Having just logged the 285th playoff game of his career — clearing the entire Denver Nuggets starting five’s combined 275 — Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James spoke from plenty of experience when he detailed what it takes to thrive in the postseason after Thursday night’s 112-105 Game 3 loss.
“You’re supposed to have anxiety and pressure — or feel the pressure,” James said after Denver went up 3-0 in their first-round series, one win away from sweeping L.A. into its summer for a second straight year. “That’s what it’s about. This is what the postseason is about.”
With Anthony Davis to his right, James endorsed his and the Lakers center’s ability to perform when the games matter most. The pair combined for 59 points. James finished with 26 points on 12-for-20 shooting, six rebounds and nine assists, while Davis led L.A. with 33 points on 14-for-23 shooting and 15 boards.
He didn’t say the same for the rest of the Lakers, who were outplayed by a Denver team that had two players, Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr., each top the 20-point plateau to back stars Nikola Jokic (29 points, 15 rebounds) and Jamal Murray (22 points, nine assists).
No one was able to ask Lakers point guard D’Angelo Russell that question. After going scoreless in Game 3 on 0-for-7 shooting (0-for-6 from 3), he declined to speak to reporters after the game, according to a team spokesperson.
“We’ve been — me and this guy [Davis] have been playing together for six years,” James continued. “We’ve been to the mountaintop. We’ve been close to the mountaintop. We’ve played a lot of games. We know what it takes to win. We know what it takes to win a championship and how damn near perfect you got to be. That’s not like something that’s so crazy to obtain.”
“Our third quarter’s been atrocious,” said guard Austin Reaves, the only Lakers player to score in double-digits besides James and Davis, albeit with 10 of his 22 points coming late in the fourth quarter after the Nuggets had taken control.”
The Lakers are averaging just 102.3 points in the series. L.A. averaged 124.4 points in the 12 wins it had in its final 15 regular-season games plus the play-in tournament leading into the Denver series.
“It’s one game at a time, at this point,” James said. “You lose, you go home. So we’re going come in with the mindset of, ‘Let’s get one.’ Force a Game 5 and then we go from there. So as long as you still have life, then you always have belief. I just think you play until the wheels fall off.”