DENVER — The way the first-round series between the Clippers and the Denver Nuggets had gone, most expected the teams to produce a tight Game 7, if not another down-to-the-wire thriller.
After a pressure-cooker performance in Game 6 at the Intuit Dome extended the series to the limit, the Clippers came up well short on Saturday at Ball Arena, losing 120-101 in a game that was far more lopsided than the final score indicated.
The Nuggets used a dominant second quarter to turn a five-point deficit into an 11-point halftime lead then opened the third quarter with a 17-3 run to seize control of the game for good. Denver outscored the Clippers 72-40 in the middle two quarters and cruised across the finish line.
The imported “Wall” of 125 Clippers fans, whose game tickets and airfare were funded by team owner Steve Ballmer to try to recreate a condensed version of the group of superfans that packs the section behind one of the baskets at the Intuit Dome, could not bar entry to the Nuggets’ supporting cast.
Nikola Jokic hit a fallaway 16-footer, Aaron Gordon fed Christian Braun for a 3-pointer and then dunked to make it 65-50 and prompt a Clippers timeout.
James Harden missed a short jumper and Norman Powell had a turnover and a layup blocked, while Michael Porter Jr. drained a pair of 3-pointers to send the Ball Arena crowd into a frenzy. Gordon tipped in a Jamal Murray miss to make it 75-50 with 8:12 left in the third quarter. Jokic converted a three-point play and Gordon dunked off a lob pass from Braun to give Denver a 28-point lead with 5:40 left in the third.
For much of the second half, the Clippers simply looked lost. At one point in the fourth quarter, they trailed by 35.
Gordon had 22 points and Braun scored 21 to pace the Nuggets. Jokic finished two assists away from his fourth triple-double of the series (16 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists), but the three-time league MVP picked up his third, fourth and fifth fouls over a 48-second span late in the third and went to the bench. He played only a few minutes in the fourth quarter.
Murray added 16 points, Porter had 15 points and six rebounds and former Clipper Russell Westbrook had 16 points, five rebounds, five assists and five steals off the bench, playing a huge role in the second quarter.
The Clippers were seeded fifth in a tightly-packed Western Conference, but they went into the postseason as the hottest team in the league. A team that waited until early January for star forward Kawhi Leonard to make his season debut won 18 of its last 21 regular-season games with Leonard looking as good as he had in years.
The two-time NBA Finals MVP, who had a team-high 22 points in Game 7, was nearly unguardable for stretches of this series, particularly in Game 2, when he scored 39 points on 15-of-19 shooting.
James Harden, who had 28 points in a bounce-back performance in Game 6, went cold in the finale. He was held to seven points on 2-of-8 shooting (1 for 4 from 3-point shooting), though he added 13 assists.
Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 12 off the bench and Derrick Jones Jr. also had 12, but Clippers center Ivica Zubac had his quietest scoring game of the series with 10 points and 14 rebounds, and Norman Powell scored nine on 4-of-11 shooting (0 for 3 from 3-point range). Kobe Brown had 13 points.
The Nuggets began celebrating early in the fourth quarter when Westbrook willingly received a technical foul for hanging on the rim and swinging back and forth after his steal and dunk put Denver up 107-76.
The Clippers’ reserves cut a 35-point deficit into the teens late in the fourth, but the Nuggets’ lead was too big to overcome and their 19-point win was their biggest in a Game 7 in the franchise’s playoff history.
The fourth-seeded Nuggets advance to take on top-seeded Oklahoma City, which swept eighth-seeded Memphis in the first round and has had a week off. That series begins Monday night in OKC.
More to come on this story.
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