Lakers Nuggets Summary



Best Player / Most Valuable Player: Ty Lawson (Individual +22, Net +20). And the decade-long tradition of Lakers teams giving up big series to quick point guards continues. Lawson's end-to-end quickness is amazing to watch, but this series revealed that a reliable 3 pointer is probably all that stands between Lawson and All-Star level play.

Worst Player: Steve Blake (Individual -17). Steve Blake's shooting in Games 4 and 7 probably won the Lakers series, right? Then why is is plus/minus so bad? Probably because of the minutes he logged playing shooting guard with the 2nd unit, and getting torched by Andre Miller. Lucky for him, World Peace arrived just in time to take this defensive assignment off his hands. This is extremely important for the Lakers, because waiting in the next round is James Harden, who will probably prove a tougher cover.

Least Valuable Player: Danilo Gallinari (Net -18). Aside from Game 6, Gallinari's plus/minus numbers were just terrible. It's hard to figure this one out, because with World Peace out, there was no theoretical matchup to keep this guy in check other an ailing, aging, shorter Bryant. As a big Gallinari fan, his career ceiling may have shifted from poor man's #1/quality #2 to #2/#3 with this series.

Jerome James Award: Kenneth Faried. Yeah, he averaged a double-double in the series. Yeah, he's got an awesome nickname. And yeah, he's one half of my regular season highlight of the year. At the same time, let's pump the brakes on the Manimal love-fest. He clearly has a place in the league as a backup energy guy, rebounder. He's probably great from a chemistry perspective as the 7th or 8th guy on a team. But unless he's the second coming of Charles Barkley, Game 7 showed everyone the limit of his game: against engaged, legitimate NBA size, he will have trouble on both ends of the floor. And that in no way keeps him from being my new favorite Denver Nugget.