NBA playoffs: Lakers eliminate Warriors, advance to face Nuggets in Western Conference finals

The Los Angeles Lakers eliminated the Golden State Warriors from the NBA playoffs with a 122-101 win in Game 6 on Friday, May 12, 2023, closing out the Western Conference semifinal series 4-2 and advancing to face the top-seeded Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, according to Yahoo Sports.

LeBron James led the Lakers with 30 points, and Austin Reaves delivered a buzzer-beating heave before halftime that Yahoo Sports described as a standout moment of the game. Anthony Davis added 17 points and 20 rebounds. Stephen Curry led all scorers with 32 points for the Warriors in the loss.

The retrieved reporting focuses on the closing game's stat lines and the series outcome; it does not detail every game of the six-game series, so the full run of results across Games 1 through 5 was not independently confirmed in this session beyond the final 4-2 series record.

A first for the Kerr era

The loss marked the first time the Warriors had been eliminated by a Western Conference opponent in the playoffs since Steve Kerr became head coach in 2014, according to Yahoo Sports' report, underscoring how unusual the result was for a franchise that had dominated the conference for most of the preceding decade.

We defended at a high level, and when we do that, we can be extremely good.

That assessment from LeBron James, reported by CBS Sports, pointed to defense rather than the Lakers' offensive stars as the deciding factor in the series. Kerr himself did not dispute it. "The better team won, and I can't fault our players for the effort," Kerr said afterward, according to CBS Sports' coverage of the game -- a rare public concession from the Warriors' longtime head coach that Golden State had simply been outplayed rather than beaten by a bad break.

Where the Warriors' offense broke down

CBS Sports' reporting also detailed a specific weak point in the Warriors' loss: Klay Thompson shot 10-for-36 from three-point range over the final four games of the series, a cold stretch that left Curry's 32 points without enough scoring support around him. The Lakers, meanwhile, improved to 7-0 at home in that postseason and never trailed in the closeout game, a level of dominance CBS Sports described as capping an improbable late-season surge for a team that had entered the playoffs as the seventh seed.

What's next for both teams

The Lakers were set to open the Western Conference finals against the Nuggets the following Tuesday, per the report. For the Warriors, the report framed the early offseason start as raising questions about player contracts, front-office decisions and a possible roster overhaul as the team's championship-winning core continued to age.

The Nuggets matchup that followed

The Lakers entered that Western Conference finals series as clear underdogs against two-time MVP Nikola Jokic, who was averaging 30.7 points, 12.8 rebounds and 9.7 assists on 54.9% shooting through the playoffs, according to preview coverage of the series. Los Angeles countered with the No. 1-ranked defensive rating among playoff teams, anchored by Anthony Davis, who was putting up 21.2 points while leading the league in both rebounding (14.1 per game) and blocks (3.3 per game) that postseason -- with previews framing Jokic's ability to draw Davis into foul trouble as the single biggest swing factor for whether the Lakers' defense-first formula could hold up against Denver.

US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports. It restores a story originally published on this site in May 2023; figures are as reported at the time.