2019-20 Around the NBA: Archived

[Reunion Mav Old]

Mavs exposed the Clippers and the Nuggets have the talent and depth to make them pay. If we were able to constantly come back from big Clippers leads with Luka + all the bit players, the Nuggets are able to do it easily too. Clippers are in big trouble!

Not really. If they play with intensity and grit for more than a half, they'll beat Denver. They don't have a answer for Joker though. Lately, they get leads and give them up too easily. They had a 3-1 lead over Houston a few years back, and blew that series. Maybe they've stopped listening to Doc. He has to figure in this somehow.

Denver is doing a much better job of slowing the Clippers down defensively though. The Clippers blew our doors off and we had a historically bad defensive performance in that series, and even with that we still managed to steal a couple with great offense and a lack of killer instinct by the Clippers. A lack of killer instinct I suspect will catch up to them either in game 7 or against the Lakers if they win game 7 and prevent the Nuggets from becoming the first team to come back from 3-1 twice in a row

Correct. On a side note, Doc could become the 1st coach ever to lose 3 3-1 leads in NBA history. He lost a 3-1 lead and the series vs Detroit in 03, when he coached Orlando, and T-Mac famously said the series was over. Then again in 2015, when Houston came back and beat the Clippers, and now if the Nuggets can pull it off tomorrow. Not a record to be proud of.

What a good point this is. Even if the Clips pull this one out, it helps to confirm my point above that one of the Clippers problems is their coach is not nearly as great as he is given credit for. Again, I have him somewhere between 6th and 10th on NBA coach ratings: not top 5 or top 3 or #1 as he is sometimes given credit for.