Nuggets’ resilience leads them past Clippers and on to their biggest challenge yet

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DENVER — Less than three weeks ago, the Denver Nuggets were at their lowest point of the season. The head coach and the general manager were fired, leading to David Adelman being hired on an interim basis. Heading into the final week of the regular season, the Nuggets were fighting to stay out of the Western Conference Play-In Tournament. In general, this was a team that was not having fun playing basketball, and it showed in the product on the court. It showed in the lack of defense. It showed in the lack of energy and effort.

Saturday night, these same Nuggets defeated the LA Clippers 120-101 in a Game 7 that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score showed. They celebrated in the locker room. They gave their interim coach a standing ovation for his first playoff series win. They turned on Game 7 of the Colorado Avalanche-Dallas Stars game and watched with great interest. They got treatment to recover from the wounds of a grueling series. And then they turned their attention to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

It makes sense to consider OKC a heavy favorite in the impending second-round matchup with the Nuggets. After all, OKC won 68 games in the regular season, breezed through four first-round games against the Memphis Grizzlies and has been milling around for a week waiting for the Nuggets and Clippers to finish beating each other up.

But this Denver team has been a definition of resilience since ownership cleaned house in the front office. The Nuggets could have easily limped into the postseason. Instead, they got better. The Nuggets could have easily remained the porous defensive team they were in the regular season. Instead, when the stakes were at their highest, they matched the Clippers, defensive stop for defensive stop. They could have easily ceded themselves as an easy first-round playoff out. Instead, they decided this could still be a special season. They could have folded midway through the series when they were down 2-1 and blown out by 34 points in Game 3. Instead, they rebounded to take three of four from a good and deep LA team to advance to the second round.

MOVIN’ ON pic.twitter.com/D8E3FRvybJ

— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) May 4, 2025

“It feels good, but we know that we have to fly to OKC,” Adelman said. “We know that it’s not the championship. I’m sure it kind of felt that way to the fans on both sides because this series was so insane and it had so many ups and downs. This has been one of those series where you don’t forget that you were a part of it. Before this series started, I said it felt like seven, and seven is exactly what it took.”

Denver could go on to lose to Oklahoma City, although the Nuggets match up with the Thunder better than people think. And Denver does have some difficult choices to make once the postseason hits. The Nuggets can’t trade a first-round pick until 2031. They don’t have any second-round picks in the foreseeable future. They are financially strapped and fighting to stay out of the restrictive collective bargaining agreement second apron.

But beating the Clippers in Saturday’s Game 7 and getting out of the first round proves there is life left in the Nikola Jokić era. And beating the Clippers means this group at its core can still get things done when it really matters, even if the roster depth probably isn’t where it needs to be. It can be argued that the Nuggets were able to advance to the Western Conference semifinals without getting a vintage Jokić series. He was still good collectively through seven games. But through most of the series, the Clippers defended him extremely well, doubling him and throwing him off his rhythm. Even in Game 7, Jokić scored just 16 points on 6-of-14 shooting while turning the ball over five times. That the Nuggets were able to win the series without Jokić having to assert himself has to be considered a good thing.

“I think, as a group, we’ve done a good job of being resilient,” Nuggets guard Russell Westbrook said. “I think we all knew how tough a series this was going to be. So we did a great job of sticking together and staying solid. We never wavered, even when things didn’t look the best. That shows the character of this team, and that shows who we are as a group. Even with everything we’ve been through, we did a really good job of staying together.”

In doing so, in a series that was won on the margins, the Nuggets came away with the advantage in most of the pivotal moments of the past two weeks. In Game 1, it was Jamal Murray forcing Kawhi Leonard into a turnover, a critical play in the Nuggets’ stealing a game the Clippers led by 15 points in the first half. In Game 4, it was Aaron Gordon’s dunk at the buzzer that enabled Denver to get the road win it needed. Murray had his sensational Game 5. In Game 7, Westbrook scored 16 points, grabbed five rebounds, handed out five assists and had five steals off the bench.

The @nuggets tonight became the first team ever to have six players score 15+ each in a Game 7 win 👏

Gordon: 22p, 4r, 5a
Braun: 21p, 5r, 4a
Murray: 16p, 5r
Jokić: 16p, 10r, 8a, 3s
Porter Jr.: 15p, 6r
Westbrook: 16p, 5r, 5a, 5s pic.twitter.com/V2mqIriPMb

— NBA (@NBA) May 4, 2025

The Nuggets dominated the critical points of the series, even in the games they lost. They kept Game 6 close enough that LA head coach Ty Lue had to play James Harden 47 of the 48 minutes to secure the win. That was no insignificant thing. The Nuggets were down a bunch in the third quarter. But by not giving up on the game, they forced the Clippers to burn through their reserve of energy. Despite the Game 6 win, LA had to turn around and play at the altitude of Ball Arena in Game 7, after its starters had played heavy minutes, and on less than a 48-hour turnaround.

As a result, Harden had no legs Saturday night; he was running in mud. He couldn’t get any separation off the dribble. He took only eight shots. He scored only 7 points. He couldn’t slide his feet defensively. Harden was essentially a shell of his Game 6 self — he scored 28 points Thursday night — and that gave Denver a significant advantage. Once the Nuggets made their game-defining run in the third quarter, the Clippers didn’t have enough energy to get back into the game.

In this sense, the Nuggets might have gone a long way toward winning this series in the regular season. By winning their final three games, they were able to sneak into the No. 4 spot in the Western Conference and gain the home-court advantage that came with it. Three weeks ago, Adelman talked to the media about finishing strong and his roster simply playing with joy and energy. The big things will always be seen. But the Nuggets truly won this series on the margins.

“I thought those last three games in the regular season were huge for us,” Adelman said. “It made us closer as a group, but it also gave us a chance to have home-court advantage in this series. It gave ourselves a chance to be in this building for this game, and that was a huge deal. This group has won a lot of games in this building, and we’ve had a lot of heartache in this building as well. We’ve been here before. There’s a lot of experience in that room. So, I’m very proud of the overall group effort from the guys.”

(Photo of Aaron Gordon driving to the basket against Kawhi Leonard: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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