The Los Angeles Lakers finally broke through the Denver Nuggets curse and registered a 119-108 win against them in Game 4. This win ended LeBron James and Co.’s 11-game losing streak against Nikola Jokic’s team, while also allowing the Lakers to stay alive in the series after three straight losses. A fired-up LeBron James led the charge with 30 points at Crypto.com Arena to avoid a sweep and find some hope for the Lakeshow faithful. However, the team will need to win three more against the dominant Denver squad to win the series, a feat that has never been achieved in the NBA.
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Meanwhile, former Lakers star Dwight Howard put forth a brilliant proposition in this wake to settle the GOAT debate. Howard declared that if the Lakers accomplish a 0-3 comeback in the series, then LeBron James should be crowned the undisputed GOAT.
Howard took to his X and posted a graphic showing that no team has ever made a comeback from being down 0-3. As per the graphic, the record is 0-149 when a team is down by 0-3 in a series. However, if LeBron James and Co. manage to break this record against the defending champions, Howard will crown his former teammate as the “GOAT” of the league. On his X post, Howard wrote, “Lebron could be the first to do it! Then he the GOAT.”
While the 4x DPOY’s observation has some merit, the updated record of a team’s 0-3 deficit in a seven-game series is 0-151. Last season, the Boston Celtics were down 0-3 in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat. They then won three games in a row only to concede Game 7 at home, just stopping short of creating history.
This was only the third instance that a team had forced a Game 7 after being down 0-3. However, no team has ever won Game 7 after being down 0-3 in the series. LeBron James has continually defied the odds in his career, and only a basketball novice would put this feat past the four-time NBA Champion.
Will LeBron James beat the history books again?
In 2016, LBJ and his Cavaliers completed the most remarkable turnaround in NBA Finals history. They were down 1-3 against the Warriors, who had lodged an all-time best 73-9 record in the Regular Season. However, King James rallied his troops and took two games in a row. It set up what turned out to be one of the most scintillating games in NBA history. In Game 7, the 4x Finals MVP came up with “The Block” over Andre Iguodala while Kyrie Irving nailed the game-deciding shot over Stephen Curry. Therefore, the All-Time-NBA Leading Scorer knows how to upset the history books.
On the flip side, things are much more different now. The Lakers don’t have the defensive profile and depth as the 2016 Cavs. Meanwhile, the Nuggets are up 3-1 in the First Round despite playing some underwhelming basketball on both ends regularly. We haven’t seen the best of them yet. Therefore, when the series returns to Denver in Game 5, the Lakers will have to pull off another special performance as the Nuggets will look to put things to bed quickly.
