The King was allowed to skip college ball back in the day, but he must be getting more acquainted with March Madness now that his son is USC-bound.

Young LeBron James went straight to the NBA, where the postseason allows him to make mistakes then redeem himself. A graying, wizened LeBron now faces a 2-0 series deficit for the third time in his 12 career conference finals appearances.

The other two times he trailed 2-0? He got the last laugh in both of those series.

“What you take out of it is the fact that this is not the NCAA tournament,” James said after the Nuggets took a 2-0 Western Conference Finals lead with a 108-103 win Thursday night at Ball Arena. “The first team to four wins.”

Wise words that reflect the headspace of the Lakers as they return home to Los Angeles after two close losses.

“Until a team beats you four times, you always have an opportunity to come out of it,” James preached. “So that’s the confidence that we should have.”

James trailed 2-0 to the Pistons in 2007 then swept the next four games to lead the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals. During his second Cleveland stint, he faced the same climb against the Celtics but the Cavs rallied to win in seven games.

So even after Game 2 mishaps as difficult to forget as a muffed fast-break dunk, James was unperturbed. He lauded the Lakers for their defensive bounce-back performance, noting they held the No. 1 offense in the league to 43% shooting, and credited Jamal Murray for getting hot in the fourth quarter rather than treating the blown lead as an unraveling.

“They did what they were supposed to do,” Jarred Vanderbilt told The Post. “They’re undefeated at home (in the playoffs). We’re undefeated at home, too.”

“Hats off to them,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “They held serve on their home floor. And the more higher the levels you get to, you’re going to face much, much tougher teams. No disrespect to Memphis or Golden State, but this team has been at the top of the food chain for a reason, not just this year but the last few years.”

For a scope of how gutsy Denver’s consecutive wins were, even as the top seed: This is James’ 53rd career playoff series. It’s only the ninth time he has fallen behind 2-0.

For a sense of how mortal the Nuggets remain even with that advantage: In LeBron’s eight previous 2-0 deficits, he has clawed back to at least force a Game 7 five times.

Only two teams have swept James in a playoff series, and only two others have closed him out in five games. The Kevin Durant Warriors cracked that code by being a cheat code.

About that shocking botched dunk in the second quarter: James said even after a game in which the margin for error was so thin, it wasn’t a play that will haunt him.

“My opportunity puts us up 10,” he said. “And instead it was an eight-point deficit (for Denver). … Sucks that that ball squirted out of my hand like that. Maybe it hit my knee or whatever. But unforced turnover by myself. That’s important, especially on the road.”

Lakers’ big man Anthony Davis also owned up to his quiet night but didn’t feel discouraged: “Liked all the looks that I got today. Just a lot of them were short. I’m going to continue to shoot those shots, and I’ve got to be better.”

Davis was part of the revolving door of Nikola Jokic coverages. Los Angeles switched it up again in Game 2, with James guarding the center more frequently in the second half. After a 6-for-8 start from the field, Jokic finished the game on a 3-for-13 shooting stretch — the opposite of Murray’s abrupt revival.

While Nuggets coach Michael Malone spent his postgame news conference pointing out how the national “narrative” after Game 1 was that L.A. would be fine after finding solutions on defense, the Lakers used their time with media by positing that, well, they’ll be fine after finding solutions on defense.

If that’s more bulletin board material for Malone, James doesn’t seem to mind. His resume speaks for itself.

“We still have an opportunity to play good basketball and play the best basketball of the series in Game 3,” he said.

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