After an extended stretch of dismal, uninspiring basketball in December and early January, the Los Angeles Lakers started to figure things out in the middle of this past season. From that point on, they started to resemble the team they were the previous spring when they surged late in the schedule and reached the Western Conference finals.
They ended this past season with a first-round playoff date against the Denver Nuggets, the same team that swept them out of the 2023 West finals. Los Angeles lost in five games, but oddly enough, it held sizable leads in each contest.
Guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who was a major part of the Nuggets’ success over the last couple of years, told Draymond Green that the Lakers should’ve beaten his time this spring, and Green agreed with him (h/t Lakers Daily).
“We felt the Lakers should have beat us.”
— KCP on the Nuggets/Lakers matchup.
🎥 (The Draymond Green Show)
— 🎗NBA•Fan🎗 (@Klutch_23) July 24, 2024
Pope feels the Nuggets, who were the defending NBA champs this past season, expended lots of energy to claim the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, leaving them depleted afterward.
Perhaps the most vexing argument for what Caldwell-Pope said was Game 2 of the series. The Lakers led 59-44 at halftime and extended that lead to 20 shortly afterward. But they started to walk the ball upcourt and milk the shot clock, which enabled Denver to gnaw away at their lead before Jamal Murray hit the game-winning shot at the buzzer.
Caldwell-Pope, who won an NBA title with the Purple and Gold in 2020, left Denver to join the Orlando Magic in free agency this summer. Denver will miss his 3-point shooting, transition layups and ability to pressure opponents as a solid team defender.