The usual SEO-friendly “Lakers lose to Nuggets, 102-99” title won’t do this game justice.
Because the Lakers’ effort on Tuesday can’t be told accurately by the score.
The situation was set up perfectly: L.A. was up 3-1 in the series with Game 5 being at Staples, where the Lakers are essentially unbeatable. The Nuggets had zero momentum heading in, after losing a heart-breaker in Game 4, putting them in a precarious situation.
With the Oklahoma City Thunder waiting in the wings, perhaps it would’ve made sense to get rid of these Nuggets and move on.
Oh you thought that’d happen? Who the f*** do you think this is?
These are your L.A. Lakers, ladies and gentleman. A team that was nearly run out of their own gym by a middling Denver Nuggets team while the home crowd booed them off the floor. This team had their ass handed to them, box score be damned.
Tuesday night did, in fact, happen. The Lakers did play like trash all game, and this was one of the worst Laker games I’ve ever seen in the playoffs since the second round of the 2009 Western Conference playoffs against a Yao Ming-less Houston. Andrew Bynum never got the damn ball and everyone rarely made a damn shot from the perimeter.
And you know what puts this game on a whole other level of “suck”? The Nuggets had arguably their worst game of the series.
This game really happened, and I’m pissed.
Most Laker fans will, in fact, excuse this game — largely made up of a piss-poor effort for literally 42 minutes — because the Lakers did a very Laker thing and “miracled” their way back into the game with barrages of made three-pointers from Steve Blake, Kobe Bryant and Ramon Sessions.
I’m not.
This game has me fuming. I’m normally a not serious guy most times, but in the wake of one of the crappiest Laker efforts I’ve seen in a long time, no more Mr. Nice Guy.
In all honesty, the Lakers could have closed this game out when the damn thing started; it wasn’t as if the Nuggets came out, guns blazing. Andrew Bynum’s typical Andrew Bynum-esque effort screwed the Lakers’ defense as a whole from the beginning, and the outside shooting from the bench guys and overall lack of cohesion was disgusting.
I don’t know what to say, other than that this team could only lose like this on purpose, probably to bring Metta World Peace back for Game 1.
Game 6 is in Denver. Now leave me alone.