After beating the New Orleans Pelicans in the Play-In Tournament, the Los Angeles Lakers weren’t given any favors by the league as they were set to face the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
Every team in the Western Conference wanted to avoid playing the Nuggets, and for obvious reasons, with Nikola Jokic and company playing elite basketball right now and looking like the favorite to come out of the West.
Although the Lakers are heavy underdogs to win this series against the Nuggets, the storied franchise has to press on and try to pull off what would likely be the biggest upset of these NBA playoffs.
Unfortunately for Los Angeles, even though they played well in the first half, it wasn’t enough to get the best of the Nuggets in Game 1, as they dropped the first game of the series on Saturday night in Denver.
Lakers guard Austin Reaves spoke after the game and explained what went wrong in the second half.
“I really think it started at the end of the second quarter,” Reaves said. “I think we had like an 11 or 12-point lead, 10-point lead were playing really well and defending well, and then we kind of gave up a couple of possessions, and then they tied it, and Bron hit the three to go into halftime, which gave us a little momentum. Then coming out, they just played better than us. They made shots, we missed a couple good looks. So you tip your hat to that, and we’ll try to get better.”
The Lakers did look as though they were taking control of the game in the first quarter and starting the second quarter with a 12-point lead, but then the Nuggets turned it on and capitalized on missed shots by Los Angeles to cut the lead to three before halftime.
“It felt good, we were rolling, we were getting good looks on offense, competing defensively and making them take tough shots and kind of getting out in transition,” Reaves said. “But it is the nature of the game, you might miss a good look, and then they come down and get a good look or make a tough shot. Those things just happen. It’s good to have that run, get that feeling of seeing what we can do to be successful, but we just got to capitalize on it next game.”
Reaves expressed his frustration dealing with the runs that the Nuggets went on during Game 1 and how the Lakers have to play near-perfect basketball in order to come out on top against arguably the best team in the league.
“I mean, they’re super frustrating, obviously, especially against a team like them because you almost have to play a perfect game anyway because they don’t make mistakes,” Reaves said.
“And when you kind of get them into say a 5-0, 7-0 run, they slow everything down and get exactly where they need and they know exactly what they’re gonna get, they’re gonna get an action that they’re very comfortable with, that they’re ran a million times. We just got to control the flip-flop of that. We got to control when they go on a 7-0 run, we got to do the same exact thing, get a possession that we know where we’re gonna get exactly on that possession to kind of deflate those runs because yeah, it’s frustrating how sound they are as a team.”
Despite falling to 0-1 in the first round with the defending champions, the series is far from over, as they have a chance to even things up on Monday night in Denver before traveling back to Los Angeles for Game 3 and Game 4.
Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell ‘excited’ for opportunity to bounce back in Game 2
Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell had a forgettable performance in Game 1 against the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena, with the veteran sharpshooter going 1-for-9 from beyond the arc and 6-for-20 from the floor.
With Russell having flashbacks of his poor playoff performance last year, the one-time NBA All-Star is motivated and excited to prove his worth in Game 2 in Denver on Monday night in order to help the Lakers even up the series at one game apiece.
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