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Nuggets crash LA West party
Just about everyone had LA vs LA written in for the National Basketball Association Western Conference finals.
Then along came the resilient Denver Nuggets, who crashed the party at Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
Behind Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets advanced to the conference finals for the first time since 2009. They will face LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, with Game 1 tomorrow.
But this was no ordinary road. The Nuggets fell behind 1-3 in their first-round series against the Utah Jazz before bouncing back with three straight victories. Then they went down 1-3 to the Los Angeles Clippers in the second round before winning in Game 7 again.
They made history, too, becoming the first NBA team to rally from a 1-3 series deficit twice in the same postseason.
As expected, Denver is an underdog against the Lakers. Murray & Co are used to it. 鈥淓verybody counts us out. It鈥檚 fun to silence everybody,鈥 Murray said. 鈥淲e love it.鈥
The last time the Nuggets were in the conference finals they faced the Lakers as well, losing in six games. That squad was coached by George Karl and boasted Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony. The Lakers were led by the late Kobe Bryant and would go on to win the NBA title over the Orlando Magic.
This time, Denver features a play-making point guard in Murray and a center who thinks of himself as a point guard in Jokic.
Combined, they鈥檝e helped the Nuggets go 6-0 in elimination games this postseason. Pressure doesn鈥檛 bother them. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just fun, the journey,鈥 Jokic said. 鈥淭his is an interesting team. We don鈥檛 have many superstars.鈥
Actually, they have two burgeoning stars in Murray and Jokic. In the Game 7 104-89 win over the Clippers, Murray scored 40 points while Jokic finished with 16 points, 13 assists and 22 rebounds.
The Nuggets are playing with an abundance of confidence, no matter the deficit. They were down by double digits in Games 5, 6 and 7 but came back to win each time.
鈥淲e are not accepting that someone is better than us,鈥 said Jokic, whose squad beat San Antonio last season in Game 7 before losing to the Portland Trail Blazers in seven games. 鈥淭hey really need to beat us and need to play much better than us ... When we start playing for each other and you see the ball is flowing and the defense and everybody has everyone鈥檚 back, it鈥檚 really fun.鈥
Denver certainly quieted the noise around the Clippers, who hoped the additions of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George would lead them to their first-ever conference finals 鈥 and beyond. But LA鈥檚 stars fell flat.
鈥淚t hurts. It hurts. But we move on,鈥 George said. 鈥淵ear 1 together, first run together, of course we wanted to win this. But we鈥檝e been very optimistic about us being together and building something going down the road.鈥
After a quick celebration on Tuesday 鈥 of the win and coach Michael Malone鈥檚 49th birthday 鈥 the Nuggets will be ready to get back to business.
鈥淲e know what we got,鈥 Murray said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e a top-four team in the league and we鈥檙e trying to push to be No. 1. ... We鈥檝e got a squad that believe in each other and know we can go out there and win it.鈥
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