Con­ven­tion­al wis­dom sug­gests the Nuggets would be bet­ter off not putting them­selves in a dou­ble-dig­it hole come Game 7, but almost every­thing about this team is unorthodox.

Not much pass­es for nor­mal when your cen­ter is actu­al­ly a point guard trapped inside a 7‑footer’s body.

“We don’t want to be in that spot, but it seems like we are good in that spot,” Niko­la Jokic said of his team’s pen­chant for dig­ging out of big deficits after Game 6.

The Clip­pers, who’ve lost two straight close­out games and are now 0–7 in their his­to­ry when try­ing to clinch a spot in the Con­fer­ence Finals, would be bet­ter off wor­ry­ing about them­selves than try­ing to ratio­nal­ize what­ev­er is hap­pen­ing inside Denver’s lock­er room.

So far this post­sea­son they’ve staved off five elim­i­na­tion games, includ­ing three that fea­tured deficits of at least 15 points in the sec­ond half. Instead of stress, the Nuggets shrug.

To win Game 7, which would be the first time in NBA his­to­ry a team had come back from sep­a­rate 3–1 deficits in the same post­sea­son, the Nuggets must play their brand of basketball.

1. Avoid double-digit deficits

Before the Nuggets clawed back from a 19-point deficit in Game 6, they were actu­al­ly already down 12 only a minute into the sec­ond quar­ter. Jokic’s goofy, one-legged 3‑pointer cut the deficit to just two before the Clip­pers swarmed and built what seemed like an insur­mount­able lead.

Despite what the Nuggets and Jokic may say, there are nerves asso­ci­at­ed with elim­i­na­tion games. Den­ver can com­bat those nerves by being aggres­sive from the jump. That means play­ing self­less, pur­pose­ful bas­ket­ball on offense and bust­ing through screens and crash­ing the glass on defense.

Tough, phys­i­cal defense will open up the Nuggets’ tran­si­tion game, lead­ing to easy points, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly mak­ing the Clip­pers work on offense. At the same time, the Nuggets can’t afford to turn the ball over, like they did 10 times in the first half of Game 6.

2. Bench play

Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one was only half kid­ding when he said the NBA would soon be re-nam­ing the Sixth Man of the Year Award after Clip­pers reserve Lou Williams, a three-time win­ner. It was only last week that Williams’ team­mate Mon­tre­zl Har­rell won his first.

The Clip­pers were her­ald­ed as the deep­est team in the league all year. And yet through­out this series, Williams and Har­rell have com­bined for 20.8 points per game — 16 less than their reg­u­lar-sea­son aver­ages. Williams has shot 13% from 3‑point range, and reserve guard Landry Shamet has con­nect­ed on just 17.6% from outside.

Con­verse­ly, Denver’s bench mob has been superb.

Monte Mor­ris has done every­thing Mal­one could ask for and more, drilling time­ly bas­kets and set­ting the table for his scor­ers. In their three wins, Mor­ris has aver­aged almost 11 points off the bench on 54% shooting.

Michael Porter Jr. has steadi­ly earned the trust of Mal­one on the defen­sive end, while pro­vid­ing clutch 3‑pointers on the oth­er. His defen­sive effort at the end of Game 5 was invaluable.

Their oth­er two key reserves, Mason Plum­lee and Tor­rey Craig, have played their roles almost per­fect­ly. For Plum­lee, that means defen­sive ener­gy, hard fouls and strong screens, and for Craig, that means hound­ing the Clip­pers’ wings.

3. Star power

The Nuggets knew the chal­lenge they were in for in lim­it­ing Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Both two-way stars have been elec­tric and caused myr­i­ad defen­sive problems.

Leonard’s bull­ish style is gru­el­ing for any­one to stop — his strength and abil­i­ty to get to his spots almost unmatched in the NBA. And George has been a two-way ter­ror, caus­ing all kinds of headaches for Jamal Mur­ray and drain­ing 43% of his more than eight 3‑point attempts per game. Togeth­er, they’ve aver­aged almost 50 points per game. And still, it’s prob­a­bly fair to say that Jera­mi Grant and Gary Har­ris have done an admirable job on them.

But there’s some­thing to be said about com­fort. Leonard and George have nev­er gone into a Game 7 envi­ron­ment togeth­er. Jokic and Mur­ray have on three sep­a­rate occa­sions, includ­ing last round against Utah.

Jokic’s atti­tude toward elim­i­na­tion has been well-doc­u­ment­ed. The pres­sure of going home doesn’t faze him at all. His num­bers over their five elim­i­na­tion games are staggering.

Game 7 may come down to Murray’s abil­i­ty to shake the avalanche of defend­ers com­ing his way. In their three wins, Murray’s aver­aged 24.7 points, includ­ing 53% shoot­ing on 3s, six assists and 5.3 rebounds. In their loss­es, those num­bers have plum­met­ed to 14.7 points, on 33% 3‑point shoot­ing, 7.3 assists and 3.7 rebounds. To free up Mur­ray, the Nuggets have to get stops, rebound and run. If they do that, they might just shock the world.