Why Did The Lakers Win Game 1?
After the Lakers dominated Game 1 of the NBA Finals, here are my thoughts on why the Lakers won.
After the Lakers dominated Game 1 of the NBA Finals, here are my thoughts on why the Lakers won.
The Lakers dominated Game 1, but how? It boils down to a few things, and I’m going to break them down.
On offense, it all comes down to the Lakers 3-point shooting. The Lakers are not known to be a good 3-point shooting team, but they can be a great one. And Game 1 was one of those games. The Lakers made 11 3’s in the first half and shot 65% from 3 in the first half. This put so much pressure on Miami’s defense as they started the game giving the Lakers shooters room.
And when the Lakers probed and kicked it out, they were making it this game. And that really through the Heat off their defensive game-plan. The Lakers need to shoot like this in order to really pick apart this Heat defense.
Anthony Davis wasn’t guarded by Bam for most of the night, instead being guarded by the much smaller Jae Crowder. The Heat brought double teams and forced AD out of the low-post. But when the Lakers start-hitting their 3’s, this becomes a near death sentence to double AD. Lebron James had smaller defenders like Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson switched onto him, and he drove through the lane.
The Lakers took advantage of everything the Heat threw at them. It was a complete domination and the Heat just stood and watched. AD and Lebron will continue to play like this throughout the rest of this series as the two best players on the floor.
On defense, the Lakers didn’t allow Duncan Robinson any good looks. The bigs jumped out on him and he never got going as Robinson had 0 points in Game 1. The Lakers were getting burned down low early as as the bigs jumped out to Robinson, the paint was wide open. But as the Lakers started to get stops, the game was over.
I think that the Lakers don’t have to play spectacular defense, but an effort like this is enough. The Heat are clearly overmatched against this Lakers’ offense, and the Heat are not a shootout type team. The Heat are now dealing with injuries as Goran Dragic hurt his foot (torn plantar fascia), Bam Adebayo had a shoulder strain and Jimmy Butler hurt his ankle.
The Lakers just need to continue what they did in Game 1, and this series will be over rather than later.
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