After winning Game 4 of the Western Conference finals over the Denver Nuggets 114-108 on Thursday, the Los Angeles Lakers find themselves in the same spot as the LA Clippers were two weeks ago and the Utah Jazz were 2½ weeks before that: leading the Nuggets 3-1 in a series.
Already, Denver has made history by becoming the first NBA team to rally from a pair of 3-1 postseason deficits. Before the Nuggets, only three teams had ever gone down 3-1 twice in the same playoffs; all of those teams lost the second series in five games.
Here's how the Lakers can avoid following the same path as the Jazz and Clippers and put an end to the Nuggets' historic run.
Get Anthony Davis as much treatment as possible
No factor looms larger during the rest of this series than the health of Davis, who rolled his left ankle when he came down on Paul Millsap's heel following a jump shot in the fourth quarter of Game 4. Davis was able to finish the game, but he looked less than 100 percent.
"There's always concern with an injury like that," Lakers coach Frank Vogel said afterward. "It was good for him to play through it, but we'll see how he responds overnight."
The 3-1 cushion could give the Lakers the option to let Davis sit out Saturday if the swelling in his left ankle is severe enough. Still, Denver's track record and the possibility of the Miami Heat closing out the Eastern Conference finals on Friday night mean the Lakers won't want to take any unnecessary risk in extending the series.
Davis has been largely unstoppable in this series, including a perfect (7-of-7) start on Thursday. He finished the game with 34 points on 10-of-15 shooting, as well as 13 free throws in 14 attempts. That brings Davis to 32.3 points per game (nearly six more than Jamal Murray, the next leading scorer in the conference finals) on hyperefficient .670 true shooting in this series, when accounting for the value of his 3-pointers and foul shots.
Despite not having a defender with the size and quickness to match up with Davis, the Nuggets have done a good job of making him work. Remarkably, Second Spectrum tracking shows Davis taking the most difficult shots of any player so far in the series. His qSQ (quantified shot quality) of 44% is the effective field goal percentage (eFG%) an average player would be expected to make taking the same shots, while accounting for Davis' ability yields a qSP (quantified shot probability) expectation of 47%.
In reality, Davis' eFG% during the conference finals is 57.9%, as he has dramatically exceeded expectations.
Continue adjusting the rotation
In contrast to Clippers head coach Doc Rivers in the conference semifinals, Vogel hasn't hesitated to go away from what worked for his team during the regular season -- something that started during the previous round -- when Vogel went small to match up with the Houston Rockets.
Against Denver, Vogel has gone back to a traditional big man alongside Davis, but the coach replaced JaVale McGee in that role for Game 4. Dwight Howard, who coming off the bench had successfully irritated Nuggets star Nikola Jokic in the first three games, got his first playoff start since 2017 and provided the Lakers a lift early in the game. Howard finished with 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes.
By crunch time, Howard's night was done, as Vogel went to Davis at center to close the game. Alongside Davis, LeBron James and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope were Rajon Rondo and Markieff Morris, until the latter fouled out and was replaced by Alex Caruso with 1:29 left.
Rondo offered surprising help on the offensive glass, coming up with a rebound with 31.9 seconds left that helped seal the Nuggets' fate. Though the Lakers' offense remained sluggish in crunch time, second chances allowed them to chew up clock like a football team that kept grinding out first downs. Amazingly, Denver did not have a single defensive rebound in the final 4:33 of the game, as the Lakers came up with three offensive boards that all led to free throws.
Overall, Vogel has used eight different players for at least two minutes each in what NBA Advanced Stats defines as "clutch" situations (last five minutes, score within five points) during this series. At one point, that lack of clarity for the Lakers' closing fivesome looked like a weakness; now, it looks like an opportunity for Vogel to ride the ideal matchup for any purpose.
Extend LeBron's minutes
The Lakers' pair of 4-1 series victories over the Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers gave Vogel the luxury of easing the load on James so far this postseason. Only in the Lakers' opening playoff game, their loss to the Blazers, has James topped 40 minutes. His average of 34.7 ranks 37th among all players. Never before in James' career has he averaged fewer than 38.2 minutes per game in a postseason run.
The moment for which the Lakers have been saving James is here. With their first trip to the NBA Finals since 2010 a win away, Vogel can comfortably ramp up James' minutes. That started Thursday, when James' 38:22 of action was his most playing time of this series.
Assuming Davis is healthy, more minutes for James means more minutes for the two of them together, a combination that has been all but unstoppable in the playoffs. The Lakers have outscored opponents by 15.6 points per 100 possessions with both stars on the court according to NBA Advanced Stats, as opposed to more modest net ratings for each of them alone (plus-2.3 per 100 possessions for James and plus-8.6 for Davis).
As compared to the Jazz (plus-48 differential in the first four games of the series) and Clippers (plus-31), the Lakers haven't been nearly as dominant en route to their 3-1 lead over the Nuggets, outscoring them by just 12 points so far. Take away Davis' 3-pointer and we could easily be heading to Game 5 tied at 2-2. Instead, the Lakers will have a chance to do what their predecessors couldn't: send Denver home.