LeBron James and the Lakers are coming apart at the seams

LOS ANGELES — Death came for the Los Angeles Lakers by 1,000 off-ball cuts and what seemed like 100 Aaron Gordon dunks during another effortless Denver Nuggets onslaught.

Good basketball teams can turn a 10-point deficit into a 10-point lead within minutes; great ones can do it without breaking a sweat or pausing to celebrate. At full strength, Nikola Jokic and the defending champion Nuggets are great. So great they had Lakers star LeBron James turning his palms to the sky in a futile search for answers Thursday night during the decisive third quarter. So great they had rappers Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne heading for the exits by the middle of the fourth.

After sweeping the Lakers out of last year’s Western Conference finals and sweeping all three meetings during the regular season, the Nuggets claimed a 112-105 Game 3 victory at Crypto.com Arena, setting up the possibility of completing another sweep Saturday in Game 4. With brooms looming like guillotine blades, James and the Lakers looked and sounded like a broken team, not just a beaten one.

In pushing the Lakers to the brink of elimination, the Nuggets carved them open and split them right down the belly. On one side: James and Anthony Davis, the only two remaining members of the 2020 title team and the only two consistent producers in this series. On the other: everyone else in a rotation that has fallen to pieces under the playoff microscope.

“You’re supposed to have anxiety and feel the pressure,” James said when asked whether the Lakers were buckling under the stress of trying to keep up with a favored opponent. “That’s what the postseason is about. I don’t know how to answer that question. I don’t know. You’d have to ask the individuals that question to see how they feel. It’s hard for me to be, like, ‘This is what I think a guy feels.’ I can’t do that. I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know. This is the postseason. Me and [Davis] have been playing together six years. We’ve been to the mountaintop. We’ve been close to the mountaintop. We’ve played a lot of games. We know what it takes to win a championship and how damn near perfect you need to be.”

If the Nuggets prevail, James and the Lakers will have failed to advance out of the first round for the third time in the four years since their most recent championship. The 39-year-old star sounded perplexed at the end of another long night, incapable of understanding why the big-game success that was once commonplace for his teams has been so far out of reach.

“That’s not something that’s so crazy to obtain,” James muttered. “I’ve been a part of it four times. … It’s just basketball, at the end of the day. It’s just basketball.”

But playoff basketball has become a slog for the vast majority of a Lakers team that was kept together last summer with the goal of building on its 2023 postseason success. Point guard D’Angelo Russell, who struggled in last year’s West finals, missed all seven of his shots Thursday and had to be benched in key moments. Forward Rui Hachimura was invisible on offense and a nonfactor on the boards, where Denver scored a 51-38 advantage. The Lakers’ thin bench registered no signs of life until garbage time, unable to exploit the Nuggets’ lack of depth. Through three quarters, Los Angeles had made just one of its 14 three-point attempts, registering a 7.1 three-point percentage that might have been mistaken for a mortgage interest rate.

James, who had 26 points, nine assists and six rebounds, appeared exasperated by his team’s lack of defensive connectivity during a third quarter in which the Lakers were outscored 34-22. It wasn’t just a matter of Gordon sneaking to the rim for three baskets in one minute shortly after halftime; it was the series-long accumulation of Denver’s chess master tactics.

When Jokic (24 points, 15 rebounds, nine assists) isn’t plowing through Davis and vacuuming up rebounds, Jamal Murray (22 points, nine assists) is dancing through traffic and drilling a game-winner. When Gordon (29 points, 15 rebounds) isn’t living at the rim, Michael Porter Jr. (20 points, 10 rebounds) is swishing fadeaways with a hand in his face.

LeBron James has endured another frustrating playoff series against the Nuggets, who are one win away from sweeping the Lakers for the second straight year. (Ashley Landis/AP)

“This team is well prepared and well coached,” James said of the Nuggets. “They do not have a weakness offensively. … We expend so much energy in the first half building leads with defensive intensity. We come out in the third quarter with not much energy or lose track of the attention to detail we had in the first half. Give credit where credit is due: Those guys make tough shot after tough shot after tough shot.”

Whenever the Nuggets have turned it up, they have been in too many places at once for the Lakers to handle. The pattern, dating back to last May, is clear as day: The Nuggets take off after halftime, and the Lakers get left in the dust. Through three games, Denver has outscored Los Angeles in the third quarter by a combined 31 points.

“[Denver has] a championship confidence,” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said. “That starting lineup has been together a long time and has been through some wars together. Their net rating is off the charts. They have playmakers. … They do the little things: crash the offensive glass and screen hard. When you have that type of chemistry, it’s tough. They don’t settle. They impose their will on the game on both sides of the ball.”

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The Nuggets are in firm control of this series for a litany of reasons: Jokic has outplayed Davis; Murray outdueled James in a thrilling Game 2; Denver has capitalized on its excellent home-court advantage; and, yes, the Lakers’ supporting cast has crumbled.

The key difference, though, has been unity. Denver has dug out of deep holes as a team, while Los Angeles has squandered advantages and responded to adversity by splintering into a collection of — to repurpose James’s term — individuals.

“There’s unbelievable confidence,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said. “The scary thing for me is I think we can play so much better.”