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Lakers Push Back, Send Message in Win Over Nuggets
LOS ANGELES — There are 15 championship banners hanging in the Staples Center, and plenty have been won with the Lakers being known as a finesse team.
But finesse doesn’t work against the Denver Nuggets. You don’t say “pardon me” if you’re grappling with Kenyon Martin for a rebound or “desculpe,” which is Portuguese for “excuse me,” if Nene gets in the way in the paint.
The Lakers finally figured that out Sunday after getting sand kicked in their faces for 2 1/2 games by the Nuggets. There was a 105-79 road rout at the hands of the Nuggets Nov. 13 and a 126-113 home setback to them Feb. 5, a game in which Denver didn’t even have high-scoring forward Carmelo Anthony. Then the Nuggets pushed around the Lakers in the first half Sunday, taking a 52-43 lead.
Enough finally was enough. Lamar Odom stopped being a nice fellow. So did Pau Gasol.
“We need to really be the aggressor,” Gasol said after the Lakers outscored the Nuggets 52-37 in the second half to win 95-89 in the battle between the West’s top two outfits. “We need to challenge instead of we’re always being challenged … We’re not aggressive enough. We’ve got to start challenging people and imposing our will. And we can. It sucks sometimes that we don’t do it.”
At least the Nuggets (39-20) have been around the past two seasons to knock some sense into the Lakers (45-15). They literally do it courtesy of elbows by Martin and Nene and with Anthony throwing around his big body.
In last spring’s playoffs, the Lakers sometimes looked disinterested until the Nuggets woke them up. With the Western Conference finals tied 2-2 and the Lakers having been lucky to win their two games thanks to late-game faulty Denver inbound passes, Los Angeles rose up to win the last two games of the series and then defeated Orlando 4-1 for another NBA crown.
“[Sunday's win] was important because they beat us [twice this season], and we feel like we’re going to see them again [in the playoffs],” Odom said. “It was important to put in their minds, if we play the right way, we can beat them.”
