The Denver Nuggets bounced back from two straight losses to beat the Los Angeles Clippers 127-115 at Ball Arena on Tuesday night. Nikola Jokic had a dominant game with 30 points, 14 rebounds and six assists, while seven other Denver players scored in double digits.
It was a whole team effort from start to finish. Aaron Gordon was in attack mode and finished with 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists but also did all the little things.
"Sometimes I find myself going into some abstract type of play, whether it's an aggressive rebound or a game of hustle or an offensive foul," Gordon said. "It doesn't always have to be three or one jumper or something like that. It can be game within game. Game within game, that's what drives me."
Jeff Green and Bones Hyland also scored 16 points per piece. Monte Morris scored 15 points and went 3-3 from long range. He also did some big plays down the stretch. Austin Rivers made 11 off the bench and Will Barton scored ten.
Michael Malone said, "Yes, Nicola is an MVP, but this team, with nine games left, everyone needs to step up their game and ease some of the pressure they put on Nicola every night." "So to get all five starts in double digits, to keep Bones and Austin Rivers in double figures off the bench, 31 assists and just 11 turnovers and we did a really good job defending the 3-point line."
Denver tries to make over 30 assists every night and has some big plays where the ball speed was superb. The Nuggets are currently second in the league in assists per game, averaging 27.5.
The Nuggets shot 54% from the field and 50% from outside the arc, while the Clippers only caught 31% of the arc for the game and 29% in the second half.
It is clear that the Nuggets are a very good basketball team, even if they are not at full strength, so most of the time when they lose it is because of their lack of effort and not their lack of skill. They know they have to do better to finish the season.
"You just play with more effort," says Morris, who has done what Denver does to continually improve. "You are who you are this season. You know why you win and you know why you lose so at this point in time really we know why we lose a lot of times. It's effort. I think That effort was not against Cleveland or Boston.
Denver took control of their game against Los Angeles early on, taking a 37–27 lead at the end of the first quarter. Jokic scored 14 runs with the first five rebounds.
In the second quarter, the Nuggets went 46-34 until the Clippers went 14-5 to within three points. That's when Denver's ball momentum began to click and Barton dropped the triple down and Morris hit two in a row to go 72-59. Jokic closed the lid with a tip-in shot on the buzzer in the first half, giving the Nuggets a 74-61 lead at halftime.
Denver remained in control in the third quarter and led by 14 points. The two teams didn't do much on the offensive and scored 27 points each, but the Nuggets still had a 99–88 advantage.
The Clippers opened the fourth for 5-0 but the Nuggets took 8-2 to take a 107-95 lead. The Clippers called a timeout and responded with a 5-0 run to cut the lead to seven. Denver then called a timeout but Los Angeles continued to attack and were within two points with only five minutes of regulation. That's when Morris came in the clutch and went down a big time three and then Jeff Greene gave the Nuggets a 117-109 lead. The Nuggets would close it to win 127-115.
The Nuggets are now back in sixth place with a 43-30 record and a full game in front of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Their main goal for the rest of the season is to avoid the play-in game, which the players have been putting a lot of emphasis on.
Unfortunately for Denver, it plays the best team this Thursday in the NBA, the Phoenix Suns and a team that has struggled all season on Saturday at the Oklahoma City Thunder. It will also face the Timberwolves next week, a very tough schedule to kick off the regular season, but the Nuggets make no excuses and have high hopes for the rest of the season.
"It's nine games right now, no excuses," Malone said. "I'm not saying we're going to go 9-0, but we have to leave it all there. It can't be a question of effort. Did we work hard enough? Did we have enough urgency? That window We have to do that. If we lose there should be another team better than us that night."