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Nuggets, Russell Westbrook Avoid Gagging Away Versus Clippers

The Nuggets eventually overcame a fifteen-point deficit.
April 20, 2025
Image: Russell Westbrook celebrates for the Denver Nuggets
Russell Westbrook helped the Denver Nuggets win over the Los Angeles Clippers on April 19, but not without a few scares. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
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The Denver Nuggets' 2024-2025 regular season started out wacky and grew progressively loonier over time. So it's appropriate that the opening contest of the squad's playoffs campaign — a 112-110 overtime victory at the expense of the Los Angeles Clippers on April 19 — would produce so many head smacks that thousands of fans probably woke up this morning still bearing swollen palm prints over their eyes.

And most of those slaps came courtesy of one man: the zany, mercurial, batshit-crazy Russell Westbrook.

Even those who admire Westbrook's incredible energy and drive realize that his style of play — every time he steps onto the hardwood, he's like a party animal with a snoot full of amyl nitrate — is as apt to generate heartbreak as joy. But his guilelessness is charming in its own peculiar way. Somewhere deep in his consciousness, he must know that he could be an even more effective player if he could exhibit at least a modicum of self-control every now and then. But he just can't help being a chaos machine. That's who he is — and all of the madness was on display yesterday afternoon.

The matchup versus the Clippers is more challenging than many members of the local sports-media intelligentsia acknowledged leading up to game one. True, the L.A. franchise has a history of falling short. But in the last month or two, the outfit's superstar, the oft-injured Kawhi Leonard, began to finally resemble the best version of himself, which is very good indeed: the Clip Show entered Ball Arena having won eighteen of their final 21 games.

Moreover, the Nuggets' vaunted home-court advantage has been fading. I got the opportunity to see five games in person since last October's tip-off, and their record in those matchups was 2-3, with wins coming against bottom-feeders (the Utah Jazz and the Philadelphia 76ers) and their defeats versus top-flight opponents: the Oklahoma City Thunder on opening night, the Los Angeles Lakers after the trade for Luka Dončić, and the Indiana Pacers.

The latter loss was so awful that it resulted in head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth being fired. While the Nuggets had won all three of their efforts under interim leader David Adelman, no one could be certain if the seemingly enhanced chemistry would keep bubbling along or explode down the line.

Health was an issue, too. No one admitted that Jamal Murray was hurt early in the season, but he kept drifting in and out of the lineup like a desert scirocco. Indeed, rumors that he might be unavailable for the entire playoffs were rife as recently as two weeks ago. Aaron Gordon, too, has been nicked up plenty, and Nikola Jokić, who's finally receiving the flowers he deserves for being the best basketballer drawing breath, seemed exhausted from having to carry the whole damn lot. Yes, Jokić had been able to will his comrades to a championship in 2023, but redemption for last year's disastrous choke job to the Minnesota Timberwolves was hardly guaranteed.

Clippers head coach and master strategist Ty Lue had a great plan on Saturday for making this mission even more difficult. The Clippers collapsed inside, practically begging Denver, a subpar three-point team, to launch from distance. The Nuggets happily fell into the trap in the first half; after draining the first three attempts, Denver missed nine of the next ten. At the same time, the Clips kept feeding center Ivica Zubac or racing to the rim as a way of potentially getting Jokić into foul trouble. Nikola avoided this fate initially by playing no defense whatsoever, thereby allowing L.A. to build a lead that reached fifteen points during that dreaded stretch known in these parts as the "non-Jokić minutes," when bench players predominate.

After a Christian Braun steal and dunk, things began to turn around — and the intensity demonstrated by Westbrook, a former Clipper, was definitely a catalyst. With the D cranked up in ways that were rare in 2025, the Nuggets narrowed the gap to four points at half and three by the end of the third quarter.

In the fourth, it was Westbrook time, for better and worse. He eventually went 5-17 from the field, with many of the errant shots being misbegotten layups. He also took six three-pointers when the wiser course of action would have been to toss up zero. Granted, one of his makes came with 24 seconds to go and put the Nuggets up 98-96 — but on the final possession, after James Harden, who delivered an unexpectedly great performance, had knotted the score, Russ barely got the ball airborne before regulation ended.

The adventure continued in overtime. Westbrook missed a three-pointer, snared an offensive rebound, clanked one of two free throws, missed another three-pointer, nabbed another offensive rebound, missed a layup, and got blocked by Harden. But he also forced a turnover by Leonard on an inbound play (one of seven by Kawhi) that basically put the triumph on ice and jolted the Ball Arena faithful into the sweatiest of paroxysms.

Nuggets Nation sounded off on social media afterward, and many of the most memorable posts tried against all odds to make sense of Westbrook's afternoon. Count down the following twenty items on X to see what we mean.

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Image: Michael Roberts
Michael Roberts began his career with Westword in 1990 as music editor. In 1999, he took on a new role, full-time media reporter, as author of a column called The Message. In 2008, he became the lead writer for Westword's news blog, The Latest Word, a position he held until January 2023. Michael continues to freelance for Westword, covering everything from business to sports and the media; he also contributes to Jazziz, a national music magazine. He holds a bachelor's degree from what is now Colorado Mesa University and master's degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Northwestern University.
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