This is it — the Los Angeles Lakers’ season has come down to Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals on Monday. Any thought that they could compete in this series after the first two games versus the Denver Nuggets has all but vanished after Game 3.
Even after Jamal Murray finally went cold and Nikola Jokic got into foul trouble in the second half of Game 3, the Lakers were only able to take three brief, scant fourth-quarter leads before surrendering a 13-0 run and a 3-0 series deficit.
They will not want to get swept in front of their home fans, and they will want to maintain some of their dignity if they indeed have no shot at coming back to take this series.
Los Angeles, at a minimum, will need to do these three things in order to finally get a win.
Get off to a sizable lead
The Lakers cannot make Denver feel like it is going to sweep them, and they will therefore need to open up a lead of at least two possessions and ideally at least 10 points by the end of the third quarter.
If this game remains close, and especially if Denver takes a lead itself or goes on yet another torrid stretch, the Lakers will likely get nervous knowing that their season is on life support.
D'Angelo Russell must play well
Russell has been the biggest disappointment for L.A. in this series so far. He has been colder than a winter night in Siberia, as he’s shooting 29.6 percent overall and 14.3 percent from 3-point range.
He may not need to score 20-plus points, but he at least needs to be in the high teens, and most importantly, he needs to be efficient, especially from downtown.
Why can’t he? After all, in 17 regular season games with the Lakers this year, he shot 48.4 percent from the field and 41.4 percent from beyond the arc.
Play with pride and passion
This may not be a championship-caliber Lakers team, but it is a good one, maybe even a very good one, and it needs to play as such.
If or when a team is going to get knocked out of the playoffs, it cannot go out with a whimper — it has to go down kicking and screaming.
The Lakers are hoping, at the very least, to use this season and playoffs as a bridge toward championship contention next season. Getting swept would not be a good way to head into an important offseason, especially with LeBron James inching closer to the end of his viability as a relevant player.
James has gotten swept only twice before, and both sweeps happened in the NBA Finals. A third sweep wouldn’t look good for his legacy, especially after his team has played so well over the last three months.
