SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
For those that always have the Denver Nuggets packing their bags and leaving, well, apparently they are not ready to go. For some reason they love the bubble.
And they have survived back-to-back 3-1 deficits in the Western Conference quarterfinals and semifinals, and Tuesday night at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., the 3rd-seeded Nuggets gave notice to the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers by upending them 114-106, in game three of the conference finals.
Now with the overall No.1-seeded Milwaukee Bucks of the Eastern Conference and No. 2 seeded Los Angeles Clippers of the Western Conference eliminated, the Lakers became the favorite to win their 13th National Basketball Association championship. Sounds good, but not an easy task, not with Denver hanging around in upset mold.
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After losing handily in game one, the Nuggets thought they should have won the close game two. But now that they’ve cut the gap to 2-1 behind the versatility and sharpshooting of 6-foot-4 guard Jamal Murray, plus a career playoff high of 26 points from Jerami Grant and the usual stellar performance from 7-foot Nikola Jokic, it’s better then being down 3-1, but it they don’t win game four, it will again be a 3-1 gap to fill. And this win was important, for no team down 0-3 in the playoffs has ever come back.
Said Lakers’ elite LeBron James, who led his team in points, rebounds, assists: “I thought Denver played a real good game, there’s no denying it. Now we have to bounce back, do a lot better on the boards, and play better defense because they have good depth.”
Rebounds? Well, the Nuggets brought down 44, the Lakers had but 25, and on the air they said that it’s been 75 years since the franchise had that low number of rebounds, except that 75 years ago it was 1945 when World War II ended and there weren’t any Lakers. In 1947, there were the Minneapolis Lakers named after the land of 10,000 lakes, who later relocated to Los Angeles and kept the nickname. Whatever, 25 boards is still a low figure for NBA ball.
Denver got away to a good start, leading 29-27 after one quarter and 63-53 at halftime. The lead increased to a whooping 93-73 margin after three quarters, kept the lead at 20 with 10 minutes left in regulation, and kept their poise even when the Lakers went on a 19-2 run to trim the deficit to 101-98 with 3:37remaining. But the Nuggets maintained their advantage behind corner shots from Garry Harris and Monte Morris, plus the superb defensive job Paul Milsap did on the 7-foot Anthony Davis, who scored 27 points
but brought down only two rebounds and dished out but one assist.
Denver broke away to a 7-0 lead on the way to ending a streak of six-straight games where it trailed at halftime. A Murray 3,his first of four, and a stuff shot by Morris to put the Nuggets up 44-29. Then came the hectic final minutes and the heroics of Murray.
Los Angeles had turned to a zone defense that forced turnovers that led to easy baskets. Then with the lead down to four, Murray tossed in a 3 with 2:36 remaining. Next he found Milsap under the basket for a score, followed by a long 3 to push the lead back to 111-109 with 53 seconds left on the scoreboard.
Murray played the game-high 44 minutes. He was 10-for-17 from the field. He also grabbed eight rebounds and a team-best 12 boards. Jokic added 22 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. Morris scored 14 and Milsap scrubbed the boards for eight rebounds. The team had eight steals, made 11-of-31 from the 3, handed out 26 assists, had 18 turnovers, shot 79.3 from the foul line, and blocked two shots.
For the Lakers, James did his share with team highs in scoring (30 points), rebounds (10), and 11 assists. He played 39 minutes. Davis turned in 43 minutes but this wasn’t one of his better games inside. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope tallied a dozen and Kyle Kuzma contributed 11. LA came away with 11 steals, three blocks, 16 turnovers, was 63.6 from the charity stripe, and was able to make only six 3s on 26 attempts.
The teams play again Thursday night.
In the Eastern Conference finals, the 5th-seeded Miami Heat won games one and two, but the 3rd-seeded Boston Celtics won game three Sunday, and the teams had a break before tonight’s game four. The Celts are the all-time NBA champions with 19 titles, the Lakers are next with 16. They have faced each other 12 times in the final, but currently Miami and Denver are in the way.
