At first, things looked great for the Lakers, giving fans hope that they could finally bєat the Denver Nuggets, who seem like a huge obstacle.

Game 1 of this first-round playoff series was already in the fourth quarter on Saturday night. It looked like the outcome would be the same as the eight previous games between the teams: Denver would win 114–103, giving them an early lead in the best-of-seven series.

Six rebounds, eight assists, and 27 points for LeBron James. He got 12 points in the first quarter, which is almost half of his total. D’Angelo Russell got off to a good start with six points in the first quarter.The Lakers sped up the game a lot, went for the basket a lot, and didn’t turn the ball over very often.

But the Nuggets punished the Lakers when they began to lose focus.

First, the Lakers got defensive rebounds. The Nuggets, led by Nikola Jokić (32 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists), got 15 offєnsive rebounds, which gave them 18 second chances to score.

The Lakers were also not very good at getting back on defense once their shooting started to slow down. Both the transition defense and the paint defense got worse.

The Nuggets made six 3-pointers in the third quarter after making six in the first half. This made it hard for the Lakers to keep up, as they went from having leads of 33-25 at the end of the first quarter to an 89-78 loss by the end of the third.

Anthony Davis tried to get the Lakers back into the game by scoring 10 points in the fourth quarter and helping cut the Nuggets’ lead from 15 points (91–86) to six points (98–92) with 6:15 left. Davis had 32 points, 14 rebounds, five assists, and four blocked shots.

But in the end, the Nuggets made the right moves, as they often do against the Lakers.

Most of the shots the Lakers made in the first quarter were good, and the Nuggets’ early poor shooting helped them.

With 1:11 left in the game, Jokic made a huge dunk that ended the challenging part and gave the Nuggets a 112-101 lead.

Also for the Nuggets, Jamal Murray scored 22 points (9-for-24 shooting) and had 10 assists, and Aaron Gordon scored 12 points and grabbed 11 boards. Denver bєat James in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth time in 17 games, thanks to 19 points and 8 boards from Michael Porter Jr. Following the break, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope scored all 12 of his points. He made three 3-pointers as the Nuggets went on a 13-0 run to take control of the game in the third quarter.

Russell had a hard time scoring after the first quarter. He ended up with 13 points on 6 of 20 shots, including 1 of 9 from 3-point range.

The last time the Lakers bєat the Nuggets was December 16, 2022. It will try again on Monday night in Game 2 at Ball Arena. This season, Denver is 34-8 there.