Less than 24 hours after his team’s odds-defying win over the Lakers, Nuggets coach George Karl was still smiling. But he also was ready to move on.

Karl has been here before, and as the coach in these NBA playoffs with the second-most postseason victories (78), he understands the Nuggets have plenty of work left to do. So Wednesday morning he went about the business of reeling in any players who had the look of letting euphoria take over and cause too much satisfaction.

“We’ve got to worry about just controlling our happiness,” Karl said, sitting in a conference room at the team hotel before flying to Denver. “The real serious games are coming up (tonight), and if we’re fortunate to figure out how to win that game, then we get an opportunity to play an incredible seventh game.”

According to center JaVale McGee, Tuesday’s 102-99 victory, which cut the Nuggets’ series deficit to 3-2, was already a distant memory.

“That game is forgotten,” said McGee, who scored 21 points and grabbed 14 rebounds in Game 5. “It was a good win, but we’re still down in the series. We have to win two games in a row at that, and we have to come back to L.A. if we win the next game, so it’s not going to be easy.”

via Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post