The Los Angeles Lakers will face the Denver Nuggets in the opening round

The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night to clinch the 7th seed in the West and a date with the defending champion Denver Nuggets. This opening round series is a rematch of last year’s Western Conference Finals, which the Nuggets swept.

When asked on the TNT broadcast about this upcoming matchup with the Nuggets, Lakers star LeBron James said, “It’s the defending champions. We understand how difficult of a matchup it’s been vs. them. They’re gonna make it tough on [us], we’re gonna try to make it tough on them. So we’re gonna get an opportunity to kind of rest tonight, maybe rest tomorrow a little bit, and then get back into the books and get ready for this first round series that’s gonna be extremely tough on us.”

The Nuggets have dominated the Lakers in recent matchups, including last year’s Western Conference Finals series. While Denver has regularly found a way to defeat the Lakers, their matchups are almost always close, with the Nuggets executing better down the stretch to pull out victories.

The Lakers have their work cut out for them, but have to feel good about taking care of business in their first play-in game to not have to face elimination in a second play-in game. This should be a very fun Western Conference battle.