The Denver Nuggets (23 - 35) defeated the Los Angeles Clippers (37 - 20) 87 - 81 at Staples Center on Wednesday. The low scoring and poor shooting affair riddled both the Clippers and Nuggets on Wednesday, as neither team broke 40 percent shooting as a unit. Matchup wise, the Clippers had the advantage in two places. One was behind Chris Paul, who had little trouble handling rookie Emmanuel Mudiay, while the other was behind another youngster in Nikola Jokic, who matched up against DeAndre Jordan. Kenneth Faried proved to be the difference maker throughout the game, as he aggressively crashed the glass. Faried was the exception to the poor shooting performance from both teams after scoring 21 points, to go along with 11 rebounds on 10 - of - 15 shooting. Mudiay struggled, as expected when matched up against one of the better defensive point guards in Chris Paul, and scored a lowly four points and dished out six assists. The Clippers were able to get well rounded scoring performances from Paul, JJ Reddick and Jamal Crawford, but struggled greatly to see help from the rest of the starters and bench in the points department. Since basketball resumed after the all - star break, this has been a common theme with the Clippers. Paul rounded out the box score with 17 points, 10 assists and six rebounds, while Reddick and Crawford both scored 20 points each. Nobody else in a Clippers uniform was able to register double figures, but Jordan’s 12 rebounds was good to lead all big men in the contest. The Clippers will visit the Sacramento Kings (24 - 32) on Friday, and the Nuggets will play the same day when they visit the Dallas Mavericks (30 - 28).
["TeamStat(G,'Clippers') has 20 Losses ,has 81 Total points ,has 37 Wins ."
 "TeamStat(G,'Nuggets') has 35 Losses ,has 87 Total points ,has 23 Wins ."]