Former Lakers champ defends Darvin Ham as L.A.’s season goes on life support

Former Los Angeles Lakers guard and teammate of LeBron James in J.R. Smith came to the defense of Lakers head coach Darvin Ham on X in response to a post from CBS Sports’ Ashley Nicole Moss suggesting that Los Angeles shouldn’t keep him as its head coach.

Ham and the Lakers are now in a 0-3 series hole in their first-round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets after losing Game 3 by seven points on Thursday night.

A balanced collective scoring effort helped guide the Nuggets to their third consecutive win over the Lakers in these playoffs. Four Nuggets — Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. — scored 20 points or more.

Gordon spearheaded Denver from a scoring standpoint, as he dropped a team-high 29 points to go along with 15 rebounds, three assists and one steal while shooting 12-of-18 from the field.

Conversely, Anthony Davis led the Lakers in scoring with 33 points on 23 shot attempts from the floor.

Ham now owns a playoff record of 0-7 against the Nuggets since taking over the Lakers’ head coaching reigns. After all, before getting into a seemingly insurmountable hole in the opening round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs, his Lakers were swept by Denver in the 2023 Western Conference Finals.

In the playoffs, NBA teams are 0-151 in series when facing an 0-3 deficit. However, the Boston Celtics nearly made history after going down 0-3 against the Miami Heat in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals.

The Celtics won Games 4, 5 and 6 of the series before dropping the deciding Game 7 at home by a final score of 103-84.

The Lakers will fight to keep their season alive when Game 4 takes place at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday. If Los Angeles loses Game 4, that would mark the second season in a row where the Lakers have been eliminated by the Nuggets in the playoffs in troubling fashion.

But if the Lakers were to earn a win in Game 4 to avoid a sweep, Game 5 would take place on Monday night at Ball Arena.