At long last, Denver shall have a chance of winning the title. The Denver Nuggets ended 47 years of anguish and misery for their loyal fans as they completed the sweep of the LA Lakers and won their first Western Conference championship, sending them to their first NBA Finals.
What a way to reach your first NBA Finals.
In a thrilling, tense game, the Denver Nuggets defeated a desperate Los Angeles Lakers 113-111 through a last-second defensive stand on LeBron James, giving the Nuggets their first ever NBA Finals appearance in franchise history. And, as I said, this was honestly the best way the Nuggets could have possibly of closed out this series.
Seriously, for an old franchise like the Nuggets, who haven’t had a whiff of the NBA Finals, let alone winning the title, in their history to at last reach the coveted Finals series by knocking out the most storied Western Conference franchise (LA Lakers) in a sweep in front of the LA fans is nothing short of poetic.
In fact, this series might have been a rite of passage for the Nuggets as a franchise as the Lakers are not only have the joint-most eliminations of the Nuggets (the San Antonio Spurs are the other) in Denver’s postseason history (7 times: 1979, 1985, 1987, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2020), but they also are the franchise that has beaten the Nuggets in Conference Finals the most (Nuggets have lost 3/4 CF series prior to this one to the Lakers).
Oh, and in the 47 years the Nuggets have been a franchise, they have never beaten the Lakers in a postseason series. Yup, Denver was 0-7 coming against the Lakers into this round.
Yet, the times are obviously changing and the destructive force the LA Lakers once were over Denver is no more as the Nuggets FINALLY overcame their playoff demon and beat LA 113-111. And, it really was a heroic performance by those Nuggets players.
It could have been really easy for the Nuggets to lie over and let the Lakers win a game in front of their home crowd as this LA team was super zoned-in at the get-go. LeBron James (40 PTS, 10 REB, 9 AST, 2 STLS, 15-25 FG shooting) had his best performance of the postseason yet as he posted a 40-point Double-Double and scored 30 points in the 1st-half alone, while the entire starting lineup all scored double-digit point tallies.
Honestly, this was the best I’ve seen the Lakers since they closed out Golden State in Game 6 as guys like Austin Reaves (17 PTS, 2 REB, 3 AST), Dennis Schroder (13 PTS, 2 REB, 5 AST, 2 STLs), Rui Hachimura (10 PTS, 7 REB, 0 AST), and even a resurrected (basketball-wise) Tristian Thompson (4 PTS, 1 REB, 0 AST) were giving their all and contributing on both ends of the floor, allowing the Lakers to have their best shooting statistics of the CF round with 46.5% FG (40-86) converted, 40.0% of 3-pointers (8-20) converted, and 88.5% free throws (23-26) made.
If I had to point out a flaw in this Lakers performance, I’d have to be AD’s rather tepid 21 PTS, 14 REB, 1 AST, 1 STL, 3 BLKs performance.
Yes, these are good stats in their own right, but the Lakers need another 30-point performance out of AD to win this game. But that’s irrelevant as at the end of the day, this series was all about the Western Conference Champions: the Denver Nuggets!
Despite going down 73-58 at halftime and going down by as many as 15 points throughout this game, the Denver Nuggets never quit. Led by Nikola Jokic (30 PTS, 14 REB, 13 AST, 1 STL, 3 BLKs) and Jamal Murray (25 PTS, 3 REB, 5 AST, 2 STLs, 1 BLK), the Nuggets weathered the pressure, the raucous LA crowd, and the onslaught from King James by returning every FG and 3-pointer with one of their own in the 2nd half.
Guys like Aaron Gordon (22 PTS, 6 REB, 5 AST, 2 BLKs), Michael Porter Jr. (15 PTS, 10 REB, 1 AST), and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (13 PTS, 4 REB, 1 AST) all played huge roles in allowing the Nuggets to go toe-to-toe with the Lakers in the 2nd half as they were usually the ones making the crucial shots.
The Lakers lead evaporated like water under the sun as it trickled down from 15 to 9 to 5 to 3 to 1 and then a back-and-forth lead change before the Nuggets finally got a stranglehold of the lead with just 2 minutes left in the game.
And, after surviving another Lakers rally to lead 113-111 with under a minute left, the berth to the Western Conference finals rested on if the Nuggets could get one final stop on LeBron James. So, with 4 seconds on the clock and the ball in LeBron’s hands a few feet inside the paint off the inbound pass, were the Nuggets able to stop arguably the greatest ever player in NBA history from forcing a Game 5? ABSOLUTELY!
Both Gordon and Murray stuck on James like they were glue as they literally grasped onto the ball and didn’t allow him to even get a shot up to the backboard, let alone a decent look at the rim.
Thus, after 47 years of playoff torment at the hands of the Lakers and the rest of the Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets were finally able to lift the Oscar Robertson WCF Trophy and call themselves the West’s champions. Oh, and obviously The Joker won the Earvin “Magic” Johnson WCF MVP Award.
I’ll have another article discussing where the Lakers season went wrong, but that’s for another day as the Denver Nuggets are going to the NBA Finals!
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