It's a new week for our Look of the Day series, and we're feeling good about our pick for Monday's NBA playoff slate. Let's head to Game 5 between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets for our favorite pick to start the week.
Lakers at Nuggets, 10 p.m. ET, TNT
The Lakers must feel like they're Bill Murray in the 1993 film "Groundhog Day." Los Angeles is consistently able to get off to strong starts against the Nuggets, but as the game wears on, the reigning champions slowly chip away at the lead and make the right plays in clutch time to win the game. The Lakers finally held on to a lead in Game 4, but that ended an 11-game losing streak to the Nuggets.
We expect the Nuggets to close out the series on Monday night, but we'd like to bet on the Lakers to get off to another strong start. Los Angeles has won all four first quarters in this series by an average of 6.8 points. Darvin Ham's squad led by eight and four points, respectively, in Game 1 and Game 2 on the road.
This Lakers team can clearly hang with the Nuggets, especially early in the game. We don't want to back them on the full-game spread because of how good Denver is at closing out games, but the Lakers will look to come out hot in a must-win game to save their season.
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