Lakers Playoff Schedule 2012: Series with Nuggets Destined to Go the Distance

The Los Angeles Lakers could have drawn the very team that swept them out of the postseason last year in the first round of this year's playoffs. But instead of the Dallas Mavericks, they drew the Denver Nuggets.

Hooray...?

Not exactly. The Nuggets are a dangerous team, and they played the Lakers tough in four games during the regular season. The Lakers won three of those four games, but they didn't win any of them by any more than six points. The Nuggets played them tough.

J.A. Adande of ESPN.com classified this series best when he described it as a "great superstar versus communal effort" matchup. The Nuggets will put their no-I-in-team style of play (No. 1 in the NBA in assists) up against the Lakers' star-centric style of play.

For the Lakers, it all revolves around Kobe Bryant (how's that for analysis?). That's an advantage for them simply because he's Kobe Bryant. He knows what to do in the playoffs, and he made it clear during the regular season that rumors of his demise were very much exaggerated. 

Credit where credit's due, the Nuggets handled Kobe quite well during the regular season. In three games against Denver, Kobe averaged just 17.7 points per game with a .275 field goal percentage. It's never easy to say that a given team had Kobe's number, but, well, the Nuggets had Kobe's number.

Denver's ability to defend the Black Mamba will ensure a competitive series. The Lakers will need a complete team effort if they want to compete with the Nuggets, and the Nuggets are better at playing as a team than the Lakers are.

And of course, let's not forget that the Lakers are a man down. Metta World Peace, who played very good basketball in April, will be out of action for the first six games of this series after trying to take James Harden's head off. World Peace played pretty well against Denver this season, especially in the last contest between the two teams on April 13th. He will be missed.

Because World Peace is out, and because the Nuggets match up well against Kobe, there's going to be a lot of pressure on Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum to dominate inside, and Ramon Sessions will have to keep playing well.

It's easy to have faith in Sessions, and Gasol will at least be solid. But Bynum? Who knows? He's an outstanding player, but he does have a tendency to be feast or famine. He also has a tendency to be a bonehead, and that tendency could bite the Lakers as this series gets more and more heated.

And make no mistake, this will be a heated series. Maybe not in terms of anger, but certainly in terms of competition. The Lakers strike me as the better team, but they're by no means head and shoulders better than the Nuggets. Denver is going to give LA a battle.

This series will be competitive. What it won't be is short. Everybody should get strapped in for a seven-gamer.

Prediction: Lakers in seven

Series Schedule (via NBA.com)

Game 1: Sun. April 29, Denver at L.A. Lakers, 3:30 p.m., ABC/R

Game 2: Tue. May 1, Denver at L.A. Lakers, 10:30 p.m., TNT

Game 3: Fri May 4, L.A. Lakers at Denver, 10:30 p.m., ESPN

Game 4: Sun. May 6, L.A. Lakers at Denver, 9:30 p.m., TNT

*Game 5: Tue. May 8, Denver at L.A. Lakers, TBD

*Game 6: Thu. May 10, L.A. Lakers at Denver, TBD

*Game 7: Sat. May 12, Denver at L.A. Lakers, TBD, TNT

*If necessary