Who's Really to Blame for Los Angeles Clippers' Early 2025 NBA Playoffs Exit?

The Los Angeles Clippers, despite being the fifth seed, entered the first round with the Denver Nuggets as a -118 favorite to win the series.

And for much of the first six games, it looked like they were going to make good on the promise they brought to the playoffs.

But on Saturday, the Nuggets absolutely obliterated the Clippers. Garbage time started in the third quarter, when Nikola Jokić left the game with his fifth foul. And though the reserves made the final score of 120-101 a bit more respectable, the lead got as high as 33 points.

The Clippers started the day with hopes of moving on to the conference finals to face the Oklahoma City Thunder. Now, they and the hundreds of fans who traveled to watch Game 7 in Denver have to head home and think about what went wrong the whole way.

The biggest reasons for L.A.'s postseason failure can be found below.

Whoa... What is Paul George doing here? He, of course, is no longer a Clipper. And it might feel like a bit of a reach to blame him for this, but it certainly felt like L.A. could've used a little more perimeter shot creation at times throughout this series.

That was especially true in Game 7, when the Clippers managed just 101 points. And that total makes the offensive performance look even better than it was. They got plenty of easier buckets in garbage time.

Yes, George has had his difficulties in the playoffs since leaving the Indiana Pacers. He was famously rattled by Joe Ingles in a series in 2018. And L.A. did a heck of a job without George this season, especially after Kawhi came back full time.

Had he taken the three-year, $150 million offer the Clippers reportedly made him, L.A. would've had more options when things went sideways for the other stars.

It may seem a little unfair to pin any amount of blame on a reserve who played under 20 minutes per game, but the Clippers traded Bones Hyland (who wasn't playing anyway) and Terance Mann (who's had some big playoff moments for them in the past) for Bogdan Bogdanović.

For his career, Mann had a minus-0.4 playoff box plus-minus as a Clipper (around the contributions of an average player). Bogdanović, who averaged 6.4 points and shot 36.4 percent from the field, was at minus-8.2 (which suggests unplayability).

In a series in which L.A. was supposed to have the advantage in terms of roster depth, their primary scorer off the bench was more than neutralized.

Jamal Murray has had his fair share of massive playoff moments. In the bubble, he topped 40 points three times (and 50 twice) in a single series. In the 2023 Finals, he averaged 21.4 points, 10.0 assists and 6.2 rebounds on the way to a championship.

And against the Clippers, he had another monster performance that swung a tied series toward the Nuggets.

In Game 5, Murray exploded for 43 points on 17-of-26 shooting. He hit eight triples and guaranteed Denver would have at least two chances to close this series out.

For an article highlighting who on the Clippers is to blame, it might seem natural to highlight their perimeter defense, but there's just not much anyone can do when Murray gets into one of those playoff zones.

I hesitate to list either Kawhi Leonard or James Harden here. Both were, on balance, pretty good in this series. Harden averaged 18.7 points and had 13 assists in Game 7. Kawhi averaged 25.0.

But Harden, whose history of single-game duds in the playoffs seems like an annual topic of conversation, also had just seven points on 2-of-8 shooting on Saturday.

At least as a scorer, he allowed himself to be almost completely erased by third-year wing Christian Braun.

And as the Nuggets started to go on a run that would eventually put the series on ice, he was nowhere to be found.

NBA teams need their superstars to come up with momentum-breaking shots in those moments, and Harden simply didn't provide them.

Throughout this series, there'd been talk about Nikola Jokić not quite playing up to his own ridiculous standard. And there were certainly times when it looked like the bruising, physical defense of Zubac was bothering him.

In the first half of Game 7, he was even trending on X, with the majority of the featured posts calling his play into question.

But even after L.A. limited him to 16 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists on Saturday, he finished with averages of 24.0 points, 11.6 rebounds, 10.1 assists and 2.3 steals. For most of the series, he looked as engaged defensively as he's been at any point in 2024-25. And he has a hefty lead over the rest of the league in playoff wins over replacement player.

As easy as it might be to pepper blame all over the Clippers roster for this first-round exit, sometimes, you just find yourself on the wrong side of the best basketball player in the world.