The Denver Nuggets claimed a big win of 104-89 over the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals, coming back from a 3-1 trail for the second straight time in the playoffs. They will meet the Los Angeles Lakers in the West Finals.

While the Nuggets became the first team in league history to create such a miracle two times in a row, the Clippers watched their embarrassing record of never making the Conference Finals continue. Their 50-year-record is way longer than other unfortunate companions in the four major sports leagues – NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL – of North America.

Jamal Murry shot down court-high 40 points for the Nuggets. Having struggled for six games against the defense of the Clippers, the 23-year-old finally found the best of himself back in Game 7. He scored 20 points in the second quarter alone, forcing the Clippers to trap him from the second half. This change further liberated his teammates, who made bigger contributions offensively in the second half.

Murray was not the only hero for the Nuggets in Tuesday's game. Nikola Jokic continued to embarrass the Clippers' defense with his universal offensive influence. The Clippers began to double team from the beginning and that only enabled "Joker" to maximize his top orchestrating ability. Moreover, when the opponents decided to trap Murray in Q3, the partnership between him and Jokic only made the Clippers run off their legs even more. By the way, Jokic also became the first player in NBA history to put down a triple-double in three quarters in Game 7 of a series.

By the way, that's not the only record set by Jokic. After Tuesday, he also became the first player who had two triple-doubles in Game 7 and the first guy who grabbed 15+rebounds (he had 22 in the end) in a triple-double. Jokic once said that they had no pressure after leading the Nuggets to win Game 6. Judging by the way he (and Murray) performed on Tuesday, he was not truly being honest.

"Nobody wants us here. Nobody thinks that we can do something. We proved to ourselves and to everybody we can do something," said Jokic after Game 7.

"We know what we got and when we're all clicking when we're all making shots like that and playing defense together, we're a top 4 team, top 3 team in the league and we're trying to prove to be the no.1," said Murray in the post-game interview.

Of course, every Nugget was the team's hero, including Garry Harris, Paul Millsap and Jerami Grant who began to bury shots from downtown in Q3 as well as Torrey Craig, Monte Morris and others who all played their part in this epic series.

Clippers tripped on their own underperformance

When the Clippers led 3-1 in the series, everyone was looking forward to the "Hallway Series" between the and Lakers in the West Finals. Then they lost the following three games in such a similar way: leading by 16, 19 and 12 points respectively before watching the Nuggets overcome the trail to win Game 5, Game 6 and Game 7. The last two games had more in common: the Clippers only scored 35 and 33 points in the second half.

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George had the best to blame for the loss on Tuesday. The two played 43 and 38 minutes, the first-and second-longest of the team, but got only 24 points together, not to mention that they went 0-11 in the last quarter. What's even more disappointing was that only one of their attempts in Q4 happened in the paint.

If George could be excused for being considered as a mainly off-ball scorer, Leonard has some explaining to do over why he missed 13 of his 16 jumpers and failed to step onto the free throw line for even once. It's true that even Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant struggled with their shooting in some of the big nights in their careers, but both managed to help their team via something else – chasing rebounds and charging the rim.

Leonard did neither. In fact, in the second half, he just kept watching his shots hit the rim and then bounce back to Jokic's hands. When he won the NBA Championship with the Toronto Raptors last season, Lowry was the orchestrator; Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam provided energy; Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka took care of defense and the locker room; Leonard's job was easy. Now that he's in the Clippers and everyone was looking at him to do the above, or at least part of it, he was obviously far from ready to be a true leader.

And then there was coach Rivers, who was no stranger to the experience of watching his team eliminated after leading 3-1 in the series. Whatever encouraging speech he had give in the locker room before the game, it did not seem to work. And when his players fell into panic on the court and looked at Rivers for solution, the only thing he did and could do was to applaud and tell his players they did well.

"You can't even say we want to change our roster. We like what we've got. I mean, we've been saying it all year. It's just about chemistry, being together," said George after the game.

What the Clippers needed is a real orchestrator and more importantly, new better head coach.

Tatum is two possessions away from becoming a hero

The Miami Heat edged over the Boston Celtics 117-114 after overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, leading 1-0 in the series.

Despite the finals result, the 2019-20 season marked a milestone of Jayson Tatum's career. He developed and refined his step-back 3-pointers, further improving his isolation ability. Meanwhile, he also began to try the orchestrating role – though it was not very successful. He was also doing better in defensive rotating while he was already a reliable one-on-one defender. It's safe to say that 22-year-old Tatum was trying to play like a leader of Boston.

In Tuesday's game, he went 10-24 to get court-high 30 points and 14 rebounds while delivering five assists. He could have been the winning team's best-performing player, until the last 23 seconds of the game.

Boston led 114-113. Butler had the ball and faced Tatum around the arc. Butler drove from the right and beat Tatum with his strength. When Tatum leaped to challenge his shot, Butler drew a foul on him and drilled it. The 31-year-old also made the free throw, helping Miami lead 116-114.

Tatum had the chance to respond to that in the next possession. He had the ball outside the 3-point line, passed through Butler with his big stride, driving towards the bucket and aiming for a one-handed dunk. It all seemed to go well until Bam Adebayo denied his dunk with one hand too.

Butler was 7-14 to score 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and two steals – Tatum was better in almost stat except efficiency. However, stats did not tell all of the story. For example, Butler had three screen assists which led to eight points; he deflected eight of Boston's passes and grabbed offensive loose ball twice; he also challenged seven of Boston's shots.

Head coaches of the two sides, Brad Stevens and Erik Spoelstra have been known for game planning and plan-altering. The game was extremely close via their hands and it should be any surprising no matter which team won. Nonetheless, the gap between Tatum and Butler in commanding the game is bigger than the two possessions. Figuring out how to wipe that difference is what it takes for Tatum to make himself a true super star.