In a rockfight that became a barnburner, the Nuggets took Game 1 of their first-round playoff series against the Clippers on Saturday in a 112-110 overtime thriller, behind balanced scoring and some heroics from Russell Westbrook. Let’s break it down.
The Nuggets let Russ be Russ, and it paid off: With eight minutes left in Saturday’s back-and-forth thriller, interim head coach David Adelman sent a scuffling Michael Porter Jr. to the bench in favor of Christian Braun — and left much-maligned veteran guard Russell Westbrook on the floor.
It’s been a brutal few weeks for Westbrook in Denver, after seeming to refurbish his career in the winter months. There was the double-overtime loss to Minnesota in which Westbrook’s late-game mistakes cost the Nuggets. There was his stony demeanor in a later league-mandated media availability. There was his (undeserved) pressure point in the Michael Malone-Calvin Booth firings.
But he exorcised some demons Saturday, as Adelman let Russ be Russ. He knifed to the rim on several big fourth-quarter cuts, snagged a couple key offensive rebounds to extend possessions, and hit the early shot of the Nuggets’ playoff run: a wide-open corner 3 to give Denver a 98-96 lead with 24 seconds left.
Westbrook did lose his dribble and fail to get off a final shot at the end of regulation, forcing overtime. But his impact well outweighed his mistakes, giving the Nuggets a massive lift despite finishing just 5 of 17 from the floor.
One lingering and highly important question: What on earth does Adelman do with Porter? The sharpshooter was invisible Saturday, going scoreless after a corner triple 50 seconds into the game and sitting in favor of Westbrook.
Nuggets solve James Harden, and Harden solves them right back: Adelman called the Clippers’ Harden one of the best pick-and-roll operators ever this week. Then the Clippers’ all-time great took a Rockets-era flamethrower to the Nuggets’ initial defensive look Saturday, waltzing on four separate runways to the rim off soft P&R coverage and then draining two stepback triples to close the frame. After a 15-point first quarter, though, Denver held Harden to just 10 points for the rest of regulation with a mix of drop coverage and blitzes off pick-and-rolls.
Harden carved the Nuggets up in overtime, though, with two drives and a massive 27-foot three to cut Denver’s lead to 108-107 with 27.1 seconds left. The Nuggets closed him and the Clippers out — thanks in large part to ex-teammate Westbrook — but the Harden back-and-forth adjustments will be a fascinating watch for the rest of the series.
Jamal Murray guts through more leg trouble: On a second-quarter leak-out from Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers’ wing softly stepping his way to a layup to put Los Angeles up 51-35, Murray flew by and landed awkwardly — one of the worst possible sights for the Nuggets after Murray missed six late regular-season games with a hamstring injury.
He bent over, grimacing, for a moment seemingly unable to put much weight on his left leg. Murray returned to the floor after a timeout, exchanging some words with David Adelman. He was both tentative and inexplosive the rest of the first half, the Nuggets’ playoff closer finishing with just six points on 2-of-8 shooting before the break.
But in the second, even as Murray still visibly struggled to generate consistent lift on midrange pull-ups, the Nuggets’ Robin shot several daggers deep into the Clippers’ heart. He held his hands out, palms up, after a fourth-quarter wing 2 to knot the score at 81 with seven minutes left. He sneered at Ball’s home crowd after another trey a few minutes later. And he dropped in a key overtime floater, finishing with 21 points on 7-of-20 shooting.
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