys that have been All-Stars can never even come close to doing what he does in the postseason," Malone said after the storybook win.
Mic. Drop.