Michael Malone acknowledges fouls favor the Lakers, but won't blame the refs

The Denver Nuggets took the first two games of their first-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers and head out west in full control of the series.

The defending NBA champions were led by Nikola Jokic, who recorded a triple-double, scoring 27 points, grabbing 20 boards, and dishing out 10 assists.

One thing the Nuggets have had working against them in this series is limited free-throw opportunities, despite scoring plenty of points in the paint. However, head coach Michael Malone doesn't think it's a big issue and even went as far as to say the Nuggets didn't need free throws to defeat Los Angeles when asked about what they could do to even things out.

"Why should we? We keep winning," Malone said after the Nuggets won Game 1. "I think in the second half we had a total of zero free throw attempts, which is obviously concerning when you consider that we had 30 (points) in the paint we scored. We had plenty of field goal attempts in the paint so it's not like we're just settling for jump shots.

We are attacking, we are posting, we are playing to the rim, and you would think that that would warrant a few free throws, at least two. But that wasn't the case last night, so we've just got to stay the course and continue to play the game, and attack and play our style, and you hope that there's a payoff at some point."

Malone doesn't blame refs for Nuggets lack of free throws

Malone clearly doesn't think the lack of free throws for the Nuggets is a big deal, though it's obvious he and the Nuggets were hoping for more opportunities.

But what matters to Malone only appears to be winning the series. The Nuggets are now halfway to their goal of escaping the first round, as they take a 2-0 series lead into Los Angeles.

And in Game 2, the Nuggets got a chance to shoot more free throws, hitting 15 in 17 opportunities, which gave them an 88.2 percent success rate from the line, while the Lakers hit 10 in just 13 opportunities, shooting 76.9 percent from the charity stripe.

So, things were evened out a bit in Game 2 as the Nuggets barely held off the Lakers despite strong performances from Anthony Davis, LeBron James, and D'Angelo Russell. The Nuggets were able to work through any issues and keep playing their game, just as Malone stated they needed to do.

Game 3 will take place on Thursday night at the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles. Tip-off is at 10 p.m. Eastern Time.