DENVER — The Denver Nuggets don't just need work on their inbounds play. If they're to bounce back from a second last-minute loss to the Lakers they'll also have to play to the rim tonight and not the crowd as they did in Game 3.

The Nuggets didn't spend their Sunday lamenting Trevor Ariza's deja vu steal in the final minute Saturday to help the Lakers snare a 2-1 lead in the Western Conference finals.

Instead, they talked about how they tried too hard to rile up their crowd, an ill-suited strategy that resulted in them missing 22 of 27 shots from outside the arc and shooting a playoff-low 39 percent.

The Nuggets' three best 3-point shooters were all off the mark: Carmelo Anthony was 1 for 7, Chauncey Billups 2 for 7, J.R. Smith 2 for 10.

Kenyon Martin said he couldn't believe the Nuggets fired up that many 3-pointers, "but we were trying to put them away."

"You've got to grind it out sometimes, take the tough two or get to the line and score points that way," Martin said.

Game 4 is tonight.

In their half-dozen blowouts at the Pepsi Center in these playoffs, the Nuggets had turned their crowd into a major factor by using their transition game, pull-up 3s, kick-outs and rim-rattling dunks to turn tight games into runaways and their arena into a jet engine.

Against Los Angeles, however, the 3-pointers rimmed out all night, allowing the Lakers to stick around long enough for Kobe Bryant to win it for them in the fourth quarter with help from Ariza, who also stole the Nuggets' inbounds pass in the final minute to seal Game 1.