Three takeaways from Nuggets overcoming LeBron to sweep Lakers out of playoffs

LOS ANGELES — On the doorstep of the franchise’s first-ever trip to the NBA Finals, the Denver Nuggets were loose.

During pregame warmups a couple of hours before tip-off they were joking around, with DeAndre Jordan adding vocal exclamations to players’ dunks, and Jeff Green jokingly pushing around a coach trying to post him up. Nikola Jokić closed his warmup with a dunk against the poor, undersized assistant tasked with providing token defense — then Joker laughingly hit him with the “too small” taunt.

Maybe the Nuggets were a little too casual to start Game 4 Monday night as LeBron James and the Lakers got off to a 15-point halftime lead. However, the Nuggets found their focus in the second half, they were once again more clutch than the Lakers and pulled out the 113-111 win.

The Nuggets are headed to the franchise’s first NBA Finals (which do not start until June 1), while the Lakers are headed to an interesting offseason.

Here are three takeaways from the closeout game.

At age 38, in his 20th season, LeBron James was the best player on the floor of a conference finals game.

Think about that for a second.

He played all but four seconds and almost willed his team to a victory (like he did for lesser teams 15 years ago). LeBron came out on fire shooting 7-of-9 on his way to 21 first-quarter points. He finished the first half scoring 31 points — his highest-scoring half in the playoffs ever — on 11-of-13 shooting, including 4-of-4 from beyond the arc.

How well were things going for LeBron early? Everything was going in, even his passes.

BRON REALLY HIT THIS