The Nuggets got punked. By King James. And by NBA refs.

Cry foul into a cry­ing tow­el, if you want. Whin­ing about life (or the refs) not being fair won’t get Den­ver any­where but a one-way tick­et out of the playoffs.

After get­ting dunked on and dissed dur­ing a 126–114 loss in Game 1 Fri­day in the West­ern Con­fer­ence finals, it’s obvi­ous that the league regards the Nuggets as lit­tle more than props in this Lake Show, star­ring James and Antho­ny Davis, who ham­mered Den­ver with 37 points. It was so ugly and frus­trat­ing the entire fourth quar­ter stunk like garbage time.

“I’m not going to sit here and blame it on the refs. That’s not what I’m doing,” Nuggets guard Jamal Mur­ray said. “We’ve got to play through it and earn their respect.”

In 2020, when life’s not fair, in any way, it’s easy to think the world is con­spir­ing against us. But think that way and it’s near­ly impos­si­ble to over­come. The refs did the Nuggets no favors in this L. But Mur­ray didn’t whine after the game. He’s a winner.

Lob­by the refs all you want. But beg for their mer­cy? That’s not how it works in this league. Cry­ing foul gets an up-and-com­ing team nowhere.

Yes, the Lak­ers attempt­ed two dozen foul shots in the sec­ond quar­ter alone, when Los Ange­les took con­trol of the game, with a big assist from a very friend­ly whistle.

“They went to the foul line 24 times in one quar­ter. Twen­ty-four times in a quar­ter, which is an extreme­ly high num­ber, on pace for 100,” said Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one, who ed the refs with the same dis­be­liev­ing eyes as many fans back in Denver.

There is Sis­tine Chapel artistry to the way James plays bas­ket­ball, but when he low­ers shoul­ders that are hard as anvils on a dri­ve to a bas­ket, a defend­er would have an eas­i­er time giv­ing a hug to a bull in Pam­plona than slow­ing down the King.

With the Nuggets employ­ing their clas­sic rope-a-dope strat­e­gy, L.A. blew them out of the Mag­ic King­dom with a 17–1 start to the sec­ond quar­ter. Maybe the worst moment in the peri­od, at least in the eyes of Den­ver fans, was when LeBron made a dent in Mur­ray, hit a shot and was giv­en a free throw, as well.

Mal­one for­mal­ly protest­ed, demand­ing a video review by the refs. I get the idea of stand­ing up for your guys. But you ain’t going to win that bat­tle against the King. He who has the rings gets the calls.

Malone’s objec­tion? Denied. Bron sank the free throw to put the Lak­ers up 56–41 with six min­utes, 25 sec­onds, remain­ing in the first half.

If Mal­one is going to com­plain about refs show­ing James too much respect, I’m afraid he is going to be mis­er­able for as long as it lasts. And it won’t last long.

Or as ana­lyst Charles Barkley punked Nuggets Nation on the TNT tele­cast pri­or to open­ing tip: “I don’t even know if they can make it a series … I tell you what, Amer­i­ca. Lak­ers in five!”

Bot­tom line: The refs didn’t beat the Nuggets. Here’s what did: The Lak­ers shot way too often from point-blank range, tak­ing great glee in slam­ming Den­ver with don’t‑mess-with-us dunks.

L.A. scored 54 points in the paint. “We were giv­ing up layups after scored bas­kets our­selves,” Mal­one said. “To me that indi­cates our sense of urgency to get back was not remote­ly any­where close to where it need­ed to be.”

Bely­ing his sweet Big Hon­ey rep­u­ta­tion, there’s a qui­et­ly stub­born com­pet­i­tive­ness deeply embed­ded in the DNA of cen­ter Niko­la Jokic. He won’t back down against the Lak­ers, as his 11 points dur­ing the open­ing 11 min­utes of the first quar­ter reas­sured us all.

The prob­lem? L.A. can send big bod­ies in waves at Jok­er, from JaVale McGee to Dwight Howard. This series is going to leave a dent.

If Den­ver is going to have any shot against the Lak­ers, Mur­ray is going to have to take it. He needs to aver­age at least 25 points per night. He scored 21 in Game 1. But it didn’t mat­ter, because starters Paul Mill­sap, Jera­mi Grant and Gary Har­ris came up painful­ly small, shoot­ing a meek 7‑of-23 from the field.

After only four quar­ters in this best-of-sev­en series, the Nuggets are in a tough spot.

And guess what?

The refs aren’t going to bail Den­ver out.

Not only has Mal­one kept this team togeth­er when hope appeared gone, but he has also cracked the most mem­o­rable sound­bites heard in the Nuggets camp since the prime of Doug Moe.

On the eve of this series, Mal­one quipped: “We peti­tioned the league to see if we could start the series down 3–1, save every­body a lot of time.”

The Nuggets have made us all believe that impos­si­ble is noth­ing. But go down 3–1 to the Lak­ers and it will be all over except the told-ya-so cack­ling by Sir Charles Barkley.