2025 NBA PLAYOFFS West First Round: #4 Denver Nuggets vs #5 LA Clippers (Series tied 2-2)

[madmaxmedia]

Cllips offense

Kawhy 21
Harden 20
Powell 20
Zubac 19

let alone going on a deep playoff run, if they want to win this series this has to be the norm going forward. Two guys taking turns to score 35+ is not healthy.

I see what you did there

[ejftw]

Personally, I'm not surprised Harden has elevated his game. Throughout his career, he seems to start out hot, and tapers off and the year goes off.

He started out the season meh, and built up his play the closer it got to the playoffs.

Now, he can turn into playoff Paul George James Harden at any point. Wouldn't bet on it though

[LoneyROY]

Kawhi and Harden are the perfect yin and yang to one another.

Clippers have all the makings of a championship team.

[Lala870]

Personally, I'm not surprised Harden has elevated his game. Throughout his career, he seems to start out hot, and tapers off and the year goes off.

He started out the season meh, and built up his play the closer it got to the playoffs.

Now, he can turn into playoff Paul George James Harden at any point. Wouldn't bet on it though

On paper I never understood this narrative with Harden.

He always cooked in the playoffs with Houston as the number 1 option. Easily has a ring with Houston had Chris Paul not mysteriously gotten injured game 6 that one year against Golden State

[ejftw]

First highlight TNT shows is Jokic getting a bucket while getting away with an offensive foul. According to Jokic apologists, Zu would've been in the right to flop.

Personally, I'm not surprised Harden has elevated his game. Throughout his career, he seems to start out hot, and tapers off and the year goes off.

He started out the season meh, and built up his play the closer it got to the playoffs.

Now, he can turn into playoff Paul George James Harden at any point. Wouldn't bet on it though

On paper I never understood this narrative with Harden.

He always cooked in the playoffs with Houston as the number 1 option. Easily has a ring with Houston had Chris Paul not mysteriously gotten injured game 6 that one year against Golden State

While in a general sense I agree, Harden has had a tendency to taper off as the year goes on

[ken6199]

Cllips offense

Kawhy 21
Harden 20
Powell 20
Zubac 19

let alone going on a deep playoff run, if they want to win this series this has to be the norm going forward. Two guys taking turns to score 35+ is not healthy.

I see what you did there

anti jinx man. anti jinx

[Alatan]

This is going to be an interesting off-season for Nuggets.

The only move they have is to trade Jokic. No one is taking MPJ, Murray, AG, Nnaji or Saric on their contracts. And Braun is a restricted FA after next season so i doubt many teams would be interested in overpaying him a season early.

They have no tradeable picks.

Maybe they could swap Watson for something but it wont be better than Watson.

I have never seen a team burry their star in mediocrity like this.

I mean you never trade jokic unless he specifically asks. You can just bottom out and try to regroup with him. Rebuilding just to try to get another jokic (there are none) is not a good strat.

Oh yeah, the Nuggets should not trade Jokic for their own needs. But the team is going nowhere. Jokic should demand out if he doesnt want to waste his career. If he is OK in just being paid, living in Denver and doing his own thing off the court then it is what it is.
But i believe that spending half of your day doing something pointless just for the money while you already have generational wealth becomes unbearable so he will either retire or demand a trade.

As a fan of his game i would really love if he god traded anywhere this offseason. I just want to see what he can do with a different set of teammates. Getting traded to a team like NY where he could actually compete would be dreamy.

[Lala870]

First highlight TNT shows is Jokic getting a bucket while getting away with an offensive foul. According to Jokic apologists, Zu would've been in the right to flop.

Personally, I'm not surprised Harden has elevated his game. Throughout his career, he seems to start out hot, and tapers off and the year goes off.

He started out the season meh, and built up his play the closer it got to the playoffs.

Now, he can turn into playoff Paul George James Harden at any point. Wouldn't bet on it though

On paper I never understood this narrative with Harden.

He always cooked in the playoffs with Houston as the number 1 option. Easily has a ring with Houston had Chris Paul not mysteriously gotten injured game 6 that one year against Golden State

While in a general sense I agree, Harden has had a tendency to taper off as the year goes on

Im not a harden expert but this was wildly overblown during his Houston years I thought.

[SpreeS]

Cllips offense

Kawhy 21
Harden 20
Powell 20
Zubac 19

let alone going on a deep playoff run, if they want to win this series this has to be the norm going forward. Two guys taking turns to score 35+ is not healthy.

I see what you did there

This is reality, what you can do if you don’t have more scorers.

[Infinite Llamas]

GG Nugs

Wish there were more actual Clips fans here like yourself than insufferable Jokic haters who make these threads completely toxic.

I actually like the Clippers team a lot and I hope they make it to the Finals. Boston-LAC would be wild.

People in this thread just here to bash Jokic though? Very disrespectful to Jokic and all the work the Clippers have done to neutralize anything Denver is trying to do on the offensive end.

[Infinite Llamas]

The only move they have is to trade Jokic. No one is taking MPJ, Murray, AG, Nnaji or Saric on their contracts. And Braun is a restricted FA after next season so i doubt many teams would be interested in overpaying him a season early.

They have no tradeable picks.

Maybe they could swap Watson for something but it wont be better than Watson.

I have never seen a team burry their star in mediocrity like this.

I mean you never trade jokic unless he specifically asks. You can just bottom out and try to regroup with him. Rebuilding just to try to get another jokic (there are none) is not a good strat.

Oh yeah, the Nuggets should not trade Jokic for their own needs. But the team is going nowhere. Jokic should demand out if he doesnt want to waste his career. If he is OK in just being paid, living in Denver and doing his own thing off the court then it is what it is.
But i believe that spending half of your day doing something pointless just for the money while you already have generational wealth becomes unbearable so he will either retire or demand a trade.

As a fan of his game i would really love if he god traded anywhere this offseason. I just want to see what he can do with a different set of teammates. Getting traded to a team like NY where he could actually compete would be dreamy.

Boston was my first hope lol

[ejftw]

GG Nugs

Wish there were more actual Clips fans here like yourself than insufferable Jokic haters who make these threads completely toxic.

I actually like the Clippers team a lot and I hope they make it to the Finals. Boston-LAC would be wild.

People in this thread just here to bash Jokic though? Very disrespectful to Jokic and all the work the Clippers have done to neutralize anything Denver is trying to do on the offensive end.

Never hated him until the antics in G2, but will gladly wear that title afterwards. He absolutely earned it with that cowardice showing.

Unless they play at 110% level and Boston at 85%, Boston would win in five, at the worst

[Infinite Llamas]

GG Nugs

Wish there were more actual Clips fans here like yourself than insufferable Jokic haters who make these threads completely toxic.

I actually like the Clippers team a lot and I hope they make it to the Finals. Boston-LAC would be wild.

People in this thread just here to bash Jokic though? Very disrespectful to Jokic and all the work the Clippers have done to neutralize anything Denver is trying to do on the offensive end.

Never hated him until the antics in G2, but will gladly wear that title afterwards. He absolutely earned it with that cowardice showing.

Unless they play at 110% level and Boston at 85%, Boston would win in five, at the worst

Boston success is completely tied with KP staying healthy for a postseason. Not a surefire gamble in any way.

[Duke4life831]

Jokic needs to demand out this summer. There is no improving this roster with the horrific contracts they have.

It’s either that, or he’ll just waste away in Denver stuck on mid seeded teams that have a 2nd round as their ceiling.

[Alatan]

Why are you so insistent on this goofy narrative?

Jokic is an all time great playing against 2 ATGs in Kawhi and older Harden, his team is much worse as evidenced by their RS performance.

It's very hard to win when your team is worse than the opponent's team.

But of course, you know this and you're just having fun which I respect

The majority on realgm say Jokic should be a 5 time MVP.

That 5 time MVP is in his prime.

He has help.

A top 10 all time player in his prime doesn't lose this series unless...

Anyhow, there's players outside the top 10 that would beat this Clippers team with Jokic's help. Hakeem would absolutely beat the Clippers with Jokic's help.

Agreed. This clippers team is good but nothing special.

Luka’s Dallas team from last year would absolutely drum this LAC team.

A) We dont know that.
B) Lukas Dallas supporting cast was better than this Nuggets team around Jokic.

[Patches Perry]

I was consumed by the Thunder game so only watched the score on this one, but it looked like a wire to wire victory for LAC? Anything noteworthy happen?

[Chuck Everett]

I was consumed by the Thunder game so only watched the score on this one, but it looked like a wire to wire victory for LAC? Anything noteworthy happen?

Nope. Just Nuggets getting run out of the building. Basically a 24-3 run that was fueled by the Clippers hitting a million 3's. Batum was awesome.

[OkcSinceSGA]

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Jokic going off on assistant coaches.

[pepe1991]

First two games were excellent watch for basketball fans.
This one got ugly for Nuggets.

At the end of a day, Nuggets from roster construction, FO decisions, ownership nepotism simply fails Jokić.
With Bucks & Giannis, their FO at least tried ato make moves, no matter how poor those moves are.

Nuggets do nothing year after year, since winning title, they return every year with worst roster than year prior.

Whoever thought it was brilliant idea to give Murray AND Porter max money killed hopes for multiple titles.

When you look Nuggets bench, it's bunch of enigmatic names for nba pub quiz culture like Jalen PIckett, Vlade Čančar, Hunter Tyson. LIke, there are some G league teams with better players.

$14M went to Zeke Nnaji and Dario Šarić. Neither are in rotation whole year long. It is still great enigma to me how they won 50 games with such roster, having 6 nba players on it whole year long.


Clippers on other hand have 4 players that play great. This game Powell was cooking and it was massive swing for Clippers side.
At the end of a day, judging by this series, among top 6 players in a series, 4 are on Clippers.
Nuggets need Porter to play like near all star, and guy averages 8 ppg. In only W they have, Gordon played like all star. Been off since.

And this is where their complete lack of depth comes to play. Even if they had actual nba coach ( they don't, Jokić is coach-player) you simply can't make adjustments without players required to do so. Every time JOkić goes to bench, Nuggets are screwed. For crying out loud, in this one, Gordon played PG to start 4th quarter

[OkcSinceSGA]

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