Denver – – Jamal Murray broke out for 43 factors and Russell Westbrook raised 21 in his return from an damage to the foot, triggering the victory of Nuggets 131-115 in opposition to the Los Angeles clippers on Tuesday night.
The Nuggets additionally obtained 23 of the hero of match 4 Aaron Gordon and the twenty first triple-double in collection playoffs in Nikola Jokic (18 factors, 10 rebounds, 12 assists).
Once more, Denver took a 22-point lead initially of the fourth quarter to look at the clippers do a livid race, as they did in match 4 after they erased their entire deficit to lose 101-99 when Gordon’s buzzer-battery for the primary strolling dunk within the historical past of the NBA qualifiers.
This time, the Clippers made a race of 17-4 to cut back their deficit to figures to a single determine to 116-107, however the Nuggets pushed one other frantic end by making a sequence of 11-0 with Murray marking six and Gordon 5 to drive the coach of the Clippers Tyronn learn to empty his bench.
Match 6 is Thursday night at Intuit Dome and one other victory of Denver would set up a collection of second spherical in opposition to Oklahoma Metropolis.
Ivaca Zubac led the Clippers with a 27 -point eliminatory collection summit, Kawhi Leonard added 20 and Bogdan Bogdanovic added 18.
Murray was 8 out of 14 past the arc and 17 out of 26 in whole. He even sank a 3 from the highest of the important thing that didn’t rely as a result of the ball gave his fingers a fraction of a second after the crimson gentle illuminated the panel signaling the top of the primary half.
This left Denver with an advance of 67-59, which the Nuggets prolonged to 99-83 earlier than the fourth quarter thanks to 2 giant 3 within the final seconds, one from Westbrook and the opposite at 28 ft from Christian Braun.
Westbrook, who spent match 4 with irritation of the left ft, returned to motion and scored 16 factors within the first half in 12 minutes. His return allowed the appearing coach of Nuggets, David Adelman, who makes use of his bench extra after the 5 starters recorded a minimum of 42 minutes in match 4.
The Clippers had not misplaced consecutive matches since March 4.
—–
AP NBA:
