LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The respect LeBron James has for the Denver Nuggets runs deep.

It’s not just the historic nature of their run, or their selfless franchise superstar or the shared history between himself and Nuggets coach Michael Malone. It’s all of it, in totality.

James is so media savvy he only tips his hand, or his hat, when he wants to. And after the Nuggets made NBA history by clawing back from two 3-1 deficits, James knows what’s staring at him ahead of Friday’s Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.

“Very resilient, very confident, very driven and very well-coached team,” James said. “It takes a lot of energy, effort and a lot of desperation to be able to come back from a 3-1 deficit, and they did it twice.”

James, whose last championship in 2016 was a result of Cleveland’s historic 3-1 comeback against Golden State, knows first-hand how the Nuggets felt. It takes resilience, then composure.

“The respect level is out of this world … for this ballclub,” James said. “And that’s how we’ll go into this series, understanding what they’re capable of and where they stand.”

That’s nothing short of effusive. The common denominators are numerous. Malone was an assistant coach in Cleveland on Mike Brown’s staff in 2007, when James upset the Pistons in his first Conference Finals appearance. James saw Malone’s work ethic and appreciated his dedication. Ever since, James has had an affinity for Denver’s blue-collar coach.

“When you work hard on your craft and you see others working just as hard on their craft, it becomes organic and it becomes mutual respect,” James said of Malone.

That Cavs team finished with 50 wins and the fourth-best defensive rating in the NBA. Stick around the NBA long enough, and things are bound to come full circle. Malone predicted the defensive instincts James honed in Cleveland would ultimately be used to stop Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic at some point in this series. James has made a habit of checking opponents’ best players come crunch time.

He also has a shared admiration for Jokic’s craft. Anyone who ed Jokic dissect the Clippers in Game 7, finishing with an eye-popping 16-point, 22-rebound, 13-assist triple-double, would. Especially in the third quarter, Jokic threaded seams tighter than a Singer sewing machine with some of his dishes. Once again, James can relate, his basketball mind operating on the same wave-length as Jokic’s.

“It’s probably the best part of the game,” James said. “Being able to get your teammates involved, putting the ball on time, on target, being able to see things happen before they happen and seeing the reward go to your teammates, it’s the best part of the game.”

Sound familiar? That’s basically Jokic’s basketball ethos. His loves to remind anyone who’ll listen: An assist makes two people happy, while a bucket serves just one.

“It’s just infectious,” James said of Jokic’s selfless nature. “When you have the best player on the team, or one of the best players on the team, not really caring about himself at all, for the better of the team, it sends a message to the rest of the group.”

Though James knows the Lakers are the favorite, he’s way too smart to admit anything close to that. And he has too much respect for the gauntlet Denver survived to get here.