On Saturday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers continued their winning ways with an impressive overtime home win over the Denver Nuggets. After Austin Reaves got the game into the extra period with some late-game heroics in regulation, Luka Doncic won things for Los Angeles with a game winner in the final frame, giving the Lakers their fifth straight victory in the process.
It was a playoff-like atmosphere for most of the evening in the Crypto.com Arena, and after the game, Doncic made sure to shout out the fans in attendance for the matchup.
“I felt like it was the best atmosphere since I’m a Laker … I had goosebumps,” said Doncic, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN on X, formerly Twitter.
Indeed, there were several notable “crowd pops” on ESPN's broadcast of the game, including probably the loudest when Doncic's final jumper found the bottom of the net with .5 on the clock in overtime.
This game, at times, seemed to be following a familiar script to many Lakers vs Nuggets matchups in past years, with Los Angeles racing out to a strong start, Denver ultimately taking control later on, and things going down to the wire. However, in most cases, it seems to be the Nuggets making the biggest plays down the stretch of the game and winning, but that's not what took place on Saturday night, as Los Angeles put up several clutch heroics in order to secure the victory.
It also helped matters that noted Lakers killer Jamal Murray scored just five points in this one and ultimately ended up fouling out.
The win allowed the Lakers to move back up to third place in the vaunted Western Conference. They will next hit the floor on Monday evening for the first of a two-game set against the Houston Rockets.
