The Clippers were one of the league’s best teams this regular season, and that remains the case in the playoffs. Here’s the Denver Post reporting on Jamal Murray and Denver’s prospects after Kawhi Leonard scored 29 points as LA took a 1-0 series lead with a 120-97 win on Thursday:
The Clip Show was always going to be a matchup problem, largely because they’re also Blue Arrow Kryptonite. Sight-lines along the perimeter get clogged by waves of big guards with incredible reach. Behind them, a mess of broad shoulders and elbows adjoined like the last line of defense on a foosball table.
[Jamal] Murray’s averaged 12.9 points per game and drained just 26.2% of his 3-point attempts in 14 lifetime meetings with the Clippers, his worst career numbers against any Western Conference dance partner save for Houston (11.5 points per game, 20.4% on treys).
The Nuggets insisted there were no ill-effects from that first-half spill with Utah’s Joe Ingles on Tuesday, but you wonder. Then again, coming off the greatest escape since Steve McQueen and a two-day turnaround, was it any wonder they looked gassed?
“(Los Angeles) got into us,” Nuggets guard Monte Morris said. “They had four days off. We expected them to come out fresh and to set the tone.”
