Ramona Shell Barnemai 4, 2025, 01:20 am at
espn.comspent Closed Author Los Angeles Daily News for Seven Years
Denver – Nicola Jokic was dull after the Denver Nuggets fired manager Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth, leaving only three games left in the regular season.
The Nuggets lost just four in a row, slipping off the season and had little time to get things back in the right direction before the playoffs.
The early postseason exit seemed inevitable in the way the nuggets were on the way. A wasteful season for Jokic’s Prime.
“There’s no way to appear in Game 7 without making any changes,” the Nuggets executive told ESPN.
Instead, Denver returned to playing basketball type when he won the NBA Championship two years ago.
“I think the owners wanted to change something and change the energy,” Jokic said after the Nuggets won the LA Clippers 120-101 in Game 7 of the Western Conference’s first round playoff series on Saturday night. “He got the results he was looking for.”
The fourth seeded nugget was spectacular in Game 7, leading the Clippers up to 35 points to finish what was the most competitive series of the NBA’s first round. LA became the hottest team in the league, winning 18 of the last 21 regular season games as Kawhi Leonard and James Harden ultimately became healthy and peaked. And each superstar in this series left his mark.
However, in Game 7, Denver’s support cast was different. Christian Brown was primarily valuable to his defense against Harden during the series. However, on Saturday, Brown led Denver to a strong start, scoring nine points of his team in the first quarter.
“Last year, the team clearly missed the opportunity, but I felt they should have won,” Brown said. “Obviously they were a better team that night, but I felt like there was an opportunity left at the table. [Saturday’s performance] It was exactly what I wanted, and those people trusted me – they have it all year round, but they trusted me at the moment.
Editor’s Pick
2 Related
“So this was the exact moment I was looking for and I’m happy it took our path.”
Denver’s Aaron Gordon led all the scorers with 22 points, eight of which came when the game opened in the second quarter with a 37-point blast. Third, Gordon had one of the best dunks you’ve ever seen – the reverse two-handed jam seemed to send the ball arena crowd to Chidsey, and completely crush the Clippers’ spirit.
Nuggets’ sixth man, Russell Westbrook, scored 10 of 16 points in the decisive second quarter, hitting two huge three-pointers to push the series average to 42% with three-point shooting.
What’s particularly painful for the Clippers is that they were basically boldly boldly with a 30.5% 3-point shooter and beating them from behind the arc. According to Genius IQ, Westbrook got an average separation of 9.1 feet between himself and the closest defender in a three-point attempt in the series. This is the second most common separation for any player in the playoff series since player tracking began in 2014.
Westbrook said he would talk about how his previous team protected him after the master’s performance in Game 1 “take care of the business.”
“I think they believed it was their best bet to stop me or take me out of this series,” Westbrook said. “But one thing no one knows is that I’m off my ass, so no matter what someone is doing, I’m always ready.
“And like I said, after Game 1, if they continue doing that, I’m going to pay. I don’t know what I filmed for the series.”
He said he shot 42%, Westbrook smiled and said, “Damn, it’s solid. I don’t think it worked that well for them.”
Westbrook also scored five assists, five rebounds and five steals in just 27 minutes in Game 7.
Nuggets’ role-player performance is more than compensated for a sub-average HIM outing from Jokic, who is plagued by a foul that only had 16 points in six-fourths of shooting.
In all, six Denver players scored in double digits, but none of them had more than 22. It was a balanced offense with the Nuggets on the title in 2023, with interim coach David Adelman confident enough to refer to that team in his postgame comments.
“I thought it reminded me of the year we won,” Adelman said of the balance his team found in Game 7. We did this, we saw this, we have experienced this before and we succeeded. ”
The Nuggets have only one day to prepare for the start of the second round on Monday night with the top seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.
“It was a memorable series,” Adelman said. “We really don’t have time to remember that… because we’ll fly to OKC tomorrow.”
