Man, so here’s the deal with the Denver Nuggets—kind of a head-scratcher, if you ask me. They plodded through the regular season like it was a never-ending Monday, playing defense that was, well, meh at best. Ranked somewhere around smack dab in the middle before the All-Star break, they took a nosedive into the bottom 10 after, like a toast falling butter-side down. It’s like they forgot how to play defense when it actually started to matter.
Then, bam, here come the Clippers, the boys on a real tear—winning 17 out of their last 20 games. Their offense in Game 3? It was like watching a cooking show where everything’s perfectly sautéed. They were looking for open players, hitting shots like a video game, and honestly, it was like everything they tried just worked out perfectly for them. Even the popcorn was perfect (I dunno, I’m guessing here, but it probably was).
This wasn’t even the same vibe as the first two games, which felt like nail-biters where you had to actually pay attention—or else. Back in LA, in the Intuit Dome, that was apparently rocking like a school bus on a field trip, the Clippers were on fire. Kawhi Leonard played like someone told him the rim was made of cookies—he couldn’t miss. Nuggets? Yeah, they were kind of like a deer in headlights. This ain’t the performance that says “we’re here to win.” Nope.
They lost by a lot, 117-83. Like, not even close, and now they’re down in the series, 2-1. Big red flag there. But hey, Saturday could be different, right? At least that’s what the Nuggets’ stand-in coach, David Adelman, is trying to tell himself—and the team. You can almost hear him saying, “Look guys, let’s just forget tonight even happened, okay?”
Clippers were dropping three-pointers like it was the only recipe they knew, hitting 18 of them at a slick 46.2% clip. Derrick Jones Jr. and Nicolas Batum were having a grand time, and they didn’t even bother to ask Denver if they minded. Meanwhile, the Nuggets’ offense? It was like watching someone try to walk in new shoes—awkward and full of stutters. Only totaled three fast break points. Sad thing is, if you take Nikola Jokic out of the picture, everyone’s got butter fingers—shooting 34.9% as a team.
Jokic? Oh, he was out there treating the game like a calm Sudoku, just grabbing a triple-double, while the rest of the team was struggling to find its own shoelaces. Even when he’s doing his thing, it’s like he’s a solo act on a double bill because the supporting cast couldn’t find their lines, you know what I mean?
And then there’s the subplot, Michael Porter Jr. decided it was a good time to play superhero despite his injured shoulder (30%, he said). Guy was shooting blanks most of the night. Might sit the next one out, leaving the Nuggets shorthanded on firepower. You could almost hear the collective sigh.
Now, with Denver caught answering more questions than a contestant on a game show, it feels like the Clippers already have this figured out, like they’re assembling IKEA furniture, but the translation isn’t wrong this time. Saturday might just be more of the same or maybe, just maybe, the Nuggets find some of that old magic. But let’s be real—the writing’s on the wall unless they pull a rabbit out of a non-existent hat. Curious to see what unfolds.
