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ACCUSCORE SERIES PREVIEW: LAKERS VS NUGGETS

Stephen Oh

AccuScore Analyst

Twitter @thejonlee

The Lakers have been the best team in the Western Conference all season long despite their bad habit of coming out flat every two or three games. Since Chauncey Billups arrived the Nuggets have been the second best team out West. They are deep, they are tough, and they can win a variety of ways.

Baseline Forecast

The Lakers have home field advantage and are solid favorites at home against the Nuggets winning 71.8% of simulations in LA. The Nuggets are favored at home, winning 51.8% of simulations, but with the Lakers having home court advantage they are winning this series nearly 75% of the time.

The Lakers are favored in simulations because they are out-rebounding the Nuggets and shooting better from the field. In the simulations played in Los Angeles, the Lakers out-rebound the Nuggets by 6. This advantage goes down to just 0.5 in Denver, but the Lakers still have the slight rebounding edge. This is not surprising considering the Lakers were 5th in the league this year with a +2.4 average rebounding margin advantage and the Nuggets were just 16th in this category.

The Lakers are also getting the edge in overall Field Goal percentage, but the Nuggets are taking and making more three pointers. A key to the Nuggets upsetting the Lakers is three-point shooting. The Nuggets were a solid 37.1% from three point range this season and in simulations they are shooting 38% as a team. However, the Nuggets have been hot from three point range shooting 42.8% in the playoffs.

If the Nuggets can shoot 43% from three point range as a team they have a 41.3% chance of winning this series which is a huge 16.2 percentage point increase from the baseline.

STAR PLAYER IMPACT

This series is loaded with star players.  AccuScore ran this series with and without 4 key players:  Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony. 

The Lakers without Kobe Bryant go from winning this series 74.9% of the time down to just 41% without him.  This is a 33.9 percentage point drop which translates to a nearly -45% difference.  Kobe is the clear star of this team, but do not underestimate the value of Pau Gasol.  While he’s not as good from the perimeter as Dirk Nowitzki, he certainly is a threat from 17 to 20 feet, and is a more effective low-post scorer than Nowitzki.  Dirk was able to average well over 30 points on 50%+ shooting against the quality Nuggets defenders.  If Pau can handle the physical nature of the Nuggets, he should also have success.  Without Pau, the Lakers would also go from favorite to underdog winning just 48.4% of the series simulations.

The clear leader of the Denver Nuggets is Chauncey Billups.  As good as Carmelo Anthony is and has been since joining Denver, the Nuggets did not get anywhere in the playoffs until Billups arrived.  If something were to happen to Chauncey Billups the Nuggets would not be able to replace his leadership, three point shooting, clutch free throw shooting, and perimeter defense.  Without Billups the Nuggets’ chances of winning the series go from 25.1% down to just 6.8%.  This 18 point drop translates to a negative 72.9 percentage difference.

Carmelo Anthony is a great scorer, good passer (over 3 assists per game as an SF) and very solid rebounder.  However, the Nuggets were a solid 8-5 without Carmelo because they have players like JR Smith, Nene, and Linas Kleiza who are capable of stepping up offensively if Carmelo is not available.  They are not as efficient as ‘Melo, but the drop-off without Anthony is ‘just’ a -4.6 percentage point drop.  The percentage drop is a substantial 18.3%, but it is the lowest drop-off of the 4 star players profiled here.