The Clippers offered Denver an opportunity to escape the bubble Friday night, but Doc Rivers’ squad didn’t exactly insist on it – and the Nuggets proved again to be guests unwilling to take a hint, rallying from a 16-point deficit to force Game 6 early Sunday.
After the Clippers coughed up their first Western Conference semifinal series’ closeout opportunity in a 111-105 loss, both teams went to the video to try to figure out what happened and why.
The footage received different reviews, depending on its audience.
Doc Rivers and his staff saw a lot that needs fixing, so much so that Rivers said if he were to clip every sequence his coaches wanted to analyze with players, they would start midday Saturday and “go straight to the game tomorrow.”
“They never change the way they play,” Rivers said of the Nuggets, who also refused all of Utah’s invitations to leave Disney World Resort, rallying from a 3-1 deficit to win that first-round series.
“They keep playing the same way, they keep moving and cutting, and you have to have great discipline to beat them,” Rivers continued. “You have to stay with it, you can’t take your eye off it. And watching our game again last night – and we’re gonna watch it again, unfortunately for our players – we did that.”
Rivers said he liked what he saw as the Clippers were building their 16-point lead, but not what he witnessed after that.
“We were very disciplined and then we kind of got the lead and we start changing our coverages, doing our own thing,” he said. “And of all the teams left in the bubble, this is the team that will hurt you the most when you do that. And we have great evidence to show our guys.”
After Saturday’s film session, Clippers forward Marcus Morris Sr. said he and his teammates had a dialogue with coaches about the evidence presented, agreeing that the team’s intensity waned Friday and the Clippers went away from what works, failing to defend hard or hustling back satisfactorily.
“When we don’t score a couple times, getting to our sets, going to our money plays and getting the ball in the guys’ hands that we need to be,” Morris said. “And just playing off of them. I don’t think it was a big thing, but obviously they’re desperate, they’re fighting.
“Kudos to them, but we know what we did and we can be better. We know we’re the better team. If we play desperate, you know, good riddance for them.”
Marcus Morris told @kylegoon that the most obvious thing gleaned from game film was that the Clippers let their intensity slip. pic.twitter.com/Sv4fHGx1gG
— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) September 12, 2020
In the Nuggets’ camp, the video stirred a different reaction – of appreciation.
“One thing I was thinking about this morning as I was watching the film – and I’m gonna talk to our team about it – I hope that we’re all enjoying this journey that we’re on,” Denver coach Michael Malone said. “Oftentimes, we get worried about the destination and what’s our goal. Our goal is to win a championship, and we all can’t wait for that to happen at some point in time, whenever that is, this year or in coming years.
“But for me … I enjoyed seeing our guys being down 16 points and fighting back and winning in the manner in which we did it. That team we’re playing is a veteran team, it’s taken all their chips and put it in the middle of the table and said, ‘We’re all in.’ We haven’t done that, we’re still a young team, building, growing, adding.”
They’re building around Nikola Jokic, the facilitating center who is as witty off the court as he is clever on it.
Jokic is averaging 19.3 points and shooting 57.3% in the series – though he’s fared best in his matchups with Montrezl Harrell, this season’s Sixth Man of the Year. Harrell’s 6-foot-7 stature means he’s at a significant size disadvantage against the 7-foot, two-time All-Star.
According to nba.com/stats, in the 45 minutes Harrell and Jokic have been on the court this series, the Clippers have a net rating of minus-11.6. But in the 124 minutes the 7-foot Ivica Zubac is in the game along with Jokic, the Clippers have a plus-11.1 net rating.
“(Zubac has) been good against him overall,” Rivers said, noting the Nuggets scored 15 points Friday on plays in which they got Zubac to switch onto Jamal Murray, their offensively adept guard. “Obviously Trezz deals with that a little bit better with his pace.”
Added Rivers: “Jokic has had a hell of a series against us, but I think our traps, overall, have really helped Zube. Because when you trap Jokic on the post and you’ve got Zube guarding him, it’s a bigger guy that Jokic has to pass through. And so I think that has been actually the most effective defense that we’ve played on him.”
Jokic concurred, noting while he finds Harrell’s athleticism and strength a challenge, “Zu is bigger, taller, he’s covering the space really good (so) I can’t shoot over him that easy.”
The Clippers will need to make it as hard as possible on Jokic if they’re going to successfully and finally boot the Nuggets off the NBA campus.
“To be down here 67, 68 days now, away from our families, makes it extremely hard,” Malone said. “Especially when you’re down 3-1 against Utah and win three straight. Especially when you’re down 3-1 against the odds-on favorites to win a championship …
“When you find yourself in elimination games, the easy thing to do, the convenient thing to do would be to let go. Put me out of my misery, get me out of here, I want to go home. (But) the group has found the intestinal fortitude, that grit, to say, ‘I do want to go home to see my family, I am tired of being in the bubble, but you know what? I love our team, I love my teammates, and we’re gonna fight.’”
That goes without a film review.
“They do have a reservoir, something they can look back on that they’ve gone through this,” Rivers said. “So Game 6 is going to be a heck of a game.”
Western Conference semifinals
Game 6: Clippers (3-2) vs. Nuggets (2-3)
When: 10 a.m. Sunday
Where: Walt Disney World Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida
TV: ESPN
Clippers aim to burst Nuggets’ bubble again in Game 6 posted first on https://anaheimsignsorangecounty.blogspot.com
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