LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS VS DENVER NUGGETS
1.71
TOTAL (INCL OVERTIME) - OVER 209.5
The best series of the NBA Playoffs is heading back to Los Angeles and the Intuit Dome. The Denver Nuggets are up three two going into game six of the series. Jamal Murray was the key to the victory in game five for the Nuggets. Murray had 43 points with great efficiency.
There are two versions of Jamal Murray. The regular season Murray who doesn't shine at all on the court. He slowly plays himself into shape during the season. Usually he is ready come playoff time. As he was in 2023 when Denver won their first and only NBA championship ever. Murray was the The Robin to Batman (Nikola Jokic) for The Denver Nuggets. He wasn't that last season and the frustrations of the fanbase have just gotten bigger and bigger. So Jamal truly stepped up in game five of the series.
The Canadian point guard out of Kitchener in Ontario scored 43 points. Jamal took 26 shots and made 18 of them. Murray had a great night from beyond the arc too. He made eight of 14 shots from downtown. He scored 43 with only one free throw. Jamal has seven dimes, five boards, three steals, one block and only one turnover. An excellent display of basketball from Murray and the Nuggets are now up in the series after being down 2-1. This was his best playoff performance from Jamal since the NBA finals versus the Miami Heat back in 2023.
The former LA Clipper missed the major part of game three and the whole of game four in the series. He was back in the lineup for game five and he was very valuable for The Denver Nuggets. Russell scored 21 points off the bench and he had 25 minutes of playing time. Westbrook made eight out of his 15 attempted shots and was three out of six from downtown. Westbrook was a spark for The Nuggets and he brings a lot of needed swagger and attitude to the Denver Nuggets.
Nikola Jokic missed a lot of shots with his high standards. Nikola only hit four out of his 13 shots. He had another triple double despite that. Jokic had 13 points, 12 dimes and ten boards. The Nuggets won game five 131-115 and seems to have taken the momentum away from the Los Angeles Clippers in the series at this point. Denver has taken the physical initiative in game four and five of the series and The Clippers need to regain it if they are about to make this a seven game series.
Over the last two games of the series Denver is playing a different kind of defence
on James Harden. The Nuggets are attacking the dribble and that is something that
Harden isn't comfortable at all with. He only scored eleven points in game five. Harden took nine shots and only made three out of them. Kawaii Leonard has only had one great game so far in the series and he needs to find that level of play again, otherwise the Clippers will be out in the first round of the playoffs. Leonard had 20 points in game five with eleven boards and nine dimes. He was minus seven. Ivica Zubac, the big man out of Croatia, was best on the LA Clippers with 27 points, he was minus 15.
