2 weeks Ago
LOS ANGELES — The floor of the Denver Nuggets is always going to be high, as long as Nikola Jokić is a part of the organization. But, there were too many times this season where the ceiling of the Nuggets looked iffy. There were too many instances this season of their bench falling apart when Jokić was on the bench.
There were too many teams around the league comfortable with double and triple-teaming Jokić without fear, due to Denver’s lack of shooting. Advertisement As time passed through the year, the structural flaws of a roster seeking a championship were pronounced enough to start uncomfortanle conversations. But, the hope was that Jokić and Jamal Murray would be enough to offset some of the real weakness of a team that was still long on championship experience and resilience.
It’s probably a bit of bad luck that this version of the Nuggets drew the Los Angeles Clippers in a Western Conference first-round matchup. Because if Clippers head coach Ty Lue is good at anything — and he’s great at a lot of things — it’s his ability to dissect the team he’s facing over the course of a series. And while the first two games may have represented Lue feeling out the Nuggets, Thursday night’s Game 3 exposed Denver for what it truly lacks around Jokić and Murray.
A 117-83 loss to the Clippers at Intuit Dome’s playoff debut provided a low point of the series for the Nuggets. LA was better and more physical in every aspect. The Clippers pushed, and the Nuggets failed to push back.
The Clippers defended, and the Nuggets failed to defend. The Clippers made shots, and the Nuggets didn’t make shots. If it sounds embarrassing for Denver, it was.
The Nuggets went into Los Angeles needing a win to take back home-court advantage, and the Clippers dismantled them in every way possible. “We got what we deserved,” Nuggets interim head coach David Adelman said. “We have to reassess tonight and watch the film.
We got embarrassed. The biggest thing on Saturday is that we have to come in and meet the game. If we can do that, we can put ourselves in a good spot to win on Saturday.
But it doesn’t matter what our adjustments are if we are not going to meet the challenge. Yes, we got embarrassed tonight, but the bottom line is it’s one game. We can come back in Game 4 and do the right things and give ourselves a chance.
” Advertisement Watching the film and meeting LA’s physicality are one thing. Figuring out how to mask the flaw of the roster is another. The Nuggets, who were one of the best shooting teams in the league this season, have yet to shoot 50 percent from the field in this series.
Denver has long had a bench short on talent and depth, and the Clippers took full advantage on Thursday night, outscoring Denver 31-6. The Nuggets have been able to typically throw Jokić the ball and allow him to work, but the Clippers have defended him so well that he hasn’t been able to be the best player in the series. The flaws of the roster have always been there, and LA’s coaching duo of Lue and assistant Jeff Van Gundy have been able to pinpoint those flaws and pick at them like a scab.
For instance, the Nuggets don’t have enough shooting on the roster around Jokić and Murray. So, whenever Jokić has the ball, the Clippers have been comfortable with sending hard double teams, knowing that on the aggregate, the Nuggets are largely incapable of making them pay for committing extra bodies to their best player. More importantly, Jokić and Murray, when they have been on an island against a defender, have been guarded by great individual defenders.
A sign of how good the Clippers are defensively? They don’t need to commit Kawhi Leonard to one of Denver’s primary scorers. Kris Dunn has been attached to Murray. Ivica Zubac has done wonders in making Jokić work for points in isolation situations.
The fact that neither Murray nor Jokić has had an easy time creating baskets has filtered to the rest of the roster. And the fact is, the Clippers play just one minus defender in their rotation — Bogdan Bogdanovic. Even James Harden, yes, THAT James Harden, has been defending relatively well.
It’s made offense particularly difficult for a Nuggets team that isn’t used to having to grind for their points. And that’s the one thing that vexed Adelman and the Denver locker room. Yes, the Nuggets knew the Clippers would be a formidable opponent.
But the collective word for Thursday night was disappointment. The Nuggets were disappointed that they allowed the Clippers to physically punk them. They were disappointed that they seemed hesitant in key moments.
They were disappointed that they didn’t play with the same sense of desperation the Clippers displayed in the competitive moments of the game. “They played like they wanted it more than us,” Murray said. “So, our mindset on Saturday is that we have to come out and go for it.
We have to set the tone, and we have to play the way we want to play, and not the way they want us to play. We have to try and learn from this game and not dwell on it. We have some adversity, and now it’s time to find a way to bounce back.
We are very capable of winning and getting the job done. It’s OK to have our backs against the wall.” Advertisement In some ways, the lethality of the blowout may work a bit in Denver’s favor.
Adelman pulled his starters with almost five minutes remaining, with Michael Porter Jr. immediately going back to the locker room to receive treatment on his sprained left shoulder. Buying Jokić and Murray even those five minutes may help preserve the legs of his two best players, who will no doubt need to play heavy minutes in a Game 4 that will start in less than 48 hours.
Hear from Coach after tonight’s game pic.twitter.com/1gUCcLCKOr — Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) April 25, 2025 It will be interesting to see what kind of schematic approach the Nuggets take on Saturday afternoon.
LA’s defense is smothering in the half court, which means it makes more sense for the Nuggets to try and play with more pace. They had just three points in transition in Game 3, which meant everything they were forced to create offensively came against a stout defense. From there, the game snowballed.
There was a 23-2 run that bridged the first and second quarters. And once the Clippers established a significant lead, the Nuggets weren’t able to significantly close the gap. “They were better than us today in every aspect of the game,” Jokić said.
“We have to go in on Saturday and not back down. We need to attack.” What that looks like is meeting LA’s physicality.
It looks like the Nuggets are figuring out a way to run a clean offense that yields shots at the basket on most possessions. But it also looks like resilience. That was missing from Denver on Thursday night.
Once the Clippers made a push, the Nuggets never pushed back, and that was an issue for Denver in the moments following the final buzzer. There were a lot of schematic things that went wrong for the Nuggets in Game 3. But there was also the sense that Denver didn’t do the intangibles nearly well enough.
For the Nuggets to avoid a 3-1 deficit in this series, both have to change. Advertisement “We have to settle down and not turn it over,” Murray said. “With all the doubling they are doing, we have to trust each other.
We have to swing the ball around and make shots. I think there is a lot of stuff we can be better at. Guys want to be better, and we will be the next game.
We have to come out and set the tone. We just have to go for it.” (Top photo of Nikola Jokić being guarded by Ivica Zubac in Game 3: Gary A.
Vasquez / Imagn Images).
