The Denver Nuggets, down 3-1 to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals, do not, in truth, have them right where they want them.
However they may, in the years ahead, look back at this series and see an important catalyst in their leap forward from good-team-with-a-great-story to a fantastic group whose tale actually ends in a championship.
We are constantly– in sports, as fans, in a country at big crazes little and huge– focused on the moment, the now, the instant. However its the long video game– what Erik Spoelstra poignantly called Wednesday night the undervalued power of “months of grind, sweat and work”– that generally draws out in fact, lasting success.
And on Thursday, in Denvers 114-108 loss to LeBron & & Co., you saw all of that: The work, the sweat, the grind, and the months of more of all of those things ahead for Denver, blended with the bitter tablet of the so-close-but-not-close-enough truth they will battle with for months, if they do not pull another 3-1 wonder comeback.
Denver desires a Finals berth and an NBA champion this postseason. The majority of teams have to go to school first, educated by heartache, close calls, best-of-seven-series beatdowns and the up-close look at a real champion.
Particularly now, as Isiah Thomas stated, that at the hands of the Lakers theyve gone to school.
My CBS Sports HQ colleague, and former NBA champion, Avery Johnson echoed that very same belief when I asked him if the Spurs 1998 loss to the Utah Jazz in 5 games in the second-round contributed in San Antonios title run the next season.
“( The) loss in 1998 was the springboard for us in 1999! We needed to get harder, smarter, craftier, more unselfish and play thru misfortune!!!,” Avery texted me. “Our excuses and poor execution was exposed so we chose to improve in those locations. Pop and R.C. did a nice job of adding durability, experience and protectors in totally free company!!”.
Denver desires a Finals berth and an NBA championship this postseason. Obviously it does. A lot of groups have to go to school first, educated by distress, close calls, best-of-seven-series beatdowns and the up-close look at an actual champion.
It may not feel like it now, however LeBron deciding– and needing– to use his experience and smarts and talents to close down Murray, and doing it successfully, bodes well for Denvers long-term future, if undoubtedly not its immediate one. And though Denver would undoubtedly have taken the win, NBA history states theyre getting something nearly as crucial: An education, one that most previous NBA champs required to get to that future they craved..
This is something Hall of Fame player and two-time NBA champ Isiah Thomas talks about often, consisting of when he and I visited this summer, after “The Last Dance.” Hes a huge believer in the lessons that come with losing to greatness, and seeing, first-hand, and learning, painfully, just what the line is in between sufficient and almost excellent enough.
” The credit that we provide to the Lakers and the Celtics– and me myself to Bird and Magic– from learning was so essential,” he stated. “Thats how we improved. We had to go to school.”.
There was, unlike in Game 3, an absence of physicality by the Nuggets that speaks to how tough it is to summon such energy and momentum, over and over, in the playoffs, and particularly against LeBron-led groups..
There was the Lakers turning Game 3s rebounding route into a 41-33 advantage on the glass. There was, in the end– in another close game, in which Denver once again had a shot at erasing a double-digit lead– LeBron stepping up to guard Nuggets phenom Jamal Murray and teach the 23-year-old a first-person lesson about the level of trouble of making, let alone winning, an NBA champion.
” Helluva player,” LeBron informed TNT postgame about his choice to guard Murray down the stretch. Just utilizing my length, using my athleticism and likewise being smart.
Denver might have won that video game. They shot better than 50 percent from the field, were within three with 3:28 to go in the game and within four with 28 seconds left. The might have won Game 2, too.
Isiah understands what hes discussing: Sometimes, uncomfortable though it is, you need an education..
Denver could have won that video game. They shot better than 50 percent from the field, were within 3 with 3:28 to enter the video game and within 4 with 28 seconds left. The might have won Game 2, too. But a LeBron James shutdown on Murray, and an A.D. dagger, has made another comeback really, very unlikely.
That is an unpleasant, harsh, dreadful, insomnia-inducing truth for Denver..
Which is simply why it might prove so handy in the years ahead.
Murray and Nikola Jokic are stars. Michael Porter Jr., for all his disparities, can be part of a Nuggets Big 3. What Mike Malone has actually been preaching has actually worked, and will resonate ever more strongly in the locker room going forward. A team with a strategy and a vision– that know who they are, and believe what they can be– have all of it.
Kyle Lowry got an education in the 2016 Eastern Conference finals, and those lessons, when Kawhi Leonard showed up in 2019, assisted transform the Raptors from a playoff undependable to a postseason star.
LeBron James, the most trusted playoff gamer of his generation– and maybe ever– ended up being that in large part through his brutal performance and late-series abdication in the 2011 NBA Finals versus the Dallas Mavericks. Dirk and the Mavericks, by the way, learned their own lessons mainly, and paradoxically, from Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat a few years earlier, when they blew a Finals result in that team.
We could do this all the way back through the NBAs history of championship groups forged typically by failure before the development: The Pistons getting swept in the 2003 Eastern Conference finals before winning it all the next year … Johnsons Spurs routed by Utah in 1988 … Michael Jordan and the Bulls losing to the Pistons in the 80s … those lessons, and losses, Magic and Bird placed on Isiah and Detroit.
