Look, we chain­sawed its guts. We cut off its head. We read the incan­ta­tion from the book twice. So why is this zom­bie still walk­ing? The look on Kawhi Leonard’s face Sun­day was a lit­tle like the “final girl” from hor­ror films when the big bad­die gets dis­mem­bered and just won’t stay, ya know, dead.

Isn’t this fun? The Nuggets are sud­den­ly Fred­dy Krueger, the night­mare that nev­er ends. And a reporter after Game 6 asked Leonard, one of the best play­ers of his gen­er­a­tion, if his Los Ange­les Clip­pers were choke artists.

“Just went cold,” the Claw replied, soft­ly, after the Nuggets stunned the Clips for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive play­off vic­to­ry behind a sec­ond straight sec­ond-half flur­ry, forc­ing a Game 7 in the West­ern Con­fer­ence semi­fi­nals. “We went cold in that third quar­ter. That’s it. We kept get­ting to the paint, pass­ing the ball. Got a lit­tle stag­nant and just couldn’t make shots.”

Even if it isn’t a choke, the Clip­pers are find­ing the Nuggets awful­ly hard to swal­low right now. And hard­er, still, to put away. Den­ver outscored Los Ange­les 18–6 over the final sev­en min­utes of the third quar­ter. The Nuggets then won the fourth, 34–19, pulling out a 111–98 vic­to­ry that pushed all the chips to the cen­ter of the table Tues­day night.

“(There’s) pres­sure every game,” said Leonard, who fin­ished with 25 points and eight boards but didn’t make a field goal in the third quar­ter. “Obvi­ous­ly, nobody wants to go home.”

Yeah, but the Nuggets know this part of the neigh­bor­hood by mem­o­ry now. Accord­ing to ESPN Stats & Infor­ma­tion, Den­ver is the first NBA team to play in four straight Game 7s. And the first since 1997 to come back from at least 15 points down in three dif­fer­ent elim­i­na­tion play­off contests.

Mean­while, Tues­day will be the first time Kawhi will have to play in a Game 7 after lead­ing a series 3–1. And team­mate Paul George has nev­er won Game 7 of a post­sea­son series that saw his squad let a 3–1 cush­ion slip away.

“We’re still in the dri­ver seat. It’s not a pan­ic mode,” said George, who net­ted a team-high 33 points. “We have a Game 7. I like our odds with our group. We put our­selves in this posi­tion. And it’s on us to get our­selves out of it.”

Den­ver is 5–0 in elim­i­na­tion games inside the NBA bub­ble, 6–1 over the past 18 months. The Nuggets look like they love the way the wall feels against their backs. The Clip­pers look like some­one just ripped their guts out with a rusty crowbar.

“The more games you win, the more pres­sure is on the oppos­ing team,” offered Nuggets wing man Tor­rey Craig, whose 3‑pointer a minute into the fourth peri­od gave Den­ver its first sec­ond-half lead. “Right now, we feel like the pressure’s on them.”

This part of the neighborhood’s nev­er treat­ed Doc Rivers kind­ly. The Clip­pers coach has lost every NBA post­sea­son series his teams led 3–1 but failed to close out by Game 6.

Rivers’ Orlan­do Mag­ic chucked away a 3–1 cush­ion dur­ing the first round of the 2003 play­offs, drop­ping three straight to Chauncey Billups and the Detroit Pis­tons. And Doc’s Clips lost three in a row to Hous­ton to close out the 2015 West­ern Con­fer­ence semis after rac­ing out to a 3–1 bulge.

Of course, that’s ancient his­to­ry now. And the Nuggets are a win away from mak­ing some more of their own.