The Los Angeles Lakers find themselves in a tough predicament in their Western Conference Finals matchup with the Denver Nuggets. The Lakers are in a 2-0 hole heading back home to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4 after losing some tightly contested NBA playoff games on the road.
The Nuggets received dominant performances from Nikola Jokic in Game 1 and Jamal Murray in Game 2 to take the series lead. Jokic continues to re-write the playoff history books for the center position, while Murray turned around a brutal shooting night with one magical fourth quarter.
While Nuggets head coach Michael Malone loathes hearing the narratives all being focused around the Lakers, the purple and gold can take some solace in how they played the first two games. Denver is the No. 1 seed for a reason and showed why, getting two hard-fought victories.
While some people are already writing off the Lakers, they still have time to climb back into this series. James shared a bold quote after the Game 2 loss, as his confidence isn’t wavering despite being in an early hole.
“This is not the NCAA tournament,” James said. “It’s first to 4 wins.”
James is certainly right about that. He and his teammates have five more chances to win four games and advance to the NBA Finals. They have found some success with a few adjustments made by head coach Darvin Ham, but they have yet to result in a victory.
They are hoping that changes when the series shifts to Crypto.Com Arena for the next two games. The Nuggets have a lot of firepower that is tough to slow down, but the Lakers have found ways to do it for stretches at a time.
If they can put together a full four-quarters of that game plan, a victory will be there for the taking. Being down 2-0 certainly isn’t an easy obstacle to overcome, but James-led teams have faced deficits in the postseason previously and overcame them. Does he have it in himself to lead his team one more time? We will see starting with Game 3 on Saturday night.
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