Sports Time Radio

The Denver Nuggets took a 3 games to none lead in their series with the Los Angeles Lakers last night. The Nuggets easily won Game 3 119-108 on the road. The Nuggets will have a chance to sweep the Lakers out of the Western conference finals Monday night in Los Angeles.

Jamal Murray led the way for the Nuggets last night scoring 37 points. Nikola Jokic added 24 points and led the Nuggets with 8 assists. It’s to the point where it almost seems like an off night for Jokic when he doesn’t post a triple double. Former Laker Kentavious Caldwell-Pope scored 17 points while Michael Porter Jr. posted a double double with 14 points and team high 10 rebounds. Bruce Brown came off the Nuggets bench to contribute 15 points in the win.

Anthony Davis led the Lakers in scoring with 28 points and he also grabbed a game high 18 rebounds. Austin Reaves and Lebron James each scored 23 points for the Lakers while James also added a game high 12 assists. Even though eight Lakers saw game action off of the bench only Rui Hachimura reached double figures in scoring as he went for 13 points in the loss.

Of course, the reaction to the Nuggets winning the first three games in this series seems to be one of surprise, but should it be. Denver is the #1 seed in the Western conference while the Lakers had to win their way through the play-in portion of the NBA playoffs. The Nuggets had a regular season record of 53-29 while the Lakers posted a regular season record of 43-39.

I’m under the impression that the reaction to Denver more or less dominating this series is the fact that the Nuggets don’t see a lot of media coverage. Even though Jokic came into this season winning back-to-back Most valuable Player awards the Nuggets weren’t exactly a team that was featured in the NBA’s television coverage. I’m not even sure if winning an NBA title would increase the amount of media coverage the Nuggets would get. Instead, they’d just be referred to as defending NBA champions.

Of course, the Nuggets will still have another series to win after the eliminate the Lakers in the Western conference finals. I understand that since the Lakers are involved in this series it’s featured like it’s for the championship, but it’s not. Denver will still have to beat the winner of the Boston Celtics/Miami Heat Eastern conference finals series to win the NBA championship.

In a series that’s been a real surprise the Miami Heat have found a way to win the first two games of their Eastern conference finals series against the Boston Celtics, in Boston. This gives the Heat a huge advantage heading into Game 3 today.

I don’t think that there was anyone out there that thought the Heat would go into Boston and take the first two games of this playoff series, but they did.

Boston has had issues down the stretch in the first two games of this series. In the 4th quarter of Game 1 the Celtics went scoreless for over four minutes and turned the basketball over three times two of which were traveling calls on Jayson Tatum. In Game 2 the Celtics got a dunk from Grant Williams with 3 minutes and 52 seconds left in the game. That dunk ended up being the last field goal the Celtics would make in Game 2 as they missed their final four field goal attempts and again turned the basketball over multiple times.

Since Boston came into this series as the favorite their struggles have been looked at them choking but is it just possible that the Heat are a good defensive team and they’ve been able to shut down the Celtics at crucial moments of the first two games. In know that defense is a foreign word in the NBA, but this is the playoffs and defense does usually surface this time of the year.

Since it takes four wins for a team to win a series today’s Game 3 isn’t a must win for the Celtics but going down 3 games to none with the fourth game being on the road might be too much to overcome. If Boston wants to make a return trip to the NBA finals, they’ll have to find a way to win four of the next five games and three of those games will be played on the Heat’s home court.

So what’s your opinion on these two series. Will we be seeing a Nuggets/Heat NBA finals match up or will we see either the Lakers or the Celtics comeback and win one of or both of these series.

The Lakers are in a little bigger hole than the Celtics are as the Nuggets are looked at as a better team than the Heat, but coming back in any series from being down multiple games isn’t easy.

Of course, you know that the NBA would prefer a Lakers vs. Celtics NBA finals match up than any other one. I’m not sure how exciting the league would find a Nuggets vs. Heat match up for the NBA championship.

We’ve been over this multiple times here before, but as you know I’m not a fan of the NBA’s style of play. I actually haven’t watched much of the playoffs except checking in on a game here and there to get a score. I am interested to know how much of the NBA playoffs you’re watching. Do you actually sit down and watch full games? Or do watch just parts of the game like a half or a quarter? I’m interested to see if and how your viewing habitats are different from mine.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.