"Lakers are the Nuggets Kryptonite" - Inside The NBA crew reacts Lakers will face Nuggets in WCF

Here we go, Western Conference finals, talent storylines just as good as any NBA finals. All right, don't take my word for it. Listen to how the Lakers are talking about these nutties. We already know that monster in the Rocky Mountains that's waiting on us. You know, the fewer teams, the tougher the matchups, the more skilled the players. Talking about a two-time MVP with a well-balanced squad, hungry. We're going to have our work cut out for us, but you know, they got to guard us too. They've been the number one team in the West for a reason, and they've played exceptional basketball all year, and we're going with the utmost respect for their ball club. Do you guys feel like you're playing with house money at this point? No, no, no, no. We're trying to win every hand. You know, in a series that features LeBron James for the first time that I can remember, right? All eyes, not necessarily on the NBA's all-time leading scorer. In fact, we go, okay, what's the marquee matchup? It's circled around Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokic. I got that right? You got it right. How about that? I mean, we're talking about two premier big men, both multi-talented, skilled. This is the first time in these playoffs they're going to play against an equally talented big man, just in terms of what they can have and how they can impact the game. Joker, obviously, if you look at his offensive bag, the passing, the shooting from the outside, obviously the offensive rebounds and tap backs, that's really a very underrated part of this game, by the way, and just really making his teammates better. Anthony Davis against the Warriors and the Grizzlies, impacting both rims defensively, intimidating, blocking shots, and also that mid-range jumper that the other team has to respect. So when you look at these two big men, they're just playing outstanding basketball. They have to respect each other. I think the question is, which one of these guys is going to get in foul trouble? Because then it's a pretty big drop-off. They really don't have a backup center, and this playoff series could be decided upon who stays on the floor and who's going to be affected between Anthony Davis and Nicole Joachim. You also have an observation about LeBron James, right, that goes, when he gets this deep into the conference finals, what happens? He punches his ticket. I mean, you talk about this guy, he hasn't lost a conference final in about a dozen years. So, I mean, look, he's hungry for that fifth NBA title. It gets him that much closer to Michael Jordan. And again, with LeBron James and how he can impact games, age 38, 20th year in the NBA, we really didn't see much drop-off at all between his record season, which was very good, and this postseason. He said the last time he lost the conference finals, a dozen years. I got 14, my man, 2009, 2023. So we're showing some respect to one. Dennis Scott, I'm Matt Weiner. Good to have you with us. Lakers went right to work tonight. They pressed some of the usual advantages in terms of getting to the free throw line, taking advantage of turnovers, although Golden State didn't give it away too much tonight, and outshot Golden State again, 52 percent from the field and 13 of 26 from three-point range. They hit the same number of threes as Golden State, but in what, 22 fewer attempts, and it was just a lot of LeBron James, who handled the ball a ton tonight and finished with 39-9, and he is off to his, counting them now, 12th conference finals. Yeah, I want to start with LeBron because I just don't understand why people don't give him some more love at this point in his career. B. Wood hit it before the game that LeBron put his imprint from the start of the game to the end, passing, rebounding. We can nitpick and say he missed a couple free throws if we want to, but that happened throughout the game. 43 minutes, Matt? Yep. 43 minutes. So his experience, as you know, playing with him, I don't want to go back to Golden State. I don't want to go back to San Francisco. I don't want to give Steph Curry another chance to prove how good he is what he's shown us throughout these playoffs. Let's get this thing over with tonight, B. Wood. Yeah, LeBron just came out there focused, controlling the tempo of the game, whether it was getting downhill or hitting jumpers, getting that start in the fast break, controlling the tempo. It didn't matter. He was going to do whatever it took tonight to win this basketball game. And for me at this point, I love when he sizes up his opponent, turns his back to him, goes a little old school, and then just plays that bully ball because there's not anybody on the wing that can really deal with his strength. So when he goes ahead and puts his head down and decides to get to the lane and he's got everything going, it becomes real problematic for the defense. This is an incredible number. He has won 16 straight closeout games. Come on, man. He's had the opportunity with whatever team he's on, he's been able to put teams away. Come on, man. I mean, he's one of the best to ever do it. He's one or two. Whatever you want to put him, I ain't even here to debate that tonight. But he's one or two, and it's just because he can do so many things. He can rebound the basketball. He can score the basketball. He controls the tempo of the game. If he needed to go for a 40-point game, he could do that. Not as much now from a defensive standpoint, but in his heyday, he could defend. He still has defensive moments, makes big-time defensive plays. He's a coach on the floor. He sees things before they happen. He thinks the game. And that's the thing. When you hear LeBron talk now, he talks about the mental aspect of the game. He says mentally, he sees the game so much better than he did even 10 years ago. Everything is slowing down for him. He's playing a smarter brand of basketball. And as you watch him the night, you just knew he was not going to let this team lose. He had that look in his eye, and he controlled things right from the jump. Being coachable, you know, greatest player we can debate. But the fact that he and Darvin Hamm are on the same page, Hamm said, you know what, sometimes just get off the ball, LeBron. It's okay. When have we seen LeBron get off the ball as much as we've seen his playoffs? And it's working. He's buying into it. In the fourth quarter, he has so much energy to make the right play. I think that's huge for a guy of his caliber to say, you know what, I got a new coach. He's a champion. Let me continue to be coached. I think it's huge. Got his 30 points on just 14 shots tonight as well. Lakers are... And LeBron James, after a game six closeout win for the Lakers. Just because they're a different team. We're a different team. You know, I think the biggest thing for us was obviously having Dwight kind of disrupt Jokic a little bit. You know, he's obviously one of the two guys that kind of get them going, and actually it's funny that me and Bron talked about it earlier about going back watching that series and kind of see what we did to kind of figure out how we can best match up and get victories over them. So, you know, we'll go back and look at it, but I think the biggest key was just kind of make the ball find the guys we wanted to find and just play off of that. That was one game though, but I mean, I hope they don't find me. I hope I get another one this series. LeBron, you found ways to conserve your energy throughout the course of a game, but with this series, big picture, were you able, when you looked at how you thought it was going to play out, were you able to conserve your energy throughout these games to have the impact you did tonight in game six? I mean, it may have looked like I was conserving my energy, but I mean, I was dead tired after every one of them games. Same with tonight. You know, you don't, you really don't have the opportunity to conserve your energy versus the Golden State team because they always keep you on your heels. You always have to understand and know that anytime you relax, they'll make you pay. So, you know, and for me tonight, I was just, I felt pretty good about my game, like I do every night. And I just wanted to try to come in and, you know, make some plays and be efficient and defend at a high level, help AD rebound, help our team, you know, make winning plays. And I was able to make a few of them. Last three. We'll go Kirk, Jim, and Helene. To either one of you guys, LeBron, you talked about how you guys upgraded the roster. When Rob Palenka in the front office flipped this roster, how did, and you look back to where you are right now, why did it work? Well, it gave us a lot of, I mean, it gave us a lot of shooting, obviously, you know, with D'Lo and Bees, you know, you know, and Mo, Mo Bamba, when we got there, it gave us a lot of shooting, a lot of space to be around myself and AD. We play on the perimeter, but we're not like three-point shooters. And I know I take my fair share. But, you know, when you have that, you know, that space, it allows us to do what we do best and kind of, you know, play downhill. But also it just gave us a lot of depth, gave us a lot of depth. You know, it gives us another ball handler and D'Lo at the time to take some pressure off DS and take some pressure off AR at times, even myself. It gives us a lot of length when we added Rui and added Vando, you know, so, you know, we were very small early in the season, you know, so we would get stouts, but our rebounding was very difficult and challenging for us. So now with the length that we have, we was able to, you know, rebound a lot better, you know, and, and then I think the guys that came in, they just, they just came in with no, no expectations. They just came in and say, okay, well, let's figure this thing out. You know, and from, from my point of view, a lot of them games, I mean, from four and a half weeks, I was sitting, I was out because of my foot injury and I was just watching and seeing, you know, how could I be better? You know, how could I, you know, once I come back, how can I, you know, put myself in a position to help this team continue to continue to thrive, but like they were doing, and I just got super excited by seeing a lot of my tweets when I was not playing and I was just super excited about the games and being played and I couldn't wait to get back. So, I mean, it's a lot more, but that's the cliff notes of it. Last two. Hey, LeBron, do you guys feel like you're playing with house money at this point? What does that mean? Well, I mean, I know what it means as far as, as far as expectations from, from the outside. No, Vandal will say no, no, no, no, we're trying to win every hand. We're trying to win every hand. That's your expectation, our expectation inside. Playing higher than showing up to the West Coast. AD, do you want to ask about the rebounding tonight and also whether you, were you focused on rebounding tonight and at any point did you feel hesitant or did you feel okay the whole time? No, I felt fine. The time that they beat us, you know, they got a lot of offensive rebounds and kicking out some four threes or getting, you know, second chance points. So I just wanted to have emphasis on rebounding basketball and limit their offensive rebounding. They got a couple, but I just wanted to make sure that I did my part in, you know, trying to get every rebound possible on both ends on the floor, but mainly defensively to limit them from those second chance points where they're most deadly.