The harshest truth behind the Los Angeles Lakers' 0-3 deficit to the Denver Nuggets in the NBA playoffs - ESPN

Not counting the not-so-secret tunnels inside of Crypto.com Arena, there were — at most — 100 feet between the cozy interview room in which Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic was explaining how long it takes to to build a championship team Thursday night after his team took a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Los Angeles Lakers in their first-round playoff series, and the makeshift, cavernous room in which L.A.'s LeBron James and Anthony Davis were trying to reckon with how quickly their championship hopes were fading.

«You need two or three years to learn how to play with each other,» Jokic said, before launching into an abridged history of his time and all the teammates he has had in nine seasons with the Nuggets.

«You need to learn your teammates. His steps. If he's going to go left hand. If he's going to go right hand. It's everything.»

Down the hall, James had just concluded his news conference by saying he couldn't say how or what any of his teammates were thinking after the fourth consecutive playoff game in which the Lakers had squandered a double-digit lead to the Nuggets and their 11th consecutive loss to Denver overall.

«It's hard for me to just be like, 'This is what I think that guy feels,'» James said. «I can't do that. I'm not a mind reader. I don't know.»

There have been plenty of harsh truths revealed during this series, which could be headed for the same kind of «competitive sweep» as last season's Western Conference finals if Denver can close out L.A. in Game 4 Saturday evening, but none more stinging than the culture gap between the two franchises that Jokic's and James' comments made clear.

In one room, a future Hall of Famer was talking about nearly a decade's worth of culture and team building.