The Nuggets lost 102–100 to the Clip­pers on Thurs­day night in Los Ange­les, falling behind Min­neso­ta in the loss col­umn for first place in the West­ern Con­fer­ence with five games left. Here are our observations.

Nuggets’ bench lobbies for Jokic MVP

Recen­cy bias might be aid­ing Luka Don­cic in a late MVP push, but Denver’s penul­ti­mate nation­al TV game of the reg­u­lar sea­son cer­tain­ly padded Niko­la Jokic’s case. He went for 36 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists before miss­ing a con­test­ed repli­ca of his Gold­en State game-win­ner as time expired.

But more impor­tant than his stats was what tran­spired in the first half with­out him. After he helped the Nuggets build a 17-point lead in the first quar­ter, he start­ed the sec­ond frame on the bench, and the Clip­pers imme­di­ate­ly unleashed a 10–0 run. By half­time, the Nuggets trailed 53–49 and need­ed Jokic on the floor for 45 of their points. The Clip­pers’ bench outscored Denver’s in the half, 21–0.

Jokic was final­ly slowed down in the third quar­ter when he was guard­ed up the floor more dogged­ly by P.J. Tuck­er, who has defend­ed up a size against the MVP cen­ter before. Tuck­er guard­ed Jokic up the floor on the last play.

Bricks

Michael Porter Jr. has been most­ly out­stand­ing since the All-Star break, shoot­ing 43.3% from beyond the arc on 6.7 attempts per game enter­ing this one. His last time in Los Ange­les, he peaked with a 10-for-10 game from the field against the Lakers.

This just wasn’t his night. He shot 2 for 10 from 3‑point range, his worst sin­gle-game clip at nine or more attempts since the sea­son open­er. It was a micro­cosm of his team’s (and the other’s) per­for­mance. Den­ver gen­er­at­ed a fair share of open shots but con­vert­ed only 43% from the floor and 31% from outside.

The most cru­cial stretch of the game might have been late in the third quar­ter. Chris­t­ian Braun scored five con­sec­u­tive points to shave a 13-point deficit to eight, ener­giz­ing Den­ver to play excel­lent defense. But the Nuggets couldn’t score. In a span of more than three min­utes with more Jokic rest min­utes loom­ing, the score was 1–0, Clippers.

Malone’s ejection, Denver’s rally

With about eight min­utes remain­ing, Porter’s eighth 3‑point miss was accom­pa­nied by a hard land­ing that he and Michael Mal­one thought war­rant­ed a shoot­ing foul. No dice. At the oth­er end, Porter left his feet ear­ly but grabbed the rim to avoid mak­ing dan­ger­ous con­tact with Ivi­ca Zubac. He land­ed safe­ly but was called for a foul any­way, prompt­ing Mal­one to erupt with pro­fan­i­ties at the offi­cials. He was eject­ed, and the ensu­ing Los Ange­les free throws extend­ed the lead to 11.

But if Malone’s goal was to fire up his team, it worked almost to com­ple­tion. The Nuggets chipped away, also fueled by Ken­tavi­ous Caldwell-Pope’s two-way ener­gy. He made a pair of 3‑pointers and added an out­stand­ing block against Paul George in transition.

Little moments cost Denver in clutch time

There were a few plays and deci­sions that made all the dif­fer­ence after Den­ver closed in. Cald­well-Pope, a 91% free throw shoot­er, missed a free­bie that would have helped tie the game after a tech­ni­cal foul on Tuck­er. It was part of a 68% free-throw shoot­ing night for the team. Act­ing coach David Adel­man tried chal­leng­ing a foul on Aaron Gor­don after George appeared to push off, but the ref­er­ees ruled that Gor­don ini­ti­at­ed con­tact first, a call that elim­i­nat­ed Denver’s chal­lenge and put George at the stripe.

Gor­don, phys­i­cal­ly aggres­sive all night, slipped and fell on a poten­tial game-tying dri­ve with 33 sec­onds left. And after the Nuggets got a stop on the ensu­ing pos­ses­sion, nei­ther the rebound­er (Pey­ton Wat­son) nor the coach (Adel­man) imme­di­ate­ly called a time­out. Wat­son drib­bled it up before Adel­man called one, cost­ing the Nuggets three sec­onds and leav­ing them in an awk­ward inbound­ing posi­tion for the final play.