How the Lakers can upset the Warriors

The Lakers are (correctly) betting underdogs in this series. It's not a great matchup. But there is a path to an upset.

There is a real truth that comes with watching a game seven between teams vying to play yours in the next series. Sunday afternoon told me a lot about myself. More than I wanted to know, frankly. Certainly, the four-team parlay that only needed Sacramento to come through played a roll in my rooting interests, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want the Kings to win because I felt exponentially more confident in the Lakers against them.

And for good reason, Steph Curry happened and suddenly a magical Kings season ended like a Game of Thrones episode.

Midway through the third quarter, when it became clear the Kings weren’t winning, I suddenly felt myself start to get anxious. I got grumpy. There were no two ways about it. I did not want the Warriors.

The Lakers opened as underdogs. Makes sense. They don’t have home court advantage in this series. LeBron James hasn’t looked 100% yet. Anthony Davis has certainly had moments and was absolutely dominant defensively, but his offense came and went against Memphis. The Lakers’ role players are still collectively unproven. This is an uphill battle — but not a cliff.

The Lakers have a path, albeit a narrow, treacherous and unforgiving one, to beating the reigning champs — to scaling this mountain.

Let’s just get this out of the way: James and Davis have to be significantly better than they were in the Memphis series. Yes, it was nice seeing the balanced scoring approach the Lakers were able to take, but we saw what it looks like when stars don’t play up to their titles in Sunday’s game seven. Steph is gonna show up. James and Davis have to do the same.

But look, they only have to dominate four times. James only really reached down deep on a few occasions against that broken Memphis team and when he did, the Lakers followed suit. Draymond Green has had Davis’ number for most of his career, but the Lakers just need four games in which Davis returns the favor.

In the NBA, the guys at the top of the roster win otherwise even series. If the Lakers are going to pull off this upset, it’ll be because in four of the next seven games, James and Davis overwhelmed an undersized Golden State team.

Speaking of size, one thing Darvin Ham absolutely cannot do is use Golden State’s lack thereof as an excuse to go small. Last series should have taught everyone which identity makes the most sense here. The Lakers are a big, physical, grinding team that can have a couple smaller guys go off. If Ham tries to match Curry, Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole with multi-small-guard lineups, this will be a short series.

James and Davis is a huge, bruising frontcourt. Jarred Vanderbilt is long and athletic. Rui Hachimura is built like an off-road SUV. D’Angelo Russell doesn’t use his size that often, but he’s big for his position. This might actually be a series where you see if Mo Bamba can keep Kevon Looney off the offensive glass if that’s his sole focus. Point is, the Lakers have the pieces to out-muscle Golden State and stick this series in the mud. This, to me, should be their approach.

All that said, the smaller guys who can play in this series (Austin Reaves, Dennis Schröder, Russell and maaaaaaaaybe Troy Brown) have to knock down shots. Golden State has had the amount of success they have because they’ve broken the math of basketball. The Lakers obviously aren’t going to flip that on its head, but they do need to stay respectably close.

And no, to be clear, I do not think this is a Malik Beasley series. I don’t think those exist.

Finally, game six against Memphis should have taught the Lakers exactly what they’re capable of with a shortened rotation. My guess is Ham lengthens it out again to see who matches up as the teams feel each other out, but I think doing so would be a mistake. Golden State is coming off a grueling seven-game series. The Lakers have the rest advantage. The best opportunity to steal a home game and force an otherwise bad road team to win in L.A. is probably game one.

If the Lakers can sneak out of The Bay with a split, and then take care of business back in Money Laundering Crypto Dot Com Arena, they just might be able to pull this off in six.

(Which, last I, um, checked — yeah, checked that’s it… sat at +475).

If they’re going to pull this off, it’s going to take a strict approach that ignores some of Ham’s most consistent basketball ideologies. If they stick to this path ahead. If they ride out the downpours of threes that just come with facing off against the Warriors, they’ll be standing atop a historically unscaled mountain with a beautiful, clear view of the NBA Finals on the horizon.