Clippers erase 25-point deficit, stun Nuggets

LOS ANGELES — Clippers coach Tyronn Lue was just saying before Tuesday’s improbable low-scoring thriller, the biggest thing he learned about his guys halfway through this season, is that they can handle adversity: “When you’re going through tough times, just kind of seeing the character in who people are and we’ve been doing a good job of trying to hold it down.”

After a frustrating, frostbitten first half on Tuesday night, the Clippers had scored an NBA season-low 28 points. They found themselves in a 25-point hole against the Denver Nuggets with seven minutes left in the third quarter. And, yes, undermanned as usual.

And wouldn’t you know it, they handled it, winning 87-85 in what Lue called a “throwback” victory that he joked “set basketball back 50 years.”

The 25-point comeback victory is tied for the Clippers’ largest – postseason games included – since the 1997-98 season and was one of only three times this season that a team has recovered from a deficit that large.

Reggie Jackson, most notably, was having a certifiably adverse game when he strung together three consecutive buckets to give the Clippers a 76-75 lead with 5:40 left.

His fourth straight was a dunk on Jokic – just Jackson’s third slam this season. The dunk cut Denver’s lead to 79-78 and turned Jackson’s woeful 1-for-9 shooting start into pretext for the grand finale, which had the 15,077 fans at Crypto.com Arena chanting his name as they had during the Clippers’ run to the Western Conference finals last season.

“The game was ugly for me early, most of the game, just ugly,” Jackson said. “… it was hard. It was hard to have confidence in myself for a long time there.”

But he said his teammates and the fans within earshot continued to support him: “They knew the game was gonna give me a chance to make some plays.”

And that, he said, made the difference: “This isn’t me – this was this entire building, an entire organization, I was just the recipient of some shots going in. This was everybody, putting that battery in my back and everybody giving me confidence today.”

Jackson provided the finishing touches on a victory that the Clippers (21-21) made possible with a huge third-quarter surge.

After the Clippers shot 12 for 44 (27.3%) from the field and 1 for 14 from 3-point range in the first half, Lue asked them in the locker room: “Why are we being so indecisive?”

And so they attacked – eventually. Only after digging a 59-34 hole with 7:04 remaining in the third quarter.

Then the Clippers went small and outscored the Nuggets (20-19) by 14 points with a lineup of Eric Bledsoe (who had 11 points, nine assists and finished plus-28 in the box score), Amir Coffey (a team-high 18 points, seven assists and four steals), Terance Mann (13 points), Marcus Morris Sr. (12) and Nicolas Batum (six points) – none of them taller than 6-foot-9. Then, to start the fourth quarter, Serge Ibaka replaced Batum and helped the Clippers slice a 66-55 deficit to 66-64 with 9:10 remaining.

“Defense saved us because offense, some nights, ain’t gonna go your way,” said Batum, whose 3-pointer with 1:47 left followed Coffey’s 3-pointer, a combination that pushed the Clippers’ lead to its biggest of the night: 86-81.

“That happens in the NBA, can’t make shots, nobody can get it going, but defense gonna be there.”

While Aaron Gordon scored 13 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter as he and Jokic tried to fight off the Clippers, their teammates went just 3 for 16 after halftime as the Clippers outscored Denver, 59-44 in the second half, holding the Nuggets to 16-for-37 shooting, including 2 for 17 from 3-point range.

Despite the Clippers’ efforts, Jokic finished with 21 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists – his ninth consecutive double-double and the 15th time in 16 games that he has reached the 20-point threshold. But when he missed a 3-point look with 2.5 seconds left and Gordon couldn’t hit the follow, the Clippers’ comeback stood.

It was the Nuggets’ lowest-scoring game this season and tied the lowest tally by a Clippers opponent this year.

The Clippers were without Luke Kennard, who missed his sixth game in protocols – and Justise Winslow, who missed his second. Add to that: No Kawhi Leonard (ACL), Paul George (elbow), Isaiah Hartenstein (ankle) or Jason Preston (foot).

L.A.’s first-half total was the fewest first-half points since the Clippers scored 27 in their 51-point loss to Dallas last season. But it wasn’t the fewest first-half points in league history – that record belongs to the 1999 Clippers, who mustered only 19 points entering intermission of a game against the Lakers.

Starting center Ivica Zubac played just five first-half minutes, in which he scored two points, was assessed three fouls and got smacked in the head by the ball twice.

Jackson was 1 for 9 and 0 for 3 from 3-point range – and a team-worst minus-14 in the box score – after 17 first-half minutes.