DENVER — The LA Clippers were blown out Tuesday in Game 5 of their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets.
All-Star point guard James Harden, whose field-goal attempts have decreased every game, was held to 11 points on 3-of-9 shooting and had more turnovers (four) than made baskets. He missed three free throws.
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And he missed out on talking about the 131-115 loss afterward, as he did at home after Game 4 when he was last seen trying to jump for a rebound following a Nikola Jokić air ball that landed in the hands of Aaron Gordon.
Harden surely will have a response and be accountable in Game 6 on Thursday at Intuit Dome, both on the court and after the game. Either the Clippers will win, and Harden will want to discuss how they bounced back. Or the Clippers’ season will be over, and they will make their players meet with the media for the final time.
Harden has been great all season for the Clippers in a variety of ways. But if he is the leader of this team now, then it’s not showing. And since he’s not talking now, we’ll have to settle for three things: his play doing the talking, what he has said before and those who can speak on his behalf.
Harden did speak after the Clippers’ Game 1 loss. What made that easier was that it was the only game in this series in which Harden scored more than 20 points. He only had two of LA’s 20 turnovers. He was a bright spot on a day when the Clippers blew a 15-point lead. After that loss, something Harden said stuck out about how he and the Clippers view the Nuggets.
“It’s nothing they did,” Harden said of Denver forcing 20 turnovers in Game 1. “It’s us. All of us.”
That seems to be the attitude that the Clippers have had in this series. They acknowledge how great Jokić is, and they look at the Nuggets as a good team that has been well-coached despite David Adelman taking over for Michael Malone less than a month ago. The Clippers are supposed to feel like they are the better team.
But now, down 3-2, the Clippers are facing elimination, and it’s because of some of what the Nuggets are doing to them and what they aren’t doing for themselves.
When Denver won Game 4 on Saturday, it did what road teams do: The Nuggets got home as soon as possible. They were back in Denver by Saturday night and rested on Sunday. They practiced in their native altitude on Monday. The result Tuesday night was their highest-scoring game since April Fool’s Day, which was a home loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in double overtime pockmarked by Russell Westbrook missing a layup and fouling Nickeil Alexander-Walker in the act of shooting.
The Clippers looked like a team that had to adjust to the altitude on Tuesday. They were always going to be at a disadvantage staying in Los Angeles until after they practiced on Monday morning.
Tyronn Lue staying with the same starting lineup, so that is expected to be part of the solution to slow starts as opposed to something he feels needs to be changed.
Also asked T Lue about what advantage he feels his team has leaving LA yesterday after practice https://t.co/Iy9zvTyoHY pic.twitter.com/FdGJUt9LAm
— Law Murray 💭🚫 (@LawMurrayTheNU) April 30, 2025
Overall, the Clippers scored fine; 115 points would have been enough to beat the Nuggets in the first four games of the series. But that brings us back to Harden.
He looked like he didn’t have his legs. He missed both of his 3s, the first time Harden failed to make a 3 in a game since Feb. 4, the night the Clippers returned home from a four-game road trip and were embarrassed by the Los Angeles Lakers on national television. Look at how short this ideal catch-and-shoot opportunity was in the third quarter:
And Harden wasn’t the only one who may have been a little gassed. Kawhi Leonard missed 4 of 7 free throws. Nicolas Batum failed to score. Ben Simmons missed a hook in the paint badly and wasn’t used after the first quarter.
On the flip side, Jamal Murray dragged the Clippers for 43 points. A “Murray flurry” was due at some point, and after the Nuggets survived a series-low 13-point showing by Murray in Game 4, he sank the Clippers by making 17 of 26 shots Tuesday, 11 of which came from outside the paint and eight of which came from outside the arc.
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Does Murray feel like the Clippers respected his team?
“I don’t know — I mean, maybe?” Murray said after his best non-bubble scoring game of his postseason career. “I don’t talk to them like that. … It’s just another challenge, you know? I respect everybody over there, and it was just fun to go compete.”
Asked Jamal Murray if he felt like the Clippers have respected his team in this series
“I don’t know. I mean, maybe? I don’t talk to them like that. We’re just out there competing, and two great teams battling it out… I respect everybody over there” pic.twitter.com/9JCZBZki1X
— Law Murray 💭🚫 (@LawMurrayTheNU) April 30, 2025
One player who definitely should have been rested, and might have been feeling disrespected, is Westbrook. It seems like the Clippers are encouraging Westbrook to shoot or make mistakes, either because of unideal shot selection or poor ballhandling decisions.
But after missing the previous six quarters of the series due to a foot issue, Westbrook lit up the Clippers for 21 points off the bench on 8-of-15 shooting. He got multiple and-1s through Bogdan Bogdanović, got comfortable in the midrange and made 3 of 6 from 3. Two of Westbrook’s 3s came above the break, where Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue has made a point to mention that Westbrook is not as strong as he is in the corners.
Sometimes, you just get beat. The Nuggets made 25 of 47 attempts (53.2 percent) outside of the paint, which would have been a respectable efficiency mark inside the paint. The NBA average for shots outside the paint in the regular season was 17.1 makes and a percentage of 37.1 percent. Murray and Westbrook made as many 3s (11 of 20) as the entire Clippers team (11 of 29).
Lue pointed out that the Clippers blew out the Nuggets in Game 3 due to how well the Clippers shot the 3 in that game (18 of 39, 46.2 percent). In Game 5, it was Denver’s turn to get awesome and possibly outlier shooting. This was all on a night when Jokić scored only 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting.
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Lue also pointed out how the Nuggets are taking Harden out of the series. If that’s the case, then Lue needs to do something about it.
“I think they made their mind up (that) they’re going to try and take him out of the series after the first two or three games,” Lue said of Harden’s decreased effectiveness and volume that has seen him score only 26 points in the last 10 quarters. “And they’re doing a good job. I got to do a better job just finding ways to get him open, to get him space and probably more isos, just because they’re blitzing so much and trying to get him to his spots.”
Asked Kawhi Leonard and Ivica Zubac about Clippers preparation for Game 5
Kawhi went back to the starts not being good enough and needing heroic comebacks
Zu felt team was prepared, and that Nuggets just shot exceptionally well pic.twitter.com/2YKLJZucPq
— Law Murray 💭🚫 (@LawMurrayTheNU) April 30, 2025
In any case, the Clippers are coming off their third straight embarrassing Game 5 performance in a playoff series.
Two years ago, the Phoenix Suns finished the Clippers in the first round because the Clippers allowed 50 points in the third quarter. A year ago, the Clippers lost Game 5 against the Dallas Mavericks at home by 30 points. And Tuesday saw the Clippers allow their most points since giving up 134 points in November at Oklahoma City, which was so long ago that Terance Mann started before he was replaced on the depth chart by Kris Dunn.
What happens with Dunn might be the next course of action for the Clippers and Lue in this series. As great as Dunn is, the Clippers have been outscored by 15 points with him on the floor, the only Clipper to have a negative plus-minus through five games.
Murray’s detonation of all of the Clippers invalidates keeping Dunn on the floor solely because the defense is working. Dunn has helped out Harden all season by being another ballhandler to relieve him, but that luxurious feature isn’t helping the Clippers start games, as the Nuggets defend off Dunn aggressively:
The Clippers are down to their last chance. They need Harden to be better. They need Leonard to be better. They need Norman Powell to be better. They need Lue to be better. They’re good enough to retaliate, but they need to act like it. Perhaps facing elimination is what the Clippers need.
“I mean, we got to respond,” Lue said after Game 5. “We blew them out in Game 3, and they came back and responded in Game 4. So we got to do the same thing. I mean, I don’t know what changes you can make. They’ve made shots, making 17 3s, and they blew us out.
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“We’ve made 18 3s, and we blew them out. So the 3-point line is going to be the most important thing. We’ve got to make sure we’re taking care of that, which we didn’t do a good job with tonight. … Going back home, Intuit will be rocking. We’ll be fine.”
(Top photo of James Harden: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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