Andersen has kept it up in the playoffs, blocking 1.89 shots per game despite averaging only 21 minutes a night, which works out to 4.28 blocks per 48. Denver finished second in the league in blocked shots during the regular season with 6.0 per game with Nene Hilario (1.31) and Kenyon Martin (1.12) both swatting over one a game.

With the front line contesting everything around the basket, the Nuggets have held their playoff opponents to .438 shooting, just a shade over what Denver is shooting (.429) on 3-pointers.

Billups, Anthony and J.R. Smith have made 74 of 158 threes in the playoffs, a remarkable 46.8 percent. How dangerous is a team whose three leading scorers are shooting a better percentage from behind the arc than the team is allowing defensively on all shots?

And yet nothing Denver has done in the playoffs has convinced anybody that the Nuggets might derail the dream meeting between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James in the Finals.

Since the NBA went to the best-of-7 format in the first round in 2003, eight teams have gone 8-2 or better in the first two rounds, including the Nuggets and undefeated Cavaliers this season.

Surprisingly, on the four previous occasions when a team that went 8-2 or better in the first two rounds squared off against a team that had lost three or more games entering the conference finals, the team with the inferior playoff record entering the series won three times.

That would seem like good news for the favored Lakers, assuming they take care of business in Game 7 against Houston.

Not surprisingly, the first two times a team went 8-2 or better in the first two rounds and then lost in the conference finals, the victorious point guard was Chauncey Billups.

The Nuggets have Mr. Big Shot. So the Nuggets have a shot.