NBA: 9 Bold and league-altering predictions heading into the playoffs

The Los Angeles Lakers will push the Denver Nuggets to seven games

Trying to make a prediction on this series based on last year's Western Conference Finals, it would be easy to say that the Denver Nuggets are going to win this one with little trouble. However, I think the Los Angeles Lakers are going to put up a better fight than last year. In fact, I predict that the Lakers are going to push the Nuggets to a seven-game series. Los Angeles may not end up winning this matchup but they're going to make life incredibly difficult for the Nuggets in this first-round NBA Playoff series.

The Lakers are playing their best basketball of the season heading into this series and I'm not sure if the Nuggets are ready to play NBA Finals-ready basketball at the moment. If not, the Lakers could sneak up on Denver. Los Angeles has been playing playoff basketball for the last month. And that could help them in this series.

For as much as I predict the Lakers will give the Nuggets some series problems in this series, I couldn't pull myself to the point of picking Los Angeles. In the end, the Nuggets will win. But it won't be as easy as they handled the Lakers as they did in last year's Western Conference Finals.