2008 Denver Nuggets v. LA Lakers Playoff Predictions

Despite a fantastic season, winning 50 games, the Denver Nuggets are the eight seed in this year's NBA playoffs and will take on the number one seed Los Angeles Lakers with the series kicking off Sunday April 20th at 3:00 pm EST on ABC. After seeing the eight seed Golden State Warriors knock off the Dallas Mavericks last year, the big question heading into this series is if we could see another eight over one seed upset. Find out what the chances are in Jimmy Boyd's Nuggets/Lakers round one NBA Playoff predictions.

The Argument:

The Nuggets are as talented a team as you'll find in the NBA, boasting the top scoring duo in Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson. Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin have had phenomenal years and J.R. Smith, Eduardo Najera, and Linas Kleiza have been instrumental off the bench. It's going to be tough for the Lakers to stop the second highest scoring team in the NBA, but by the same token, it's going to be tough for the 29th ranked defensive team to stop the Lakers.

The Lakers and the Nuggets met three times this season with LA winning all three. The two home games were blowouts with the Lakers winning by 28 and 17 points respectively. The Nuggets do not play good enough defense to beat a team as deep as the Lakers. They lack any defensive stopper who can contain Kobe, and Lamar Odom will be a nightmare matchup as well. And Camby isn't the type of player who scores off of post moves, putting pressure on the defense, so I expect Pau Gasol to stay out of foul trouble.

The Lakers have been absolutely sensational since Pau Gasol came over from Memphis. He averages 18.9 points per game and 8.4 rebounds per game and is another player, besides Bryant, which teams must game plan for.

The Nuggets have a solid bench, but so do the Lakers so I don't see Denver gaining an advantage over LA when they bring in their reserves. And unlike Denver's reserves, LA's defend. Jordan Farmar is a great on the ball defender and Ronny Turiaf is a banger down low.

The Nuggets are too talented of a team to get swept. They will challenge the Lakers in every game and could push this thing to as many as six games.

The Nuggets have met the Lakers three times in NBA playoff history and they have gone down each time. Expect the same result in 2008.

Predictions:

Lakers in 5

Make sure you check out all of Jimmy Boyd's 2008 NBA playoff predictions to help you break down each and every series through the NBA Finals. And Sign up for one of our low-cost NBA picks packages for the most winners this postseason.

Take a look at our Lakers Jazz Series Predictions.

We now have all of the first round games broken down series by series:

• Suns v. Spurs Predictions

• Jazz v. Rockets Predictions

• Mavs v. Hornets Predictions

• Raptors v. Magic Predictions

• Wizards v. Cavs Predictions

• 76ers v. Pistons Predictions

• Hawks v. Celtics Predictions

Updated April 17th, 2008