The upcoming first-round playoff series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets is being billed as a rematch of last season’s Western Conference Finals, when the Lakers got swept. Overall, they have lost eight straight games to the Nuggets, and almost nobody thinks they have a real shot of overcoming the defending NBA champs.
To make matters worse, the Nuggets boasted about up-ending the Lakers after they won it all. That included their head coach, Michael Malone, who pranced around like a peacock during their championship parade.
But LeBron James downplayed the notion of this being a shot at revenge for his team. In fact, he’s acting like it’s just like any other first-round matchup.
Via ESPN:
“I think you’re putting a little bit too much emphasis on it,” James said after practice Thursday when asked about the rematch factor for the two teams. “This is our first-round matchup. I mean, we’re looking forward to the postseason. But I haven’t been, like, looking forward to the rematch. The game is played how it’s being played, and this is the matchup. So we’re looking forward to that challenge.”
“… It shouldn’t be personal at all,” James said when asked about the motivation for payback. “I think you allow yourself to get away from the game plan when you make it too personal. We have a game plan. You go out there and execute it and you live with the results. I’m kind of the last person you should [ask that] — I just stay even-keeled. I’ve been in the postseason way too long in my career to know that you don’t get too high off of Game 1 or get too high over whoever the matchup is. You got to just stay even-keeled.”
While James averaged just 24.0 points a game in three regular-season games against Denver, he has said he’s feeling relatively healthy these days. That wasn’t the case last spring, as he was working his way back from a right foot injury that had forced him to miss a month.
This series will begin on Saturday in Colorado. If L.A. somehow manages to win Game 1, they could suddenly have a real shot at getting past Nikola Jokić and crew.
