Nuggets Fall to Warriors in Game Three 110-108, Trail 2-1 in Series

The Warriors didn’t shoot 65% again, but didn’t have to, as the Warriors beat the Nuggets 110-108 in game three of the best-of-seven first round series. Lawson had 35 points to lead the Nuggets in the losing effort.

Coming into game three, with the Nuggets already have lost their home-court advantage, now faced the task of tried to take the 2-1 lead in a very hostile Bay Area that hadn’t seen a playoff game since 2007.

Stephen Curry was a game-time decision for the night-cap with the sprained ankle, but played and led the Warriors with 29 points in 38 minutes.

After being up 66-54 at halftime, you knew that the Warriors would eventually get hot with either the three-ball, or a collective hot-shooting performance. Golden State outscored the Nuggets 33-18 in the third quarter and took a 3-point lead into the fourth quarter.

Despite a few terrible calls by the refs in the fourth, it all came down to one possession for the Nuggets to win the ball game with less than 10 seconds to go. But as Ty Lawson drove the paint, he was hit in the knee on the way to rim, fumbled the ball out of bounds and that’s all she wrote. The refs would check to make sure that it went off of Lawson and not Ezeli, but they stuck with the call on the floor to ensure the Warriors victory over the Nuggets, even though it looked like Ezeli for sure fouled Lawson with a trip, but there was no call to be seen, and no whistle to be heard.

The Nuggets have now dropped two straight in the best-of-seven series after winning the series-opener. The real problem facing the Nuggets are their bigs, and their bigs in the paint. In this game three loss, Koufos played just about as bad as he has all season, totaling 0 points in just 11 minutes, along with Javale McGee only scoring 4 points in 14 minutes. Now while I know that has a lot to do with George Karl playing small to match up well with this David-Lee-less line-up, that has now taken away from Denver’s strong suit, which is in the paint.

Now facing a 2-1 deficit, the Nuggets will have to rebound in a game four with all but their season on the line. Headed back to Denver for a game five knotted up at 2-2 is favorable, but going down 3-1 in the series would all but take the Nuggets out of the playoffs.

Game four will be in Golden State on Sunday at 7:30 MST. The season will be on the line for the Mile High Crew in Oracle Arena two days from now. The Nuggets, and their fans, need to dig in, and dig in REAL deep.

Anthony Rodriguez

Anthony is the Founder, Administrator, Editor and Publisher of Lightning Rod Sports. Originally from California, Anthony has been raised in the Rocky Mountains and Denver area for most of his life. Anthony works with the Emmy-winning student-run T.V. newscast at MSU Denver, The Met Report, as the Assistant General Manager, formerly the Sports Producer, as well as Lead Anchor and Production Assistant. He is currently the Play-by-Play Announcer, Color Commentator, and Production Assistant for the Metro State Broadcast Network, and calls games for Metro State soccer, basketball, volleyball, baseball, and softball as a “Voice of the Roadrunners.” In addition to that work with the Metro State Broadcast Network, Anthony also hosts the monthly 30-minute magazine show called "The Roadrunner Review" which airs on Altitude Sports and Entertainment. He hosts the bi-weekly "KMet Sports Show" on KMET Radio at MyMetMedia.com/KMETSportsShow. He is also the Founder, Administrator, Editor, and Columnist for his own Denver Sports website, LightningRodSports.com. Anthony is also part of the Social Media team at Examiner.com, and has worked with the Altitude Radio Network for the Avalanche and Nuggets. Anthony is a former Producer for Mile High Sports Radio, as well as a former Sports-Talk show host on the LightningRod Radio Network.

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