Lakers take high ground

By Mike Bresnahan

April 27, 2008 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

DENVER -- The altitude didn’t bother the Lakers. Neither did the attitude of the hosts.

Not much stood in the way of the Lakers, or a possible sweep, as their one-sided series against the rough-and-grumble Denver Nuggets continued with a 102-84 Game 3 victory Saturday at Pepsi Center.

The Lakers braced for the worst -- a barrage of three-pointers, alley-oop dunks and fastbreak mayhem from a desperate team -- but the Nuggets never came close to delivering any of the above, conceding meekly as the Lakers took a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. Game 4 is Monday in Denver.

Kobe Bryant led a balanced attack with 22 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, and the Lakers moved within a victory of a first-round graduation that had eluded them since 2004. Along those lines, they could sweep a best-of-seven series for the first time since the 2002 NBA Finals against New Jersey.

If “Remember Phoenix!” was their unofficial rallying cry before Game 3, “Don’t Make History!” might be the Lakers’ theme for Game 4. An NBA team has never lost a series after leading, 3-0. Eighty-three teams have successfully advanced under such circumstances.

Unlike the 3-1 lead they held over Phoenix two years ago, the Lakers stepped forward against Denver, putting enough points on the board while holding the Nuggets to more than 26 below their regular-season average.

“I think it shows a lot of maturity on our part,” Bryant said.

The Nuggets didn’t help themselves by missing numerous open looks, shooting a dreadful 37.2%, continuing to rack up technical fouls and flagrant fouls, and laying the groundwork for an unhappy off-season that could begin as early as Monday.

Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony shot a combined 10 for 38, a recipe for debacle in the Nuggets’ two-pronged approach. Anthony took it a step further after the game, calling out the entire team.

“We quit. Everybody,” Anthony said. “From the coaches to the players, we quit. And I said it.”

The Lakers won’t argue.

Their locker room was understandably more cheerful, with “13 To Go” scribbled on their whiteboard, a reference to the victories still needed to win the franchise’s 15th NBA championship.

If Bryant was individually brilliant with his 49-point, 10-assist effort in Game 2, he was one of many who kept the ball moving Saturday.

The Lakers had 26 assists and only eight turnovers. Five Lakers scored in double figures and two others had nine points.

Luke Walton was again an impetus off the bench, finishing with 15 points, five rebounds and five assists in 24 minutes.

“Things are really working out well for him,” Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said.

The same could be said for the Lakers.

After back-to-back first-round exits at the hands of the Suns, the Lakers are a victory away from easing some of the frustrations of the past three seasons, including the frightful 34-48 campaign in 2004-05.

It can be argued that they won these last three games in three different ways.

They ran past the Nuggets and their extra-curricular fouling in Game 1, rode Bryant in Game 2 and held the Nuggets on Saturday to their third-lowest output since the season began.

“We’re an extremely versatile team,” Bryant said. “We can play fast, we can play slow, we can muck it up.”

The Lakers are now 6-0 this season against the Nuggets, whose fuses can only get shorter.

“I’ve been in a lot of playoff series, but I don’t think I’ve ever been this frustrated,” Iverson said. “We did nothing to change. We kept doing the same thing.”

Anthony had 16 points on five-for-22 shooting. Iverson had 15 points on five-for-16 shooting.

Iverson and Anthony combined to make only five of 21 shots in the first half as the Lakers took a 53-46 lead.

The crowd came alive only once in the second half, after the Nuggets trimmed an 18-point lead to 10 with 4:30 left in the third quarter. Derek Fisher answered with a three-pointer, Lamar Odom dunked on the next possession, and the Lakers never had to deal with the noise again.

“Can I buy some defense?” an aggrieved Nuggets fan yelled out early in the fourth quarter. He had his answer a few seconds later when Walton scored on a layup.

There were even some boos as the teams headed for a timeout with the Lakers ahead, 95-72, with 5:29 to play.

“I told the team at halftime, ‘They’re not going to shoot like this for the whole game,’ ” Jackson said. “But they never showed up, they never got it going.”

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

AROUND THE LEAGUE

Western Conference

Utah 86, Houston 82

Jazz leads series, 3-1

Tuesday at Houston, 6:30 p.m.

Eastern Conference

Atlanta 102, Boston 93

Celtics lead series, 2-1

Monday at Atlanta, 5 p.m.

Orlando 106, Toronto 94