March 17th, 2017

The Clippers troubles continued on Thursday night in Denver with a 129-114 loss to the Nuggets.  It was the 3rd straight loss for LA, and their 8th in the last 13 games.

The Clips played without both Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, who were resting back in LA.  However, Nuggets power forward Nikola Jokic took advantage of their absence by dominating in the paint.  Jokic scored 17 points, pulled down 14 rebounds, and dished out 11 assists for his 5th triple- double of the season.  Will Barton also scored a career-high 35 points for Denver.

Chris Paul had 18 points and 14 assists, J.J. Redick scored a team-high 22 points and Austin Rivers had 17 for the Clippers.  Defense was the issue again though.  Denver shot both 53% from 3-point land, and 53% from the field.

“That’s on us,” Chris Paul said. “We’ve got to give more effort, be better all around.”  Paul also questioned what the Clippers identity was at this point in the season.  “Yeah, you would hope to not be trying to figure that out at this point of the season,” he said.

The Nuggets didn’t give the Clippers much of a chance to make a run.  Denver built a 103-80 lead heading into the fourth.  The advantage grew to as much as 25 and the Clippers never threatened. Barton’s seventh 3-pointer, which tied a career high, capped a 20-point half for the guard.

J.J. Redick doesn’t like where things are going either.  “I don’t know what to expect from this team anymore,” he said.  “It’s just — we’re in a bad place right now. We’re losing games. We’ve been [a mess] since the All-Star break.”

To make matters worse, the Clippers are losing ground in the Western Conference playoff race.  They are now 3 games back of the Jazz for 4th place in the conference.  They also have Oklahoma City and Memphis right behind them in the standings, so they could find themselves in 7th place in no time.

Things won’t get much easier for them.  They’ll return home on Saturday to take on the defending NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers.