Denver Drops L.A.

The normally sharpshooting Los Angeles Clippers just couldn’t find their aim Wednesday night.

Paul Pierce had four points, two assists and a block in 17 minutes, but the explosive Clipper offense was contained by missed shots in an 87-81 loss to the Denver Nuggets.

“We played with the right intentions,” said head coach Doc Rivers said. “We missed wide-open shot after wide-open shot. It’s going to happen. This wasn’t one of those games where I thought we just didn’t show up and didn’t play. I thought we missed a lot of shots. I thought we did get frustrated with the missed shots, especially in the first half.”

The three-ball kept the Clippers competitive versus the Denver Nuggets, but it also proved to be their demise in the loss. L.A. hoisted a franchise-record 46 three-point attempts, connecting on just 13 for a 28 percent shooting clip.

“When you look at the guys that were taking the 3s, it was the right guys in the right spots,” Rivers said. “We just didn’t make any of them.”

The L.A. backcourt kept the Clips on pace early, as J.J. Redick and Chris Paul scored the only points for the team in the first frame.

The Nuggets took a 23-19 lead in the second stanza, where Jamal Crawford scored 10 of the first 12 points for the Clippers. The lead switched hands three times in that span before Crawford capped his spurt with a three-point play, hitting the and-one to put L.A. ahead two, 31-29.

While Crawford made a run to start the period, Denver power forward Kenneth Faried finished the half with a burst of his own. Faried scored 11 unanswered points for the Nuggets on their way to taking a 14-point lead, 53-39, into intermission.

“Clearly I didn’t like how we ended the second quarter. It was a tie game with 2:49 left in the second quarter,” Rivers said. “It was the end of that quarter that changed the game.”

With some help from The Truth, the Clippers positioned themselves for a comeback out of the locker room. Paul used two free throws and a turnaround jumper to power a 19-7 run that cut the deficit to just four, 62-58. A Wesley Johnson trey capped the run and forced a timeout.

But after that timeout, the Clips lost their rhythm and the Nuggets regrouped to push the lead back to nine points, 71-62.

After trailing by as many as 13 points early in the fourth quarter, the Clippers got within two twice, including at the 2:26 mark when forward Jeff Green’s hook shot made it 82-80. But they couldn’t get over the hump, as the Nuggets handed them their third loss in five games.