This series examines how the presumably now-elite Lakers stack up against their fellow brethren, and the Nuggets would largely be considered one tier lower. Thus, their inclusion here could feel strange.
LOS ANGELES -- Close-out games in a playoff series have a way of turning paupers into princes overnight. There was the 37-year-old Steve Kerr, playing in his 15th and final season for the San Antonio Spurs when he came off the bench to hit all of his shots in Game 6 of the 2003 Western Conference finals against the Dallas Mavericks, going 4-for-4 on 3-pointers and scoring 12 points, which happened to be the Spurs' margin of victory, 90-78, that night.
When the Lakers won Game 4 in Denver to take a 3-1 lead, the odds that this series would reach seven games seemed long. L.A. absorbed a quality shot from the Nuggets, trying to even things up, and now had a chance to close at home in a building where Denver has historically seen little success.
That the Lakers failed to close out Denver on Tuesday wasn't horrible in and of itself, but the reason for failure certainly was. It's one thing to get outplayed, especially by a quality team desperate to stay alive.
"Closeout games are actually kinda easy. Teams tend to fold if you come out and play hard in the beginning. So we wanna come out and establish an early lead and protect it." This was Andrew Bynum's response when asked about the inherent difficulty of closeout games.
On one hand, nobody with grounded expectations should have expected the Lakers to sweep their way into the second round of the playoffs. In that respect, seeing them drop Game 3 to the Nuggets isn't necessarily alarming.
The Lakers' postseason got off to as incredible a start as even those with wildly active imaginations could envision. Suffocating defense, spearheaded by Andrew Bynum in a performance that literally made NBA history.
Denver coach George Karl used his press conference following the Nuggets' 103-88 loss to try to get into the referees heads and gain more favorable officiating in Game 2. "(Andrew Bynum) was playing nice illegal defense," Karl said after Bynum tied the all-time NBA playoff record with 10 blocked shots Sunday.
To be certain, Wednesday's win over the Spurs carries the potential of galvanizing the Lakers 59 games into a maddeningly inconsistent and often lethargic season. Taking down the Spurs at full strength in their house without the services of Kobe Bryant is both meaningful and a reminder of what this team is capable of when putting their minds to a task.
Before Saturday's win against the Nuggets, head coach George Karl was asked if he has felt a sense of L.A. becoming more of a "Clipper town." The coach's response hardly painted a city's colors shifting from purple and gold to red, white and blue, but it was nonetheless interesting: "I saw the game last night and before the game, the place was packed," Karl said.
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