OVER THE HUMP

THE NUGGETS HAD NEVER BEEN TO THE NBA FINALS OR BEATEN THE LAKERS IN A PLAYOFF SERIES-UNTIL NOW

- CHRIS MANNIX

THEY KEPT COMING, these Nuggets in the closeout game against the Lakers. When LeBron James made shots, when Anthony Davis blocked them, when every Tristan Thompson-sized button Darvin Ham pushed seemed destined to extend this series to a fifth game.

Pack it in, finish things off in Colorado? Nah. The only thing the Nuggets wanted to take home was a trophy.

Denver was Finals-bound after completing a sweep of Los Angeles with a 113-111 win. The result was typical of this series, in which the Lakers played the Nuggets close but could never quite win one.

In Game 4 the fight was a tough one. Denver trailed by 15 at the half. But in the third quarter the Nuggets blitzed L.A. 36-16 and took a five-point lead into the fourth. Nikola Jokić scored 13 of his 30 points in the quarter. He ripped down 10 rebounds.

And he had help. Aaron Gordon got rolling. The Lakers had been willing to live with Gordon taking jump shots in this series. For most of it, the strategy worked; Gordon missed all six of the three-pointers he attempted in the first three games. In Game 4, he made three of five from deep on his way to 22 points.