Nuggets vs. Clippers is beyond human comprehension

Have you ever watched something for two-and-a-half hours only to have you have no earthly idea what you just witnessed? Perhaps it's a carefully crafted Christopher Nolan film, or it's a chaotic Twitch stream, or it's an older sitcom in reruns, or it's a recording of a live concert at The Sphere.

Or maybe it's Game 1 of Nuggets vs. Rockets.

This looked like Clippers in five early in the game: James Harden and Ivica Zubac showed off their dominant pick-and-roll early, Los Angeles was frustrating Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray was throwing up bricks and being incredibly casual with the ball, Kawhi Leonard got cooking. The Clippers' rotation made a ton of sense. The Nuggets looked like they had three players who could compete in this series, and maybe four who cared to compete.

And then, without any warning, the Clippers just stopped scoring, the Nuggets started playing at playoff intensity, Zubac all but disappeared from the action and Denver won the game.

The biggest confounding factor is that the Clips just dipped away from the Harden-Zubac pick-and-roll for, like, three-fourths of the game. Bob Myers was on the call, and he was calling it out as it was happening. Err, wasn't happening. Denver's defense is often pitiful, Jokic wanted no part of defending Zubac physically in the paint in the first quarter, Harden could consistently blow by Murray or Russell Westbrook if he could get Christian Braun switched off of him and ... the Clips just went away from it. Zubac still got points, and L.A. went back to it in overtime. But it really felt like the Nuggets had no answer for it, and had they spammed it more in the third and fourth quarters, there wouldn't have been overtime.