Clippers crush Nuggets in Game 3 as Intuit Dome makes playoff debut ...Middle East

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — They came prepared for playoff basketball, equipped with horse heads to distract Nikola Jokic at the foul line. The Nuggets’ Game 3 looked more like a horse’s behind.

Denver is down 2-1 to the Clippers and trending toward first-round elimination after getting blown out 117-83 on Thursday in the first-ever playoff game at Intuit Dome.

James Harden was phenomenal for Los Angeles again, amassing 20 points by halftime, six rebounds and nine assists. Norman Powell and Kawhi Leonard each eclipsed 20 as well. The Clippers made 18 of 39 shots outside the arc.

The Nuggets burned fast and bright. They made shots from the field on their first eight possessions — 20 points in five minutes, with six assists and a balanced spread of scorers. It was enough to believe they had finally opened up the series after two rough-and-tumble showdowns in Denver.

That turned out to be five minutes of fool’s gold. As soon as interim coach David Adelman started making substitutions, the game went sideways. The Clippers continued to show Jokic a crowd and invite Denver’s role players to beat them. Russell Westbrook was up for the task the first two games, but he and the rest of the bench that Adelman inherited two weeks ago struggled to produce on the road.

After Jokic’s seventh assist in the first nine minutes, Denver led 26-19. Then every form of offense around him rapidly went stale, while the defense played its greatest hits from an unsavory season. Slow rotations. Useless fly-by contests at shot fakes. Miscommunications. Shaky screen navigation. The Clippers went on an extended 16-0 and 23-2 run between the end of the first quarter and the start of the second.

They took the series’ largest lead for either team before halftime and kept stretching it. The worst it got for Denver was 34.

Jokic finished with 23 points, 13 boards and 13 assists. Jamal Murray managed to get to an efficient 23 points. But the Nuggets’ other three starters went a combined 12 for 34 from the field, and their bench was outscored 24-5 before garbage time.

Westbrook didn’t play after halftime due to left foot inflammation. Julian Strawther and DeAndre Jordan had their turns in the rotation as Adelman desperately pushed various buttons in search of a comeback. Nothing could even muster a run.

Porter played with padding on his left shoulder after suffering a joint sprain late in Game 2. He was a team-worst minus-25 in 35 minutes.

“When they bring a third person over, a fourth person over, when Jamal and Nikola are playing two-man game, we have to find good shots on the back side of that,” Adelman said before the game. “And I’ve been saying this for two weeks, but trust the open man. If we can find wide open 3s when they’re going to bring all these people, all this attention to our best players, I’ll live with that. That’s how the game is.”

On the other side of the Clippers’ scorching 3-point shooting night, Denver went 7 for 26 while also getting crushed on the offensive glass and in transition.

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The horse heads were an accessory left in every seat along The Wall, a fan section behind one baseline meant to resemble a high school or college student section. Heckling didn’t do much to affect Jokic. It worked by proxy on his teammates.

“That could be a motivational factor, actually,” Adelman joked before opening tip. “Hopefully not to go home.”

The Nuggets are two losses from that reality now.

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