Los Angeles Lakers guard Alex Caruso had some high praise for the Denver Nuggets ahead of their decisive Game 7 against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Denver came back from a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Utah Jazz in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Now, it has won two consecutive games to force yet another Game 7 in the second round.
The Lakers will play the winner of Tuesday night’s Game 7 in the Western Conference Finals.
“It’s just impressive the fight that Denver shows,” Caruso said. “They were down 3-1 in the first series, everybody counted them out, and they won three in a row. They were down 3-1 this series, I think everybody counted them out, and here they are again forcing a Game 7. It will be interesting to see how they respond.
“It’s a big emotional, as well as physical task, to come back from that many games down. Looking forward to it. Obviously whoever we play is going to be a good team, playing well, because they’ve had to beat some good people to get there.”
The Lakers were able to eliminate the Houston Rockets in five games in their second-round series.
While they’ve had a decent layoff in between games, Caruso thinks that they will be ready to go when the Western Conference Finals finally begin.
“As far as us being ready, I think we were a little better the first game against Houston than we were against Portland. Hopefully we’ll take a little step further, we’ll have some practices and probably play live again before we play on Friday,” he said.
“Just trying to stay in as much rhythm and competitive mindset as we can. I think that’s really the biggest thing is, not physically being ready, because physically we’re the best athletes in the world. We’ll physically be ready to go. But mentally being able to get to the point where the sense of urgency is high and you’re playing like it’s do or die, and you didn’t just have five days off.”
The Lakers are trying to get back to the NBA Finals this season. They earned the top seed in the West and are 8-2 so far in the playoffs.
