We thought the Denver Nuggets would give us a nice Christmas present by beating the Clippers tonight. Instead, we got a big old lump of coal as the Clippers waxed Denver from start to finish in a 121 to 108 rout.
Paul George and Kawhi Leonard led the way for Los Angeles, scoring 23 and 21 points respectively. The Clippers collectively shot lights out, going 50% from three on 19 makes. LA was up by over 20 points for most of the game, and seemingly scored at will no matter what lineups Denver threw out.
The Nuggets instead were left searching for that offensive gear as they only shot 30.6% from deep. Nikola Jokic looked solid once again, narrowly missing out on triple-double on 24 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds while taking it to Serge Ibaka and Ivica Zubac. Jamal Murray spent most of the game missing in action before heating up in the fourth quarter. He finished with 23 points and started to find his stroke late, but all it did was make the loss look less worse than it actually was.
If one thing is clear two games into the season, it’s that defense absolutely will more often than not be an issue with this team – and so far it doesn’t quite seem that Denver’s offense is good enough to make up for it. The Nuggets rotation is full of players who either can’t defend well, are too small, aren’t hitting shots, or some combination of all three.
The good news is it’s still very early in the season in a weird year. Let’s hope things change for the better from here on out.
Hope everyone had a Happy Holidays regardless of tonight’s result!
