The Nuggets got Clawed, spin­dled and mutilated.

This NBA play­off series opened with a state­ment game. There was no mis­tak­ing what Kawhi “The Claw” Leonard and the Los Ange­les Clip­pers blunt­ly told us Thurs­day, dur­ing a deci­sive 120–97 victory.

Den­ver is unwor­thy of being tak­en seri­ous­ly as a cham­pi­onship contender.

“You can say what­ev­er, it would be true,” Nuggets cen­ter Niko­la Jokic said. “It was a bad, bad night for us.”

But know what real­ly hurts?

Jokic stood there and let it all be.

Now, we all love Big Hon­ey. The Nuggets wouldn’t be here with­out Jokic, who was mag­nif­i­cent in a close-out vic­to­ry against Utah. So is it OK to offer a lit­tle tough love?

Hey, Jok­er: Be better.

Harsh? Nope. With the hon­or of being rec­og­nized as an all-star comes great responsibility.

As it is, nobody in Amer­i­ca out­side of the 303 thinks Den­ver belongs on the same floor with Leonard, who fin­ished with 29 points. Or did you not hear Charles Barkley’s snark at half­time, when he dis­missed the Nuggets?

“They got no chance in this series,” the Chuck­ster said.

And know what? Barkley just might be right. Will the Nuggets even put up a fight?

If Joker’s not bet­ter, Den­ver has a less-than-zero shot to win a game, much less this series.

Oh, Jokic did have his moments. The best one was his ode to the late, great Dar­ryl Dawkins with a bas­ket to tie the score at 31 to end the first quar­ter. The Nuggets cen­ter poured some spe­cial sauce on a Ser­bian-thun­der-fly­in’, Clip­per-cryin’, rump-roastin’, bun-toastin, wham-bam-Jok­er-I-am dunk.

And then Jokic disappeared.

Jamal Mur­ray grabbed the nation’s atten­tion with 50-point out­bursts and tugged on heart­strings with his emo­tion­al appeals for social jus­tice, while bring­ing Den­ver back from a 3–1 series hole against Utah dur­ing the play­offs’ opening-round.

Yes, fatigue makes cow­ards of us all. A body sore­ly in need of rest might explain why Mur­ray missed 10 of 15 field-goal attempts and fin­ished with a for­get­table 12 points against L.A.

Forc­ing the Nuggets back on the court few­er than 48 hours after sur­viv­ing all that Jazz was not fair. But is any­thing about 2020 fair?

“I was not tired at all,” Jokic said.

Haven’t we seen this pathet­ic defense against L.A. some­where before? Give me a sec. Oh, yeah. The wel­come mat in the lane and the social­ly dis­tanced D against the 3‑ball almost got Den­ver run out of the bubble.

This con­test was basi­cal­ly over after two quar­ters, when the Clip­pers shot 63% from the field. There was no mys­tery to L.A.’s offense. It was a lay-up line.

And the buck stopped with Jokic, whose idea of defense was to retrieve the ball from the bot­tom of the basket.

Skin­ny Jok­er is good. But his effort can’t be so slim at the defen­sive end as to be invisible.

“For us to win, we have to have bet­ter games from Jamal and Niko­la,” Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one said.

From Patrick Bev­er­ley to Paul George, the Clip­pers can throw long and aggres­sive D at Mur­ray from all angles. He’s not going to aver­age 30-plus points in this series.

With Ivi­ca Zubac in the post for L.A., the most advan­ta­geous matchup for the Nuggets to find suc­cess with is to put the ball in the hands of Jokic. His 15 points pri­or to tak­ing a seat on the bench to the con­clu­sion of this blowout won’t cut it.

Where do the Nuggets go from here?

It’s the job of Coach Mal­one to give his team a rea­son to believe.

He gave guard Gary Har­ris, whose defen­sive con­tri­bu­tions were invalu­able to sur­viv­ing and advanc­ing from Round 1 of the play­offs, his first spot in the start­ing line­up since March.

Well, so much for that experiment.

Go back to Monte Mor­ris in the start­ing five. Let Har­ris be a D‑specialist off the bench. Mor­ris can get the offense mov­ing and allow Mur­ray to con­cen­trate on scoring.

And Paul Mill­sap? Please. Don’t get me started.

“I’m going to my room and do about 100 push-ups, just for a men­tal­i­ty check,” said Mill­sap, after fin­ish­ing at a minus-16 in net score­board points dur­ing his 24 min­utes of play­ing time.

Mill­sap is an old bas­ket­ball play­er. I’m an old guy. Get­ting old ain’t easy, as I know all too well.

So I won’t pick on Mill­sap for play­ing old. In fact, I will pour him a glass of lemon­ade if he takes a seat on the bench.

In his place, the Nuggets should start Michael Porter Jr. Or Mason Plum­lee. Or Rocky the mascot.