It all comes down to this, the best two words in sports, Game 7.
With the Los Angeles Clippers’ season on the edge of falling off the cliff, coach Tyronn Lue took the rare and unusual approach of checking in with several of his players by phone on their off day. He said he “took a lot of temperatures,” making sure they were mentally in the right head space and ready to go out there and fight for their playoff lives.
In Game 6, the Clippers answered his call.
Los Angeles faced a win-or-Cancun Game 6 at home Thursday for two reasons. One, the Denver defense had all but taken ‘The Beard’, James Harden, out of the series. His shot attempts had been on the decline every game, from 22 in Game 1 to nine in the Game 5 loss. Two, the Clippers’ defense had dulled over the course of the series, particularly in Game 5.
The Clippers will play in Game 7 on Saturday because They cleaned up those two problems.
“It was win or go home, so there were opportunities to be aggressive, and I took them,” Harden said. “One more game. … We didn’t want to go home. We’ve got one more game left.”
Harden came out in attack mode, getting downhill, forcing the Nuggets into rotation, scoring 21 points in the first half, and making smart decisions with the ball. The Clippers opened up the floor for Harden and their other offensive threats by running more guard/guard pick-and-roll, keeping bigger defenders off him and giving veteran Nicolas Batum more playing time to keep the floor spaced.
Embed from Getty Images“I thought James did a great job of setting the tone early, scoring the basketball, getting downhill, making the right play,” Clippers coach Lue said. “Norman made some big shots at the end, and Kawhi just kind of steady throughout the game. But I thought those three guys really stepped up, came to play.”
The Clippers, led by Ivica Zubac with help from Batum, also held Nikola Jokic in relative check and wore him down as the game went on. The three-time MVP scored only 5 points on 2-of-9 shooting in the second half.
All of that saw the Clippers hang on for a 111-105 victory to force Game 7 for all the marbles in Denver on Saturday.
If the idea of a Game 7 after losing a Game 6 on the road brings anxiety and nightmares to Nuggets fans, it is because this scenario played out a year ago. Denver led the Minnesota Timberwolves by 20 two minutes into the second half, but fatigue had set in, and the Nuggets were outscored 60-32 over the rest of the half, lost and were bounced out.
“I don’t personally think about the past,” Jokic said of that game. “I think it’s a little one year behind. I think I’m a better player. I think my teammates are better players.”
By Game 7 there are no tricks you can pull out of a hat, no secrets, no strategic surprises left, it is more about execution. However, one strategy that you can expect to see more of is Batum, he could even start for Kris Dunn, which he did in the second half of Game 6.
“I know why I’m playing: Space the floor, shoot 3s, and on defense make plays. That’s my job,” Batum said.
For the Nuggets, their attack was more balanced: Jokic finished with 25, Jamal Murray 21, Aaron Gordon 19 and Russell Westbrook off the bench with 14.
That balance and offense will be put to the ultimate test in Game 7, where focus and attention to detail can be hard to come by under all that stress and pressure.
However, that pressure is what makes Game 7s so exciting.
