James, Lakers facing elimination Saturday. Magic, Pelicans and Heat seek home wins
Nikola Jokic moved LeBron James out of the way as they battled for a rebound, grabbed the ball, got fouled and scored off the putback.
And all James could do was turn his palms skyward, as if to ask “what else can I do?”
That sequence in the third quarter of Game 3 of the first-round NBA playoff series between Jokic’s Denver Nuggets and James’ Los Angeles Lakers basically sums up the series. James has done his part. The Nuggets have just been better.
There’s a quadrupleheader of playoff games in the NBA on Saturday — Cleveland at Orlando, Oklahoma City at New Orleans, Boston at Miami and then the first possible elimination game of this opening round when Denver takes a 3-0 series lead into L.A. to try and sweep the Lakers for a second straight season.
“It’s one game at a time at this point, and you lose, you go home,” James said. “You come out with the mindset, let’s get one, force a Game 5 and then we’ll go from there. So, as long as you still have life, then you always have belief.”