The NBA regular season continued, with the West facing a strong confrontation, with the Nuggets sitting at home against the Clippers.
Before this game, the Nuggets lost a big score to the Jazz, the team's ranking slipped to sixth place in the West, MVP Jokic was alone, and the team lacked a second scoring point.
In contrast, the Clippers, the beginning of the game has not been a single disaster, Leonard, George two cores have suffered injuries, this game Maurice Jr. and Batum are also absent.
Facing the Clippers, who were short of major generals, the Nuggets swept away the haze of a big defeat and quickly established a lead under Jokic's leadership.
Although the Clippers have since recovered somewhat, the Nuggets still took a four-point lead at the end of the first quarter thanks to the steady play of the inside and outside connections.
In the second quarter, the wind and clouds on the court suddenly changed, the Nuggets felt a serious decline, and could only rely on Jokic to support the situation with a point of pain, while the Clippers blossomed more, and a wave of three-point rain not only chased the point difference, but also established a 12-point lead at the end of the half.
Easy to fight again, the Nuggets finally found their form, in the third quarter continued to eat into the point difference, even if the Clippers still continued to form, but at the end of the third quarter, the point difference was still equalized by the Nuggets.
Entering the final quarter of the scramble, the two teams began a glue fight, Jokic and Zubac exploded on the offensive end, and the point difference remained for one round until the last moment of regular time, when Mann hit a shot but the timeout did not count, and the two teams entered overtime.
In overtime, Jokic showed absolute dominance, and despite some controversial penalties, the Nuggets eventually won 130-128 with Gordon's bottom three-pointer.
Throughout the game, Jokic is undoubtedly the biggest contributor to the Nuggets' wins, the whole game Jokic dragged his fat body for 41 minutes, the last quarter and overtime almost no rest, can clearly see the fatigue on Jokic's footsteps.
Even so, in the face of such a glue game, Jokic, as an MVP player, still withstood the key moment.
In the whole game, Jokic shot 16 of 25, including 3 of 5 three-pointers, 14 of 16 free throws, and blasted a large triple-double with 49 points, 14 boards, 10 assists, 3 steals and 1 block.
Among them, he scored 49 points in a single game, which also set a new record for Jokic's single-game scoring this season, and was only one point away from the career-high score.
And Jokic also assisted Gordon to complete the three-point kill at the critical moment, which can be described as a great achievement.
He also hit back at pre-game Embiid's comments about MVP, embiid shot 17 of 23 against the Magic, 1 of 4 three-pointers, 15 of 17 from the free throw line, and cut 50 points, 12 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 blocks.
After playing impressive stats, Embiid has publicly stated that if he had played 10 more games last season, the MVP would have been his own.
This remark naturally caused heated discussions between the media and fans, and after Jokic handed over a large triple-double, Nuggets coach Malone also openly complained about his disciples.
Malone said that if Jokic is not the MVP, who is it? By asking rhetorically, it was a good response to Embiid's questioning.
Compared with Jokic's big outburst, the performance of the remnant Clippers is even more awe-inspiring.
As a strong team, the Clippers have suffered successive blows this season, with Leonard, George, Batum, Morris and many other core players absent, and even saying that the Clippers have given up a starting lineup.
As a result, under the leadership of Lu's coach, this Clippers still bite the final with the Nuggets, if it were not for some controversial penalties, the Clippers are more likely to become the team that laughed to the end, but in any case, Lu's coaching ability showed a lot, he really understood the ball.