Can ‘unorganized’ Nuggets ‘play a full 48 minutes’ in Game 7?

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INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Arms crossed with a stoic look on his face, Denver Nuggets interim head coach David Adelman used a quick timeout to try to stave off an LA Clippers stampede. Only that timeout didn’t work. Nothing in the opening minutes after halftime could quell the momentum that seemed to get worse by the possession in front of a packed house at Intuit Dome.

When that early third-quarter stoppage proved not to be enough, Adelman, twice after Clippers’ baskets, looked at his players with both hands motioning slowly to the ground. “Calm down,” he said, to nobody in particular after a Kawhi Leonard hoop. When you have only so many timeouts allotted, sometimes a coach has to allow his team to figure things out on the floor and on the fly. Adelman and the Nuggets were in that position Thursday night. And that’s why the Clippers still have basketball left to play.

A first-round series that looked so evenly matched on paper is heading to a Saturday afternoon Game 7 at Ball Arena, after LA defeated Denver 111-105 in Game 6. For Adelman, watching a third quarter go haywire from the sidelines reminded him of the lowest point of the series for the Nuggets.

In Game 3, the Clippers swarmed Nikola Jokić defensively and bothered Denver whenever it tried to get into its offense. In Game 3, the Clippers took those turnovers and converted them into points in transition, which fired up a home crowd to fever-pitch levels. Game 3 turned out to be a Clippers avalanche, something the Nuggets didn’t allow to happen in Game 6. Denver even cut the deficit to two positions deep into the fourth quarter, causing some nervous moments for Clippers fans.

But in that third quarter, the similarities to Game 3 were there, and that’s something the Nuggets will need to figure out as they head to Game 7.

“We got sped up,” Adelman said. “From that standpoint, it for sure reminded me of Game 3. They got into us defensively and made us turn the ball over. If you don’t take care of the ball in this series, you lose. I thought we played relatively well defensively, but we never came up with a 50-50 ball, and that really hurt us.

“That third quarter absolutely killed us. I thought outside of the third quarter, it was a tight game. But, going back to Game 7, we have to be better throughout the game. We have to play a full 48 minutes of effective basketball on Saturday.”

This series is headed to a Game 7, because in Game 6, the Nuggets did the things that hurt them in the two previous losses of this series. Denver turned the ball over 14 times, and it led to 23 LA points. In a series this tight, a team getting 23 points off of miscues will go a long way. The Nuggets, who looked so energized as a unit in Tuesday night’s Game 5 win, looked lethargic and exhausted in large stretches of Game 6. And the Clippers made Jokić look mortal in large stretches, pressuring him and doubling him with Nic Batum as his primary defender. For extended periods, the pressure threw Denver’s offense off kilter.

A lot of credit has to go to Clippers coach Ty Lue. For the first time in the series, Lue went with Batum primarily with the starting lineup, largely eliminating Kris Dunn from the immediate rotation, and Batum’s defense and activity changed Game 6’s second half. Defensively, he was surprisingly credible on Jokić as a primary defender, and his long arms and anticipation in the passing lanes caused all sorts of issues for Denver’s offense. Offensively, having Batum on the floor offered LA gravity in its halfcourt offense that hadn’t been there previously in the series with Dunn on the floor.

With the Nuggets having no time to prepare for an LA offense featuring four shooters around center Ivica Zubac, the Clippers were able to generate easy shots at will in the third quarter. The shots that LA missed were ones that the Clippers rebounded, and the adjustment to Batum generally just threw the Nuggets out of sorts.

“I thought we were unorganized,” Denver guard Jamal Murray said. “I think that’s the best way to put it. It was frustrating. Some of the turnovers were bad and they hurt us tonight. But I thought they played with a lot more desperation than we did. They came out and played with their backs against the wall. I thought the game came down to a lot of those 50-50 possessions. On Saturday, those are the possessions that we are going to have to take away.”

In a way, Murray touched on the built-in advantage LA carried into Game 6. It’s well known in NBA annals that the closeout game is the most difficult win to get, particularly on the road, as Denver was attempting on Thursday night. And particularly in a series with two great teams, such as the Nuggets and the Clippers. In Game 3, the Clippers blew out the Nuggets. In Game 5, the Nuggets returned the favor. There was a Kawhi legacy Game 2. There was a Jokić legacy Game 4, and a Murray legacy Game 5. This series has had it all.

Facing elimination, the Clippers were going to leave it all on the floor, and that turned out to be Batum playing a series-high 34 minutes. By now, both teams know what the other is going to run in terms of plays. So, LA’s knowledge that a loss ends the series, and playing at Intuit Dome, almost certainly provided the Clippers with a shot of adrenaline the Nuggets couldn’t match.

It’s not that Denver didn’t want to win Game 6 and end the series. They did. It’s not like the Nuggets didn’t play well for three of four quarters. They did. But in a series that’s been won on the margins almost throughout, the Clippers were the team with the most to lose on Thursday night, and it showed, particularly in the third quarter.

“I thought we had two stretches where we weren’t disciplined and weren’t focused and it showed,” Jokić said. “They went on a run in the second quarter and they created a lead. And then, in most of the third quarter, we weren’t very disciplined and we paid for it. Every 50-50 ball went to them. Every offensive rebound went to them.

“They were faster and better than us tonight when they had to be.”

(Photo of Nikola Jokić Harry How / Getty Images)

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