NBA

Kobe, Lakers shut door on Nuggets

Star shines late as L.A. completes first 1st-round sweep of 50-win team

Rick Wilking / Reuters

Los Angeles Lakers Kobe Bryant celebrates a basket against the Denver Nuggets during Game 4 on Monday.

The Nuggets couldn’t keep Los Angeles out of the lane for easy layups and dunks and they made the silly mistakes that the Lakers avoided, like the missed dunks by Nene and Anthony, who blew an alley-oop rim-rattler that bounced out of bounds at halfcourt in the third quarter.

Anthony trotted back downcourt, laughing all the way.

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Anthony said. “I just bounced it off the rim. It was one of those dunks that wouldn’t go down.”

Moments later, he picked up his fourth foul, and it looked like the Nuggets were ready to surrender for the summer.

Then, out of nowhere, they made a game of it, taking their first lead of the night on Linas Kleiza’s step-back 11-footer that put Denver ahead 73-71, igniting the crowd.

The Lakers righted themselves and took a 79-77 lead into the back-and-forth fourth quarter, which ended with the Nuggets walking dejectedly off the court, including Nene, who overcame testicular cancer, and Martin, who resurrected his career by becoming the first professional athlete to return to stardom after microfracture surgery on both knees.

“There’s a lot of good stories,” Karl said.

And another one walking across the court.

As Karl walked off, he embraced his son, Coby, a rookie reserve guard on the Lakers who, like his dad, overcame cancer in recent years.

“Coby playing in the NBA is the best gift that has ever happened to me in my life,” George Karl said. “And hopefully, I’ll make him feel miserable one day.”

Notes: Gasol entered this series with an 0-12 playoff mark, all the games with Memphis. ... Iverson picked up the Nuggets’ eighth technical foul of the series in the third quarter. ... Camby had 17 rebounds. ... The Lakers went 7-0 against Denver this season.

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