DENVER — The nature of the NBA’s 82-game regular season naturally creates situations like the one the Lakers faced on Friday night against the Denver Nuggets.
On the road, down four of five starters. Without six of their top-eight rotation players. All during a stretch of six games in eight days, including three back-to-back sets, with Friday capping the first one.
When the Lakers’ injury report was revealed on Friday, which revealed that Luka Doncic, Dorian Finney-Smith and Gabe Vincent would join the list of the team’s unavailable players, the matchup against the Nuggets could have been viewed as a schedule loss.
The Lakers didn’t treat it that way.
Austin Reaves, Dalton Knecht and their teammates nearly pulled off an improbable victory at Ball Arena before falling to the Nuggets, 131-126, after Jamal Murray’s tiebreaking 3-pointer with 5.6 seconds left and Russell Westbrook’s dunk that sealed the win for Denver.
Reaves (37 points, 13 assists, eight rebounds) and Knecht (32 points) led the short-handed Lakers, with both players making clutch plays down the stretch that kept the team in the game before eventually suffering their fourth straight loss to close an 0-4 trip.
With the Lakers trailing 124-123, Reaves stripped reigning league MVP Nikola Jokic for his third steal of the game and converted a layup on the other end to put the Lakers ahead by one with just over a minute left after they had trailed by 13 in the third.
Knecht helped add to that lead after a Murray turnover led to the rookie dunking in transition to put the Lakers up by three – with Knecht cramping up on takeoff and taking a hard fall on his head/shoulders but staying in the game with the Lakers up 126-123 with 52 seconds left.
With little time to go over defensive plans during a timeout as Coach JJ Redick checked on Knecht after his fall, Jokic (28 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three steals) converted an and-1 floater over Christian Koloko, making the free throw to tie the score at 126 apiece with 48 seconds left.
After Reaves missed a jumper that would have put the Lakers up by two, Murray (26 points, five assists, four rebounds) sprung free out of a pick-and-roll with Jokic, knocking down a pull-up 3-pointer for a 129-126 Nuggets lead.
Westbrook (17 points, seven assists, six rebounds) picked off Shake Milton’s inbounds pass on the Lakers’ ensuing possession, scoring the game-sealing bucket.
The Lakers were on the cusp of being blown out before they used a 19-9 run to close the third quarter and cut a 13-point deficit to 102-99.
Milton (16 points, five rebounds, three assists) and two-way guard Jordan Goodwin (10 points, six rebounds) both scored in double figures for the Lakers with the increased playing time opportunities.
Koloko (eight points, seven rebounds) impressed with his second-half defense, altering multiple shots at the rim that didn’t end with blocks and denying Jokic the ball late.
Despite feeling under the weather, Bronny James played 16 minutes and contributed five points.
LeBron James missed his third straight game with a left groin strain and returned to Los Angeles along with Rui Hachimura (left patellar tendinopathy) and Jaxson Hayes (bruised right knee) ahead of the Lakers’ game in Denver.
More to come on this story.