That is a terrible showing for the Clippers.

Lakers can go back to their traditional lineup against the Nuggets, they had to remove playing Howard & McGee against the small ball lineup the Rockets ran, so in that regards its a plus for LA.

However, Denvers guards should prove to be a difficult cover for LA (though I can see LeBron guarding Murray which will make it hard for him).

I think Denver will put up a good fight in the series but ultimately think Lakers will take care of them in 5 games.

The Lakers will be much harder for the Nuggets. Mcgee, Howard and Davis will all be better primary defenders for Jokic.

Losing Bradley before the bubble hurts the Lakers in this series. He would have been a great defensive match up for Murray. We'll see a lot of Craig guarding Bron too which gives him a good chance to show why he needs a pay rise

Hopefully its a good long series. These playoffs are great.

"Jokic best centre in the NBA then day light"

Would definitely be considered top 2, KAT would also be the other one in the conversation (though his team doesnt share the wins Jokics Nuggets have)

LOL Clippers

Its rough for the Clippers but they dont need to panic. They have enough talent to win, clearly, but pretty poor chemistry. Will be interesting to see how they go about building next season's squad. They really need to lock in 8-9 guys as their main rotation far earlier in the season. They had so many guys getting minutes all season, some addition by subtraction might be the answer.

Interesting stuff starting to float around about Doc
No coach in NBA history with more 3-1 playoff leads lost
Worst winning % in game 7's in NBA history

Denver matchup pretty well with LA i think, bar having no answer for AD.

On paper, with Denvers array of wing defense, depth and perimeter shooting, they should probably win the series, however, LeBron James......

every year a team has a deeper, better, more rounded and better structured team that can't lose because some analytic stats say so, James goes super human and sweeps them cc: Toronto for years, Boston Celtics and the Atlanta Hawks.

LA wins, but tbh, Denver are probably more a chance than anyone wants to admit. Could see this going a very competitive 6 games

Miami chugging along nicely taking a 1-0 lead over Boston in other series.

Not a Lakers fan at all but with Milwaukee and now the Clippers gone I can see them going all the way.

I wonder how much this will throw a blanket over the Kawhi hype

Saw some article the other day, raving about him because he hadn't lost a playoff series (when healthy) for 51 months. Neglected to mention that he was injured for two playoffs, and this year's gone 3 months over, which basically means the "51 months" thing was just another way of saying he won a single title. And he got through that by the skin of his teeth- a fadeaway Game 7 buzzer beater against Philly and then the good fortune of playing half the Warriors team in the Finals with Cousins, Durant, Thompson all injured at various stages.

If Clippers had won the title, I reckon there would've been a genuine discussion about Kawhi leapfrogging Curry, Durant and being placed as the pre-eminent challenger for Lebron's title as alpha dog of the NBA.

Now, Lebron will win another title and instead it'll be a major win for Lebron in the "Is Lebron getting close to Jordan" debate, after Jordan won a few rounds earlier this year with the release of The Lase Dance.

The real story is the Nuggets though. They're becoming the new clutch killers of the NBA- that's 3-1 in Game 7s over the past two years.

How good was Jokic's over the head pass from the high post to the cutter at the end of the game? Love him. I'm on the Nuggets bandwagon now.

Time for Doc to go.

Shame Clippers fell apart under the pressure , really, as I was looking forward to his old team (Celtics) vs his current team (Clippers).

Love or hate LeBron at 35 he could potentially win his fourth title with three different teams.
Still an MVP caliber performer even now.

Other than Davis this team lacks star power so getting the Lakers this far is an achievement in it self.

Now, Lebron will win another title and instead it'll be a major win for Lebron in the "Is Lebron getting close to Jordan" debate

This Denver team is my favorite to watch for a while, but when it's crunch time LeBron and AD will guard Murray and Jokic and switch the PNR, when it came down to it the clippers had no answer for that. They tried PG and Kawhi with that particular switch but not enough size.

Duke Fan, there's a video around of Phil Jackson coaching against Doc and telling his team in a timeout that Doc teams can't close out games.

Here it is:

I just couldn't imagine Lebron ever losing that game - he is too smart and experienced.

Just don't replace Rivers with a white coach because Stephen A
Smith will lose his shit.

Dunno if sacking Doc makes sense.


I mean, you cant just sack a coach every time you dont win a title and expect a team to start the following year with a new coach and hit the ground running.

Yeah it must be. I mean the Raptors just kept persisting with Dwane Casey for years and years and...

Oh wait no, they sacked him after he won coach of the year.

A big part of the reason Kawhi signed with the Clippers was because he wanted to play under Doc do people think they're going to be silly enough to fire him when Kawhi could leave as a free agent after next season?

No way Doc will get the sack due to everything falling apart in 3 games.