Denver Nuggets
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LeBron James will have to endure a long offseason of people questioning his greatness from the comfort of their couches and game controllers despite willing the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers to the Western Conference Finals. The Denver Nuggets, the top-seeded team in the Western Conference, swept the Lakers in their best-of-seven series and some NBA fans are unfairly making LeBron James the fall guy.
LeBron James, who turns 39 this year, spent years carrying the Cleveland Cavaliers on his shoulders and doing so at an elite level for years. After two decades of basketball, wear and tear is natural and the high-flying exploits aren’t there every night but all of the greats have off nights.
James didn’t have an off night on Monday, leading all scorers with 40 points and remaining on the floor for the entire game. James supporting cast of Davis and Reaves did what they could but they were outmatched by Nikola Jokic, who led all Nuggets scorers with 30 along with 13 assists and 14 rebounds, and Jamal Murray, who poured in 25 points and was electrifying in the WCF.
You don’t even need to be a fan of James or his team to realize what he was able to do while pushing the age of 40 is incredible. There are a few NBA players who spent 20 seasons in the league and many of them are in the Basketball Hall of Fame. James will join those ranks once he decides to hang up his sneakers for good and hopefully, he holds off on doing so after the bitter sting of the loss settles down.
The comparisons to the great Michael Jordan are inevitable and people making a case for LeBron being an inferior player will have all their stats ready for an imaginary showdown neither man asked for.
The jeers from the armchair athletes of the world will cease to matter and besides, anyone who needs to take off their shoes and then put them in their laps to tie them can’t rightly call LeBron James a bum.
But they’re certainly going to try.
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Photo: Getty
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LeBron James is no stranger to criticism after a tough loss considering he remains as one of the most recognizable figures in the NBA. After the Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Denver Nuggets in Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference Finals, fans on Twitter are giving LeBron James and Anthony Davis the business.
Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic is the top name for Denver but it was the exploits of Jamal Murray that lifted the team over James and company. Murray poured in 37 points in a fourth-quarter explosion where he scored 23 points after his team was down in the second half. Jokic, continuing his uncanny triple-double production, dropping 23 points on 9-21 shooting and hauling in 17 rebounds with 12 assists.
On the other side, James scored 22 points on 9-19 shooting and dropped 10 assists, and pulled down nine boards. Davis made just four of 15 shots to score 18 along with 14 rebounds. Austin Reaves, once again showing expert poise went eight for 16 from the field with 22 points and was joined by Rui Hachimura who dropped 21 points.
Nuggets head coach Mike Malone expressed some frustration on how his team has been covered in the press with all the attention going towards the Lakers. While Los Angeles remains to be a marquee team, few analysts predicted them to be squaring off with anyone this deep into the playoffs.
After Nikola Jokic’s monster game in the opener, his pick-and-roll partner Jamal Murray took the spotlight in the Western Conference finals Thursday night.
“You win Game 1 and all everybody talked about was the Lakers,” Malone said. “Let’s be honest, the national narrative was, ‘Hey, the Lakers are fine. They’re down 1-0, but they figured something out.’ No one talked about how Nikola just had [a] historic performance. He’s got 13 (playoff) triple-doubles now, third all-time. What he’s doing is just incredible.”
On Twitter, LeBron James and Anthony Davis are getting blasted for their performance. We’ve got the tweets below.
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Photo: Getty
When VASSY shoots, she scores.
The hitmaking Australian singer and songwriter is a star in the EDM space, with several slam dunks of her own.
Earlier this year, her 2014 hit “Bad” with David Guetta and Showtek passed one billion streams on YouTube, and a posterizing two billion plays across all platforms.
Born in Darwin, now based in the United States, VASSY boasts six No. 1s on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart (including “Bad” and 2018’s “Lost” with Afrojack featuring Oliver Rosa), she’s had songs featured in film and TV, including the trailer for Disney’s Frozen, won a prestigious International Dance Music Award and, last year, joined APRA AMCOS’ The 1,000,000,000 List.
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The wins don’t stop there. In 2013, she became the first Australian artist to hit No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart with her solo number “We Are Young,” and she has played to heaving audiences around the globe, including Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, Belgium’s Tomorrowland, and New York’s Electric Zoo.
This week, the multi-platinum artist added an NBA halftime show to her collection of career highlights.
Wearing the No. 50 jersey of two-time NBA dunk contest runner-up Aaron Gordon, VASSY performed a mini-set on Denver’s Ball Arena homecourt, on Pride Night.
“Had a blast,” she writes on her socials. “Such an epic night.”
VASSY turned out to be a good luck charm for the home team, whose roster includes reigning league MVP Nikola Jokic and fellow Aussie, Duke alum Jack White, who signed a two-way contract in the off-season.
The Nuggets held off the San Antonio Spurs, 126-101. And for the record, VASSY got to keep Gordon’s jersey.
Watch below and keep an ear out for the fresh cut “Pieces,” by VASSY X Bingo Players X Disco Fries, due out this Friday (Nov. 11).
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