Lakers fall flat against Nuggets in Game 3, on brink of being swept again – Daily News

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LOS ANGELES — For all of the talk about adjustments and what the Lakers needed to do between Monday’s Game 2 loss in Denver and Thursday night’s Game 3 at Crypto.com Arena to keep themselves from falling into an even deeper hole in their first-round playoff series, LeBron James’ message was simple.

“There’s only so much we can talk about,” the star forward said after the team’s Wednesday practice in El Segundo. “We got to go out and be about it too.

“So all the conversations and talk, ‘OK, we got to do this, we got to do this,’ but we got to go out on the floor and actually make it happen.”

Even if the message was heard, the follow-through was lacking on Thursday night, with the Lakers falling to the Nuggets again, 112-105 – a death knell to the Lakers’ season since NBA teams that fall behind 3-0 in a playoff series have ultimately been eliminated in all 151 of those series.

Only four teams have rallied from a 3-0 deficit to even extend the series to a winner-take-all Game 7.

Game 4 is Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena.

“It’s as simple as win or go home,” Coach Darvin Ham said postgame. “It’s as simple as that. We’ve got to come with competitive pride. Try to get one here and stay alive. It’s one game at a time. That’s all we have is the next game. And so that’s all we should be concerned with, coming in here Saturday, having competitive pride, try to put this thing together and get us one.”

For as much as the Lakers talked about flipping the script after similar losses in Games 1 and 2, Game 3 unfolded in similar fashion, with the play of Anthony Davis (33 points, 15 rebounds), James (26 points, nine assists, six rebounds) and Austin Reaves (22 points, five rebounds, three assists) not being enough to get the Lakers over the hump against the defending NBA champs, who beat them for the 11th consecutive time (seven of those in the playoffs).

The Lakers haven’t beaten the Nuggets since Dec. 16, 2022.

Aaron Gordon had 29 points and 15 rebounds – the highest-scoring playoff game of his 10 NBA seasons – and Nikola Jokic just missed his 17th career postseason triple-double (24 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists) to pace the Nuggets. Jamal Murray scored 22 points and Michael Porter Jr. added 20.

“They have a championship confidence,” Ham said of the Nuggets. “That starting group has been together for a long time. Their net rating is off the charts as a starting group. They had guys step up and make plays.”

The Lakers surged into the postseason with largely outstanding play since Feb. 1, capped by an impressive play-in game victory over New Orleans to secure the seventh seed.

But the Nuggets are the same nightmare matchup for the Lakers – or any opponent, really – that they were a year ago in the conference finals.

“Our focus and our mental right now is just trying to get one,” Davis said. “Trying to get a game and then go from there. Try to get a game on Saturday, Game 4. And go from there.

“However many straight [we lost], we can’t focus on that. Our focus is trying to better from [Thursday], learn from our mistakes and try to get a win on Saturday. We can’t do anything about it. It’s in the past.”

The Lakers missed 15 of their first 16 3-point attempts in Game 3, going nearly 34 minutes between 3-point baskets.

D’Angelo Russell went scoreless in 24 minutes of play for the Lakers, who got only two assists out of their inconsistent third option on offense. Russell missed all seven of his shots, including six 3-point attempts. He declined to speak to the media postgame.

“It’s unfortunate man,” Ham said. “He had some good looks that he just didn’t knock down. It’s as simple as that. Similar to Game 1. He was able to bounce back in Game 2 and I expect him to bounce back in Game 4.”

A matchup with Denver and its tenacious veteran core is challenging even with the Lakers’ regulars all playing well, and Russell’s disappearing act was compounded by another quiet game from starter Rui Hachimura, who had only five points while taking four shots in 28 minutes.

The Lakers, as they did in the series’ first two games, had the early advantage, taking a 33-22 lead into the second quarter after pushing the ball in transition and playing with great pace in the halfcourt.

The Lakers still led, 53-49, at halftime, but the Nuggets did what they’ve done the entire series: dominate the Lakers in the third quarter.

Denver turned its small halftime deficit into a 10-point lead with a 24-10 run to begin the quarter led by Gordon and Murray, who combined for 19 points in the third. When it was over the Nuggets had outscored the Lakers 34-22 in the period to take an 83-75 lead into the fourth.

“We spend so much energy in the first half building leads or the defensive intensity that we have that we come out in the third quarter with not much energy or we can kind of lose track of rotations and detail that we had in the first half,” James said. “A lot of that played into it. And you give credit where credit is due with Denver. Those guys make tough shot after tough shot after tough shot. There’s a lot of things that happened in the third [Thursday].”

The Nuggets have won all three third quarters in this series by a combined score of 91-60, accounting for the bulk of their 42-point advantage in the second halves.

“Our third quarters [have] been atrocious,” Reaves said. “If we want to fight our way back into this one, Saturday we obviously have to be good for all quarters, but that third quarter especially.”

Outside of Davis and James, the Lakers didn’t find any answers to a team that clearly has their number.

There was more bench production offensively, with Gabe Vincent and Spencer Dinwiddie scoring their first points of the series.

But the Lakers couldn’t make up for their poor shot-making, shooting 18.5% from 3-point range (5 for 27). They went from the 5:24 mark in the first quarter to the 7:59 mark in the fourth without making a shot from behind the arc.

The Nuggets shot poorly from the perimeter too (17.9%, 5 for 28), but once again took advantage of the Lakers on the offensive glass, scoring 19 second-chance points off of 14 offensive rebounds.

“Sometimes it’s the guards on bigger guys,” Davis said. “But other times, it’s just simple boxing out or just going to get it. There were times today where guys missed shots and got their own rebound. Everyone is anticipating the other guy going to get it instead of one of us going to get it. That’s where a lot of the rebounds come from.”

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