Nuggets take on Clippers in Round 1, here’s the schedule

The Denver Nuggets enter the playoffs as the No. 4 seed in the West with one of the more bizarre stories in the NBA. When they take the floor against the No. 5 seed Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday at 1:30 p.m., they’ll be playing under a new head coach less than two years after winning a championship. The league announced the full schedule for the series on Tuesday.

It’s Denver’s seventh-straight trip to the postseason and a chance to rebound. Last summer, things ended in a disaster when the Nuggets blew a 20-point lead in Game 7 of Round 2 against the Wolves. Two summers ago was the opposite, when the Nuggets went all the way to win their first title in franchise history.

The last time the Nuggets met the Clippers in the playoffs was in the bubble. Devner overcame a 3-1 series deficit to earn a trip to the Western Conference Finals. Only a few players remain on both of these teams five years after that series, and both coaches are different too.

The Nuggets’ big change came last week when they fired Michael Malone and Calvin Booth after a four-game skid. Interim coach David Adelman pushed the Nuggets to three wins in a row to end the season — deadlocking the team with the Clippers at 50 wins. But the series is hosted by Denver due to a bizarre quirk of the NBA Cup, where Denver got to host Los Angeles thrice this season, and thus the Nuggets won that tiebreaker by winning three of the four contests.

Where the Clippers have been one of the best teams in the NBA after the All-Star Break at 19-9, the Nuggets have struggled at 14-13. Los Angeles is led by the rarely-healthy Kawhi Leonard, who has played in 20 of the team’s last 24 games after only playing 36 on the season. Leonard hasn’t made it through a playoff series healthy since 2021, and that’s the last time his Clippers advanced past the first round. This year’s team is different now without Paul George but has another future Hall of Famer in James Harden as the co-star to Leonard in George’s spot. Big man Ivica Zubac and streaky guard Norman Powell have had career seasons and the team is rounded out by a deep cast of defenders and accomplished NBA players.

The Nuggets still have Nikola Jokic and four of the five starters who won Denver a title two summers ago. Jamal Murray has dealt with a recent hamstring injury but has mostly been great for the Nuggets, only getting better as the season dragged on. This recent stretch has been the healthiest stint of Aaron Gordon’s season, who will be huge in the series for slowing down Leonard.

Here’s the schedule for the Denver Nuggets first-round NBA playoffs series with the Los Angeles Clippers

April 19: Game 1, 1:30 p.m. (ESPN), Denver
April 21: Game 2, 8 p.m. (TNT), Denver
April 24: Game 3, 8 p.m. (NBATV), Inglewood
April 26: Game 4, 4 p.m. (TNT), Inglewood
April 29: Game 5, TBD (TBD), Denver *
May 1: Game 6, TBD (TBD), Inglewood*
May 3: Game 7, TBD (TBD), Denver *

Leonard hasn’t played the Nuggets since December of 2023. The first two games of the regular-season series this year were tight and the last two, most recently in early January, were blowout Denver wins.

Aside from George’s departure, the Clippers have been led by Ty Lue for five seasons. Lue has been joined on the bench by a new assistant this season in legendary former head coach Jeff Van Gundy. The two have led the Clippers to being the third-best defensive team in the NBA this season, and their task is slowing down the league’s fourth-best offense.

It’s a true clash of styles, post All-Star Break form and recent franchise success. Yet this series might just be about delaying the inevitable with the 68-win Thunder at the No. 1 seed likely awaiting the winner.