When the Lakers and Celtics made it to their respective conference championships, the vast majority of sports bettors and fans in general thought for sure we were in for yet another NBA Finals meeting between the league's two most winningest teams of all time.
Five games later, it looks more likely that neither Boston nor Los Angeles will compete for its 18th NBA Championship — especially not the Lakers, who have fallen into a 3-0 hole against two-time MVP Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets. Denver, the No. 1 seed in the West, is on the verge of a series sweep over LeBron James, the top scorer in the history of professional basketball.
MORE: How has LeBron James performed when facing a sweep?
Against the odds, despite the betting action, in spite of all the previews and predictions, and in the face of history, the Nuggets just keep getting it done.
It's hard to put into words just how much hurt Denver is putting on the betting public, and just how much liability the Nuggets are taking off the hands of sportsbooks like BetMGM. It's more than you could possibly imagine, that's for sure. Most years, a No. 1 seed is the favorite to represent its conference in the NBA Finals. This year, Denver wasn't even favored to win its second-round matchup with the Suns, never mind win the West and the NBA Finals.
Yet, here we are. The Nuggets have a commanding 3-0 lead over Los Angeles, a deficit from which no NBA team in the history of the best-of-seven format has ever come back. After starting the playoffs at +1400 to win the NBA Finals (tied for seventh-longest odds), Denver now sits first on the futures odds board at -165, well ahead of Boston at +325 and Miami at +450. The Lakers? They're at +3000. And honestly, +3000 seems like pretty generous odds considering none of the 149 teams facing a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven have ever battled back to win four in a row.
Even after L.A. lost the first two games of this series, history told us that King James and Anthony Davis were at a severe disadvantage. Throughout the nearly 40-year history of the 2-2-1-1-1 format, only 22 teams out of 248 have ever lost the first two games of a series and come back to win it. But yet, the betting public stayed loyal to the narrative of the Lakers winning it. In fact, our friends at BetMGM said one day after L.A.'s Game 2 loss that over 90 percent of the series handle since Game 2 had been on the Lakers to win the WCF. And similar to the Suns accounting for the third-most NBA Finals tickets, L.A. represented BetMGM's third-highest NBA Finals liability.
That's the power of LeBron, who has gone 11-1 lifetime in the Conference Finals and won four career NBA Finals. That's also the power of the historic legacy behind the Lakers, the winningest squad in the history of the Western Conference. It's also the power of underestimating a Nuggets squad that has never done it before. Teams that have never won a conference title shouldn't be able to beat the best player of the 21st century — right?
Wrong. People have been underrating and counting out Jokic, head coach Mike Malone, Jamal Murray, and Denver's ever-improved supporting cast all season. The Nuggets went 34-7 at home and finished the regular season with a Western Conference-leading 53-29 record. Jokic came .02 assists away from averaging a triple-double with 63/38/82 shooting splits as a seven-footer, and he not only lost the MVP to Joel Embiid — one MVP voter didn't even have him on his top-five ballot (Mark Jackson, if you're wondering).
MORE: Mike Malone shares how Jamal Murray once feared for his future in Denver
Ahead of Denver's semifinals clash with the Suns, Phoenix was the -135 favorite to advance despite the Nuggets having just gentleman swept the Wolves in the first round. No biggie — Malone's squad won Game 6 125-100 in Phoenix to end the series and get ready for L.A. You would think the top-seeded Nuggets would open up the WCF with big odds against the seventh-seeded Lakers, who had just gone six rounds with Steph Curry and the Warriors. Nope. Denver opened as -145 favorites, with L.A. at +120. BetMGM didn't even give the Nugs a 60 percent implied winning probability.
But maybe Malone, Jokic, and these Nuggets like being overlooked. Even yours truly — a huge Joker enthusiast and a closet Nuggets fan — questioned whether Denver deserved to jump out to -500 series favorites after going up 2-0. Look at Malone and Jokic's career record on the road in the postseason, I said. We're talking about LeBron James here — what happened to the old adage "A playoff series doesn't start until the home team loses."
Guess what? A home team lost, and this series not only started — it looks just about over. The age-old 'fat lady' has all but bellowed her last tune. I stand corrected for ever doubting Denver, as do the 90 percent of series bettors who backed Los Angeles following Game 2 and the 53 percent who have sided with L.A. to win the series since the WCF odds opened.
Nobody can stop these Nuggets — they are on a collision course with history. We can either hop on board the Denver bandwagon, or watch our NBA bankrolls fizzle away like the Celtics and Lakers' odds to win an 18th championship in 2023.
