Los Angeles Clippers (54-26) vs. Denver Nuggets (30-50) STAPLES Center 7:30 p.m. PST April 13, 2015 FOX Prime Ticket Video of the Day On the eve of the playoffs… a throwback. 1. Who’s been the biggest disappointment on the Nuggets roster this season? Charlie Yao, Roundball Mining, (@skitalicious): Gary Harris. This is a lost season for Gary and he didn’t just struggle with the things most rookies do — he struggled at everything. A mid-season coaching change and nearly 30 DNP’s didn’t help, but 638 minutes is ample opportunity for a rookie and Harris hasn’t done anything with it. Harris’ 4.33 PER is worst in his rookie class and the problems go beyond the abysmal 28.9% shooting and 18.1% from three. Harris’ on-ball defense, where I thought’d he’d shine, didn’t prove to be an upgrade over Foye or Lawson. Now, the Nuggets must continue to look for answers there while Harris tries to bounce back to league average production. J.D. Evans: Sadly, Faried. But that’s more to do with raised expectations than Faried’s actual play. He’s more or less the same guy he was last year; the problem is that in the summer he looked like a megastar. It turns out that playing next to the Brow and the Beard is good for role players, and playing next to Wilson Chandler and Randy Foye is less good for role players. Here’s hoping he doesn’t spend the rest of his career as the second best player on his team. Patrick James, (@patrickmjames): Probably JaVale McGhee or Aaron Afflalo, because in addition to no longer being Nuggets, they’re not even playing at the moment (here’s to hoping for a quick recovery for Afflalo). McGee has been his own kind of mystery; Afflalo just never quite worked as a way to replace Iguodala’s production after Iggy left in 2013. 2. Complete the sentence: “Danilo Gallinari’s 47-point game reminds us…” Yao: …he’s still here. Three seasons and three surgeries have skewed our memory of the player Gallo’s become. It’s tempting to label him injury prone and over-the-hill, but only the first part is rooted in truth. Gallo’s just 26 and about to put up his fourth-straight season of above average efficiency. You can do a lot worse than a two-way starter who’s a great teammate and can be your secondary creator at 6-foot-11. Gallo’s clearly a guy who can help you win now and the Nuggets seem headed down an opposite long-term path. Any savvy winner would be lucky to pick up a guy like Gallo. Evans: … that the Rooster existed once. This isn’t like Brewer or Ross going off for 50; Gallo was always meant to be this guy. He’s had a great April, and hopefully this one is a sign that he’s on the way back. But, like Faried, it’s hard to see him as the second best player on a playoff team. James: …that it wasn’t so long ago Gallo looked like a top-5 shooting guard. Anyone who can go 7-12 from three should be able to snag a contract in today’s NBA. What’s even more impressive is he dropped 17 in the two overtime periods. 3. Who is the ideal matchup for the Clippers in the first round? Yao: I’d take the hobbled Blazers the first round. This team is missing a gear without Wes Matthews and won’t have their perimeter defense sorted with Afflalo and Dorrell Wright out til the playoffs. The Clippers have CP3 and a ton of different looks to throw at Aldridge. There isn’t a slam dunk matchup here, but get these games into the 100’s and I’m not sure the Blazers have enough. I’ll take my chances on a hobbled Portland beating me from outside, with or without home court. Evans: Houston, as the third seed. The Clippers have been weirdly effective against elite shooting guards this year, and although they’ve gone 2-2 against Houston, the wins have been huge and the losses have been close. Even better if they can avoid Golden State in the second round, and hope that one of Grizzlies/Trailblazers/Spurs can exhaust the Northern Californians. James: In order of most to least favorable matchup, I’d say Portland, Dallas, Memphis, Houston, San Antonio. Despite injuries, all these teams are potentially scary in different ways — “playoff Dame,” “playoff Dirk,” the shear physical toll Memphis’ play, the Rockets’ moxie in the face of injury. But no team is as scary as the Spurs.
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