The Final Score Tells a Lie
The Nuggets vs Clippers box score says 115-114. Clean and simple. It wasn’t.
Here’s what actually happened. Jamal Murray catches the ball with 0.9 seconds left. He’s behind the three-point line. Derrick Jones Jr. fouls him. Not a smart foul. Three free throws. Make all three, game tied. Make all three, and we go to overtime.
Murray sinks the first. Easy. Second one? Swish. Now it’s 115-115 if he hits the third. The Clippers’ fan wall behind the basket does its job. The ball rattles out. Time expires. Game over.
If you’re looking at Nuggets vs Clippers NBA stats, that final miss will never show up. But it’s the whole story. Basketball is cruel like that.
The win moved the Clippers to 27-28 on the season. The Nuggets dropped to 35-21 . But standings don’t matter when you’re watching a game like this. Only the moment matters. And that moment was pure tension.
| Team | PTS | FG | 3P | FT | REB | AST | TOV | STL | BLK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denver Nuggets | 114 | 39/86 (45.3%) | 13/33 (39.4%) | 23/31 (74.2%) | 45 | 29 | 17 | 6 | 2 |
| LA Clippers | 115 | 41/87 (47.1%) | 8/33 (24.2%) | 25/30 (83.3%) | 45 | 28 | 12 | 8 | 4 |
| Player | PTS | REB | AST | FG | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nikola Jokić | 22 | 17 | 6 | 10/18 | -3 |
| Jamal Murray | 20 | 8 | 8 | 7/19 | -2 |
| Bruce Brown | 19 | 5 | 6 | 8/12 | +7 |
| Julian Strawther | 18 | 3 | 2 | 6/11 (6 3P) | +1 |
| Cam Johnson | 18 | 4 | 2 | 6/10 | -4 |
| Player | PTS | REB | AST | FG | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B. Mathurin | 38 | 5 | 4 | 12/22 | +10 |
| Kawhi Leonard | 23 | 6 | 3 | 8/18 | +2 |
| Derrick Jones Jr. | 22 | 4 | 1 | 7/12 | +1 |
| John Collins | 11 | 12 | 2 | 4/9 | +5 |
| Kris Dunn | 4 | 8 | 8 | 2/6 | +6 |
Mathurin’s Coming Out Party
Bennedict Mathurin scored 38 points. In his home debut. For his new team. Against one of the best teams in the West.
Let those Nuggets Clippers player stats sink in. 12-of-22 from the field. 12-of-13 from the free-throw line. Five rebounds. Four assists. Three steals . The guy did everything.
Mathurin got traded from Indiana at the deadline. New city, new teammates, new arena. Doesn’t matter. He showed up and showed out. The Clippers needed scoring. They needed someone who could create their own shot. Mathurin gave them that and then some.
The best part? He played with four fouls down the stretch. Most guys get tentative. Not Mathurin. He kept attacking. Kept drawing contact. Kept stepping to the line like it was a shootaround .
Kawhi Leonard added 23 points. That’s his 34th straight game with 20 or more . Steady as ever. Derrick Jones Jr. dropped 22, including that foul on Murray that almost cost them the game . But without Jones’s layups and threes down the stretch, the Clippers aren’t even in a position to win.
Jokic on His Birthday
Nikola Jokic turned 31 on game day. His present? Twenty-two points and seventeen rebounds . Also, six turnovers and a loss. Happy birthday, big fella.
The Denver Nuggets vs LA Clippers stats show Jokic struggled from deep. 0-for-6 from three-point range . That’s not like him. But the Clippers threw bodies at him all night. Yanic Konan Niederhauser. Brook Lopez. Whoever else Tyronn Lue could find.
Jokic still almost won the game. With 46 seconds left, he tied it at 107-107 on a shot inside . That’s what he does. Even on an off night, he’s the most dangerous guy on the floor.
The Nuggets and Clippers head to head stats now favor Denver for the season series. They won the first two meetings. But this one stings more because it was right there. Right in their hands. Murray is at the line with a chance to tie. And the ball just wouldn’t fall.
Jamal Murray finished with 20 points and eight assists . Bruce Brown added 19 off the bench . Cam Johnson and Julian Strawther each had 18. On paper, Denver scored enough. But defense? That’s a different story.
The Fourth Quarter Dust-Up
Basketball got chippy. Shocking, right?
With 10:27 left in the fourth, things boiled over. Yanic Konan Niederhauser and Jonas Valanciunas got tangled under the basket after a free throw . Shoving happened. Mathurin and Kris Dunn ran over to help. Because that’s what teammates do.
When the dust settled, Dunn, Mathurin, and Valanciunas all got technical fouls . Denver made the technical free throw. Game tied at 83-83.
Here’s what the Nuggets vs Clippers match stats won’t tell you: the arena got loud. Really loud. Not fake TV noise. Actual human screaming. The kind of energy that makes players lock in or lose their minds.
For the Clippers, it was the former. They didn’t back down . They played harder after the scuffle. That’s the mark of a team that’s figuring things out.
Valanciunas finished with six points and four rebounds in 12 minutes . Niederhauser had four points and four boards. But the impact went beyond numbers. That moment shifted the game’s entire vibe.
Bench Battles and Role Players
Let’s talk about the guys who don’t get headlines.
Bruce Brown was everywhere for Denver. Nineteen points on 6-of-9 shooting . Five rebounds. Six assists. He’s the kind of player who makes winning plays. The Nuggets missed him last season. Now they’ve got him back, and he’s reminding everyone why.
Julian Strawther hit six three-pointers . Six! Eighteen points off the bench. If you’re a Clippers fan, you spent the whole fourth quarter holding your breath every time Strawther touched the ball.
For LA, John Collins posted a double-double. Eleven points. Twelve rebounds . Solid. Unspectacular. Exactly what you need from your backup big.
The Nuggets Clippers game stats show both benches contributed. But Denver’s reserves outscored LA’s. Usually, that means a win. Not tonight.
Brook Lopez had a moment, too. With 13 seconds left, he caught a long pass from Mathurin and threw down a booming dunk . The kind of play that makes old guys feel young again. Lopez is 37. Still running the floor. Still making an impact.
The 21-7 Run That Changed Everything
Here’s a stat that jumps out from the Nuggets vs Clippers latest stats: the Clippers are 21-7 since December 20 .
That’s not a fluke. That’s a trend.
Before December, this team looked dead. James Harden got traded. People wrote them off. But since then? They’ve been one of the best teams in the league. The Nuggets vs Clippers analysis has to account for that. This isn’t the same team that struggled early.
Kawhi Leonard is healthy. That helps. Mathurin looks like a steal at the deadline. Derrick Jones Jr. is having a career year. Even the rookies are contributing. Yanic Konan Niederhauser got into a scuffle in his first real action. That’s heart. You can’t teach that.
The Clippers now sit ninth in the West . Right in the play-in mix. But with how they’re playing? Don’t be surprised if they keep climbing.
Denver, meanwhile, has lost five of their last seven . Still second in the West. Still dangerous. But slippage is real. Aaron Gordon’s been out ten straight with a hamstring . Peyton Watson, too. Those absences add up.
Coaching Chess Match
Tyronn Lue had a plan. Throw all three centers at Jokic. Wear him down. Make him work for everything .
David Adleman had his own plan. Let Jokic be Jokic. Hope everyone else hits shots.
Both plans worked. Both plans failed. That’s basketball.
Lue’s strategy kept Jokic from going nuclear. Last time Jokic visited the Intuit Dome, he dropped 55 . This time? Twenty-two. Progress.
But Denver’s role players went off. Fifty-five combined from Brown, Strawther, and Johnson . That’s the trade-off. You slow down the MVP, and his friends beat you.
Adleman’s plan nearly worked, too. Murray is at the line. Three shots. Tie game. But the basketball gods had other ideas.
The Nuggets-Clippers head-to-head stats now show Denver up 2-1 this season. But this game felt different. Felt like a playoff preview. Physical. Emotional. Down to the wire.
What the Numbers Really Say
Let’s get into the weeds for a second. The Nuggets vs Clippers box score reveals some interesting stuff.
The Clippers shot 47% from the field. The Nuggets shot 45% . Basically even.
Three-point shooting? The Clippers went 8-of-33 . That’s 24 percent. Awful. The Nuggets hit 13 threes. Way better. So how’d the Clippers win?
Free throws. Twenty-five of thirty from the stripe for LA . Denver was solid, too, but that free-throw disparity matters in a one-point game. The Clippers attacked the paint. Drew contact. Got rewarded.
Turnovers tell another story. Denver committed 17 turnovers . Jokic alone had six . Those extra possessions turned into transition buckets. Easy points. The kind of points that decide close games.
Rebounds? Jokic grabbed 17 by himself. Denver dominated the glass overall. But the Clippers made theirs count when it mattered most.
Playoff Implications and What’s Next
The West is a knife fight. Always has been. Always will be.
Denver sits at 35-21. Good for second place . But the gap between them and the first isn’t huge. And the gap between them and falling to fourth isn’t huge either. Every game matters.
The Clippers are 27-28. Ninth place . Still below .500. But that 21-7 run suggests they’re better than their record. Way better.
Both teams play on Friday night. Denver travels to Portland . LA hosts the Lakers . Back-to-backs after an emotional game. That’s where seasons get defined.
For Denver, they need Gordon and Watson back. Soon. The rotation is stretched thin. Jokic can only do so much. Murray can only carry so much. Help is coming, but when?
For LA, they need to keep this momentum. The Nuggets vs Clippers analysis shows a team that believes. That’s dangerous. Belief beats talent sometimes. And the Clippers have both.
Conclusion
The Nuggets vs Clippers match stats from February 19, 2026, will go in the books as a regular season game. One win. One loss. Move along.
But for anyone who watched, it was more. It was Mathurin announcing himself. Jokic is grinding on his birthday. Murray walked off the floor, wondering what if. A rookie getting into a scuffle. Veterans making plays. Coaches scheming. Fans screaming.
Basketball at its best is chaos. Thursday night was chaotic.
The Denver Nuggets vs LA Clippers stats show a one-point game. They show 38 points from a new guy. Seventeen rebounds from the MVP. Twenty from the guy who almost tied it.
What they don’t show is the feeling. The tension. The silence after that final miss.
That’s why we watch. That’s why we care. That’s why 2000 words later, we’re still talking about 48 minutes in February.
Check the box score if you want numbers. Watch the highlights if you want flash. But if you want to understand what happened Thursday night, you had to be there. Or at least read this article.
Either way, the Clippers won. The Nuggets lost. And basketball fans everywhere got reminded why this game is the best game.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What were the final Nuggets vs Clippers latest stats from February 19, 2026?
A: The Clippers won 115-114. Bennedict Mathurin led all scorers with 38 points in his home debut. Nikola Jokic posted 22 points and 17 rebounds for Denver. Jamal Murray missed a potential game-tying free throw with 0.9 seconds left .
Q: How did Bennedict Mathurin perform in the Nuggets vs Clippers match stats?
A: Mathurin was outstanding. He scored 38 points on 12-of-22 shooting, made 12-of-13 free throws, and added five rebounds, four assists, and three steals. He also received a technical foul during a fourth-quarter scuffle .
Q: What do the Nuggets and Clippers head to head stats look like this season?
A: Denver leads the season series 2-1 after this game. They won the first two meetings 130-116 and 122-109 before the Clippers took this one 115-114 .
Q: Why did Jamal Murray miss the final free throw in the Nuggets-Clippers game stats?
A: Murray was fouled on a three-point attempt with 0.9 seconds left. He made the first two free throws but missed the third. The ball rattled out as time expired, giving the Clippers the win .
Q: What injuries affected the Nuggets vs Clippers box score?
A: Denver played without Aaron Gordon (hamstring) for the 10th straight game and Peyton Watson (hamstring) for the fourth straight. The Clippers were still waiting for Darius Garland (toe) to make his debut after acquiring him at the trade deadline .
Sources:
- Yahoo Sports: Mathurin scores 38 in home debut
- ESPN: Nuggets vs Clippers Box Score
- Los Angeles Times via Yahoo: Mathurin leads Clippers past Nuggets
- TalkBasket.net: Mathurin drops 38 in Clippers home debut
- GMA News: Mathurin lifts Clippers to tight win over Nuggets
- LA Daily News: Mathurin shines as Clippers hold off Nuggets
- CBS Sports: Mathurin scores 38 in Clippers debut
- Eurohoops: Clippers resist Jokic in thriller
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