Kawhi Leonard, Clippers get ultimate clowning after brutal blowout vs. Nuggets
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With only John Wall and Nicolas Batum on the injury report, many expected the Thursday night contest between the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets to be a nip-and-tuck, superstar-laden affair. Both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were healthy, which meant that at the very least, they could give Nikola Jokic and the Western Conference-leading Denver Nuggets a challenge despite being on the road.
But the Clippers ended up crapping the bed.
The Clippers came out lethargic, as the Nuggets had built a 17-point lead at the end of the first quarter. As if things couldn’t get any worse, the Clippers ended up shooting themselves out of the game, diving headfirst into a 34-point halftime deficit that proved to be too much to overcome. In fact, even head coach Ty Lue had lost all hopes of a comeback, as he didn’t even bother re-inserting Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in the second half of what ended up to be a 122-91 loss to the Nuggets.
Of course, Twitter is equal parts mean and entertaining, so NBA fans using the contentious social media platform let the Clippers hear it following such a horrific performance.
In fact, what makes this beating so crushing (or fulfilling, depending on one’s perspective) is that the Nuggets have continued their dominance over the Clippers ever since embarrassing them in the 2020 NBA Bubble. Denver has won seven of their past nine contests against the Clippers since then, and this beatdown just proved to be another reminder of how the Clippers seem to falter against the team led by Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.
To pile on the Clippers’ misery, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George ended up combining for a putrid nine points on 3-16 shooting, a performance reminiscent of their meltdown in Game 7 of the Nuggets’ 3-1 comeback.
At the end of the day, the Clippers will find solace in that it’s better to get these sorts of losses out of the way early in the season than when it truly matters: in the playoffs. After all, the Clippers also lost by a huge amount in early 2021 against the Dallas Mavericks, but they ended up making history in the playoffs months later by reaching their first-ever Western Conference Finals in franchise history. But for at least one night, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and the rest of the Clips will have to take this beating to the chin.
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