This season, with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George onboard, was supposed to be different. In almost five decades in existence, they have never reached the conference finals. The Clippers are, of course, no strangers to playoff collapses. On Tuesday, they will face the Nuggets in a winner-take-all Game 7. The Clippers, after squandering double-digit leads in both Game 5 and Game 6 are now fighting for their postseason lives. Oh, what a difference two games can make.
CLIPPERS VS NUGGETS GAME 5 SERIES
In Tuesday’s other game, Jimmy Butler’s three-point play with 12 seconds left put Miami ahead for good, Bam Adebayo finished it off with a stunning rejection of Jayson Tatum at the rim on the ensuing Boston Celtics possession, and the Miami Heat struck first in the Eastern Conference finals with a 117-114 win in Game 1.Less than a week ago, the Los Angeles Clippers held a 3-1 lead over the Denver Nuggets in their second-round series and were -3,500 favorites, according to William Hill Sportsbook. “You have to celebrate the moments,” Malone said. And you could see it as the games went on.”ĭenver’s plans were to enjoy the moment briefly, anyway, before getting ready for the Lakers. “Honestly, you could just see the difference in the two teams. After all, this was Denver’s fourth straight Game 7 dating to the playoffs last season. Jokic insisted the third-seeded Nuggets weren’t feeling any pressure. Like I said, the last three games pretty much mirrored each other.” He broke his record of 19 that he set last season and shared with Marcus Camby.ĭenver had also rallied from double-digit deficits in their last two games to stun the Clippers. The 7ft Jokic had a monster game with 16 points, 13 assists and 22 rebounds, which were the most by a Nuggets player in an NBA playoff game. “This is a really interesting team,” Jokic said. The Nuggets celebrated after the game by dumping water on each other. But we didn’t meet our expectations, clearly,” Rivers said. “I’m the coach and I’ll take any blame for it. It also happened when he was with Orlando against Detroit in 2003, and with the Clippers against Houston in 2015. This marked the third time that coach Doc Rivers was on the losing end of a series where his team led 3-1. The Clippers fell to 0-8 all-time in games where they could clinch a trip to the conference finals. Leonard finished with 14 points on six-of-22 shooting, while George had 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting.
But we’ve been very optimistic about us being together and building something going down the road.” “Year 1 together, first run together, of course we wanted to win this. They certainly quieted the noise around the Clippers, who hoped the additions of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George would lead them to their first-ever conference finals and beyond.
“It’s fun to silence everybody,” said Murray, who scored 25 in the first half. They’ll be the underdogs, but that’s fine with Murray.
CLIPPERS VS NUGGETS GAME 5 PRO
The Nuggets made a little more history: they are the third team in the US major pro sports to rally from a pair of 3-1 deficits in the same playoffs, joining the 1985 Kansas City Royals and 2003 Minnesota Wild.ĭenver will face LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in the conference finals. Man, did we pass the character test or what?” “You find out a lot about people in these moments. “Those guys stepped up on the biggest moment,” said Nuggets coach Mike Malone, who turned 49 on Tuesday. The team beat Utah in Game 7 in the first round. Denver became the first team in NBA history to rally from a 3-1 series deficit twice in the same postseason.
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