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The Denver Nuggets are a win away from their first trip to the NBA Finals after they clinched a 119-108 victory in Game 3 of their Western Conference Finals series against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Nuggets center Nikola Jokic struggled to get much going scoring-wise over the first three quarters of the playoff matchup. He picked up his form in the fourth quarter in dominant fashion, scoring 15 points on 71.4 percent shooting.
The Nuggets held on to build a commanding 3-0 lead over the Lakers in this season’s Western Conference Finals.
Even as the Nuggets are a mere one win away from punching their ticket to the 2023 NBA Finals, Jokic sees that the job is not finished for Denver in the Western Conference Finals. When asked during his postgame press conference on just what he is expecting to be “more challenging” in Game 4, the veteran center took some time to share his mindset ahead of this upcoming close-out game.
“I mean, to be honest, I’m not going to say that I’m scared, but I’m worried because they have LeBron on the other side, and he is capable of doing everything,” Jokic said on Saturday. “We’re going to come here with the same mindset, same focus, and I think that’s going to put us in a situation to win a game.
“But we never know. They’re going to be aggressive. Of course, they’re going to be extra physical, extra — they’re going to run more, they’re going to — everything is going to be on different level or one more of anything. So we will see.”
Overall, the Nuggets tallied 30 total assists against the Lakers in Game 3, which garnered the stamp of approval of the two-time NBA MVP winner.
“I love it just because then you can see everybody is moving,” Jokic said during his postgame press conference. “I think that’s hard to guard when we are passing the ball. Mike had six, AG had four, I got eight, Jamal had six, Bruce had — it’s so — how do you say when you’re like poison — not poison.”
Game 4 of this series is set for Monday from the Crypto.com Arena.