Los Angeles Lakers veteran LeBron James admitted they got to do better after their narrow 101-99 loss in the second match of the first-round playoffs against reigning champions Denver Nuggets. James feels they had their chances but they could not hang on to a 20-point lead.
Jamal Murray scored the match-winning basket at the buzzer on Monday night as the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the seven-match series.
“A 20-point lead in this league, it’s not safe, especially against the defending champion,” James said. “We’ve got to do better. But we had our chances.”
Murray didn’t even see his shot going in and realised it was in when everyone around him screamed with joy.
“I just lost my balance and fell. I think A.D. was in my way or somebody was in my way and I just heard everybody scream and that’s how I knew it went in,” said Murray, who was mobbed by his teammates after his bucket gave the reigning NBA champions their 10th consecutive win over the Lakers.
Meanwhile, it wasn’t the smoothest of shooting nights for Murray as he missed 13 of his first 16 attempted shots but he had the backing of his teammates.
“I told my teammates when I was struggling, ‘I’m gonna look for y’all,’ and every single one of them told me to keep shooting,” recounted Murray, who did just in going 6-for-8 for 14 points in the fourth quarter to finish with 20 points.
“They told me to stay aggressive and keep looking for it, keep hunting and when I had the ball with 2 seconds left, I knew once I had made a couple, the next one should go down, as well.”
Nuggets head coach Michael Malone revealed why he didn’t call for a time-out despite the score being tied at 99.
“We got the stop. Tie game. Why let them get set?” Malone reasoned. “Because, when they can get set and they switch out everything, you might not even get the ball inbounds. So, I wanted to make sure we could just flow into it and let our best players make plays.”
Meanwhile, Jokic posted a triple-double with 27 points, 20 boards and 10 assists. Porter added 22 points and Aaron Gordon 14 for Denver.
On the other hand, Davis led the Lakers with 32 points, James had 26 and D’Angelo Russell added 23.
The third game of the series will be played on Thursday.
