![]() You think about just winning four games in a row, I’m sure there’s a lot of guys in this gym that have won four games in a row. “Obviously, you see the numbers and, like you said, it’s never been done. “You’ve just got to take it one game at a time,” Lakers guard Austin Reaves said. No team in the NBA has dug out of that playoff hole, the teams on the wrong end of that having gone 0-149. The Lakers trail 3-0 in the best-of-seven series that the Nuggets have controlled because of their better play during all the key moments. They remain confident that this group can overcome the long odds that no team in NBA history has beaten when facing such dire circumstances. The Lakers gathered Sunday to watch film with the idea that they could solve this puzzle in the Western Conference finals that is Denver. “It’s a one-game series for us,” James said, and that one game is scheduled for Monday. They’ve shown that same confidence against the Lakers, making plays and runs that have quieted the chaos within the first three games of the West finals while taking a 3-0 stranglehold in the best-of-seven series.įaced with a one-point deficit with 7 minutes 48 seconds left in the fourth quarter Saturday, the Nuggets launched a 13-0 run that led them to a 119-108 victory and sent fans at Arena streaming toward the exits before the final horn mournfully sounded. Through it all, the Nuggets stayed above the chaos below them. The Lakers, reborn after the trade deadline, won a play-in game, eliminated the immature Memphis Grizzlies, and took out a surprisingly ragged Warriors team that never really found its stride. The Clippers were, well, the Clippers, undercut by injuries despite load-managing themselves into a pretzel. The Golden State Warriors couldn’t win on the road. ![]() The Phoenix Suns flamed brightly for a while and then burned out. ![]() While the Lakers were learning each other’s tendencies, while they evolved from a group of players thrown together on short notice and became a multifaceted team that could count on role players to step up and support LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the Nuggets were refining a core that was unflappable, versatile and efficient. While the Lakers were remaking themselves at the trade deadline and battling back from a clueless 2-10 start that dropped them into the depths of the Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets were quietly and consistently taking care of the business of earning the No. So, even with Reaves scoring 23 points on seven-for-10 shooting and three for five on three-pointers, and adding seven rebounds and five assists in his starting role, it wasn’t enough to help the Lakers in their 119-108 loss to the Nuggets.Įven with Hachimura scoring nine of his 13 points in the fourth quarter and collecting six rebounds, it wasn’t enough to stop the Lakers from going down 3-0 in the best-of-seven series. And there were times when role players like D’Angelo Russell were unable to provide the Lakers much. The Lakers knew they needed their role players to play at a high level, and there were times when Hachimura, Austin Reaves, Jarred Vanderbilt and Dennis Schroder did Saturday in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals. When he made the second of his two free throws, Hachimura had given the Lakers a one-point lead over the resilient Denver Nuggets. As Rui Hachimura stood at the free-throw line in the fourth quarter, a chant rang out from the fans inside Arena:
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