Although the Lakers have lost the last eight games against the Nuggets, they’re looking forward to the challenge in another playoff series.
Despite the New Orleans Pelicans’ late comeback attempt, the Lakers held on to beat the Pelicans 110-106 in Tuesday’s Play-In Tournament game to clinch the No. 7 seed and their spot in the playoffs.
Their reward: a first-round matchup against the No. 2 seed Denver Nuggets – the defending NBA champions that swept the Lakers, 4-0, in last spring’s Western Conference finals.
Even before they beat the Pelicans, few people outside of the Lakers’ organization gave them a chance to beat the Nuggets in a playoff series.
The Lakers have dropped the last eight matchups to the Nuggets dating back to January 2023, including Denver winning all three matchups this past regular season.
But the lack of external belief in the Lakers got to the point where some pundits leading into Tuesday’s game suggested that the Lakers should have purposely lost to the Pelicans to avoid a series with the Nuggets and set up a second play-in game on Friday. In this scenario, the Lakers would have hosted the winner of Tuesday evening’s Sacramento Kings-Golden State Warriors play-in game (the Kings won).
The winner of that hypothetical Lakers-Kings play-in game at Crypto.com Arena would have advanced to a first-round matchup against the top-seed Oklahoma City Thunder, while the loser’s season would be over.
