Denver Nuggets vs Los Angeles Lakers Prediction: Will LeBron James' team continue to surprise?

The Lakers reached the Western final as the seventh team in the conference. Will LeBron James' team continue to surprise in the series with Denver?

The Nuggets entered the playoffs as the first team in the Western Conference and, in the first two rounds, confirmed their status as one of the top favorites of the season. First, the team overcame Minnesota without problems, closing the series at five games. Denver also quickly overcame Phoenix in the conference semifinals, winning by 25 points in game six with a 125:100 margin.

Denver is good on both halves of the court. Jamal Murray and Bruce Brown are averaging 1.3 steals per game, 1.4 for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and 1.1 for Nikola Jokic. Jokic, on the other hand, has almost a triple-double average of 30.7 points, 9.7 assists, and 12.8 rebounds per game. Jamal Murray is scoring 25.9 points, and Michael Porter is scoring 14.5.

Although the Lakers had to make their way to the playoffs through the play-in round, The team played only one more game than Denver in their two starting rounds. In their first-round series with Memphis, the Lakes had enough in six games, as they did in the conference semifinals with Golden State, where in the decisive sixth game LeBron and company took out the most successful team of the decade by a margin of 21 points, 122:101.

LeBron James - 23.4 points, 10.0 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.3 blocked shots, 0.9 steals - was a standout for the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs—Anthony Davis - 21.2 points, 14.1 rebounds, 1.4 steals, 3.3 blocked shots. D'Angelo Russell has 15.7 points and 5.0 assists. Austin Reeves has 15.4 points per-game average.

Denver has won every home game this playoff, which is unsurprising given the Nuggets' traditional strength on their home court. The Lakers will also have a tough time at Ball Arena in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals series - Michael Malone's team will do everything possible to avoid losing home-court advantage right from the start. We believe Denver will start here with a win, and the critical game for the Lakers will be game two. We're betting on the Nuggets and expecting a productive encounter, again taking into account the physical difficulties that the Lakers will face and not allowing them to show their best qualities on defense.