Sometimes it just isn’t your night. Over the course of an 82-game regular season, a team goes through several sluggish performances, and one came for the Denver Nuggets in a 132-103 loss to the LA Clippers Friday. LA grabbed a double-digit lead within the opening minutes of the game and never looked back, which essentially put the two teams in a tie for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.
“They didn’t feel us on either end,” Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said. “They got whatever they wanted. We couldn’t run offense because they took us out of our stuff. We just allowed them to do it for 48 minutes.”
The Nuggets struggled mightily on the offensive end out of the gates. Through the first four minutes of the game, Denver had scored just four points. Meanwhile, the Clippers had dropped 14 points in that stretch and had built an early double-digit lead. Things didn’t get much better for the Nuggets throughout the remainder of the quarter, as LA continued to dominate on both ends of the floor. Nikola Jokić put his stamp on the game early with 10 points and five rebounds in the quarter and Denver’s second unit immediately had an impact, but the Clippers held a 37-37 lead after one.
Reggie Jackson continued to torch Denver to begin the second quarter, as he dropped 10 points in his first seven minutes of action. Despite LA’s continued success on the offensive end, Jerami Grant and Denver’s second-unit kept the game competitive. With 12 points in his first 10 minutes (including two 3-pointers), Grant kept the deficit at 10 midway through the second frame. Unfortunately for the Nuggets, they wouldn’t get much closer during the remaining minutes of the first half, as LA secured a 66-56 lead heading into break.