{"id":341575,"date":"2023-10-25T05:40:33","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T05:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=341575"},"modified":"2023-10-25T07:01:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T07:01:19","slug":"lebron-lakers-cop-brutal-chant-from-rival-fans-in-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=341575","title":{"rendered":"LeBron, Lakers cop brutal chant from rival fans in loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a> and the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> have been hit with a brutal chant during their opening night loss to the Denver Nuggets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ufeffThe bling and the banner were nice. What the Nuggets really relished, though, was opening defence of the franchise's first NBA title<\/a> with a 119-107 win over the Lakers on Wednesday AEDT.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can't think about last year too much,\u201d Jamal Murray said after the Nuggets followed the raising of their championship banner by dropping the hammer on the Lakers in the NBA's season opener, which featured Nikola Jokic's triple-double and James taking a few more breathers than normal.<\/p>\n

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The two teams had verbally sparred over the off-season after the Nuggets swept the Lakers in last year's Western Conference Finals, and with the game in hand down the stretch, Nuggets fans decided it was time to have fun, as loud "Who's your daddy?" chants rained upon the Lakers in the final minutes.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"DENVER,<\/p>\n

The chant stemmed from the Nuggets' championship parade in June, when Nuggets broadcaster Vic Lombardi referred to head coach Michael Malone as the "Lakers' daddy".<\/p>\n

Lombardi's quip did not go down too well in Los Angeles, with Lakers coach Darvin Harm hitting back.<\/p>\n

\ufeff"Oh, wow. You're gonna bring up Money Mike, man? The Lakers' daddy? That's what they call him now? The Lakers' daddy?" Ham said.<\/p>\n

"God bless his soul," Ham added. "This shit ain't over. God bless his soul."<\/p>\n

Jokic said the Nuggets fed off the emotion from the pre-game ceremony to jump out to an early 18-point lead, which held up even after the Lakers got within three points in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/BleacherReport\/status\/1669422910149148674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1669422910149148674%7Ctwgr%5E047387db22e19e5bbaf482e7862f48ecf131a416%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Farticles%2F10094739-video-nuggets-fans-chant-whos-your-daddy-to-lakers-amid-beef-with-michael-malone<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we controlled the game the whole time,\u201d said Jokic, who had 29 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists.<\/p>\n

Murray added 21 points, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope scored 20, Aaron Gordon had 15 and Michael Porter Jr. had 12.<\/p>\n

All of LA's starters also scored in double figures, led by James' 21 points in 29 minutes \u2014 his playing time is being monitored at the start of his 21st season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps,\u201d Murray said with a smile.<\/p>\n

James ended up playing about five fewer minutes than he's used to.<\/p>\n

\"LeBron<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I always want to be on the floor,\u201d James said, \u201cespecially when you got an opportunity to win a game or feel like you can make an impact. But I guess there's a system in place and I'll follow it.\u201d<\/p>\n

James, the league's oldest player at age 38, stressed, \u201cI'm not surprised or upset\u201d about the Lakers monitoring his minutes as the season gets going.<\/p>\n

Taurean Prince scored 18 points his his debut for the Lakers, his fifth team in nine seasons. Anthony Davis had 17 points, Austin Reaves 14 and D'Angelo Russell 11.<\/p>\n

The Lakers trailed by 18 early but trimmed that deficit to 63-54 at halftime and used a 13-0 run spanning the third and fourth quarters to pull within 87-84 before Aaron Gordon stopped the run with a three-pointer.<\/p>\n

The Lakers never got closer.<\/p>\n

\"Denver<\/p>\n

After James' basket got Los Angeles within 103-96 with just over five minutes remaining, the Nuggets called timeout and came out of it with a 10-3 run featuring three-pointers by Murray and Porter to put the Lakers away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trending in the right direction for a while there,\u201d Ham said. \u201cEach quarter we had given up less and less and then they just kind of blew the game open.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nuggets received their gold, diamond-encrusted championship rings \u2014 featuring a mini championship banner that rolls out from one side \u2014 in a pregame ceremony. Murray, wearing a microphone, told teammate Gordon, \u201cI might play the first quarter with it!\u201d<\/p>\n

Malone relished one last hurrah over last season's breakthrough before turning his attention entirely to this season.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u201cJason of Beverly Hills, I want to thank them for some really nice hardware. And then at that point, I was like, \u2018Let\u2019s get the game going,'" Malone said of watching the banner rise to rafters at sold-out, shaking Ball Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was also thinking about my father, just wish he was here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brendan Malone, the longtime coach and driving force behind the Detroit Pistons \u201cBad Boys\u201d defences in the late 1980s and early 90s, died earlier this month at age 81.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, a lot of emotions tonight but all really positive,\u201d Malone said, \u201cand to end it with a win is a great way to start the season off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nuggets went 16-4 in the playoffs \u2014 including the sweep of the Lakers in the Conference Finals \u2014 and finished things off by closing out Miami in five games to start a summer of celebrations from Denver's delirious downtown to Jokic's hometown of Sombor, Serbia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers have been hit with a brutal chant during their opening night loss to the Denver Nuggets. \ufeffThe bling […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=341575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341582,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341575\/revisions\/341582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/341577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}