The Los Angeles Clippers sealed their playoff berth with a 124-119 overtime win over the Golden State Warriors on the final day of the regular season; they will be entering the playoffs as the fifth-seed, going up against a Denver Nuggets team that's looking to salvage its season after shaking up the team with the firings of Michael Malone and Calvin Booth.

Since the start of March, the Clippers have been on fire, winning 18 of their past 23 games and setting themselves up nicely for what the team hopes will be a deep playoff run. And for the first time in years, the Clippers might be in as good of a position to do so; Kawhi Leonard looks very healthy, even playing 47 minutes in their win over the Warriors, while James Harden showed on Sunday that he can still turn it on when needed similarly to how he performed for LA in last year's playoffs.

Nonetheless, a series against Nikola Jokic is never going to be easy to navigate. This will be a tough matchup for the Clippers.

With that said, here are a few bold predictions for how the Clippers will fare in their looming series against the Nuggets in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs.

The issue with Kawhi Leonard has never been his talent. Leonard is one of the greatest basketball players ever in the history of planet Earth, and yet injury woes have plagued him over the past few years, limiting his overall impact and dashing the Clippers' championship hopes completely.

Since tearing his ACL in the second round of the 2021 NBA playoffs, Leonard has only suited up in four playoff games — two each in 2023 and 2024. In 2023, Leonard seemed to be on track to power the Clippers past the Phoenix Suns with an efficient showing in the first two games of the series before tearing his meniscus. And then in 2024, a knee injury kept him out for the final few games of the regular season and proved to be too much for him to overcome as he was rushed back from injury in a two-game cameo against the Dallas Mavericks.

But it looks like the Clippers have stumbled upon the perfect formula for how to get the best out of Leonard at exactly the right time. Leonard peaked early last year, and this was a mistake that LA seems to have learned from.

With the Nuggets' defense not being as good as it was in recent years, the Clippers definitely have a good chance of advancing to the second round of the playoffs. Leonard can overpower Christian Braun on the post, while the Clippers will try to get Aaron Gordon off Leonard as much as possible by forcing switches, leading to favorable matchups all over the court.

But in the playoffs, availability is the best ability for a superstar player. And for someone who averaged 30.4 points on 67.9 percent true shooting during his last healthy playoff run for the Clippers (2021), all the team will be asking for is for him to suit up in every game of the series — which he will.

A playoff matchup against the Nuggets brings back bad memories for the Clippers. In 2020, Jokic (and Jamal Murray) torched the Clippers, coming back from a 3-1 series deficit to embarrass Kawhi Leonard and company. But that was five years ago, and Ivica Zubac, the starting center of the Clippers team that blew a 3-1 lead in the bubble, has blossomed into an incredible interior force since then.

Zubac has the size, strength, and willingness to play physical to at least disrupt Jokic; there will be no Montrezl Harrell to steal minutes away from him this time. And with the Clippers' backup center options being Ben Simmons and Drew Eubanks, head coach Tyronn Lue will have no choice but to match Zubac's minutes with that of Jokic's.

The key for Zubac will be to avoid foul trouble and for him to be in as incredible shape as he can be. Making life difficult for Jokic will be the number one task for the Clippers, and Zubac will be the key to achieving this goal.

Much has been written about James Harden and his tendency to disappear under the bright lights of the playoffs. And as he's gotten older, the more difficult it has been for him to string together efficient games from the field, and in the playoffs, when the defensive attention towards him is greater, he has a tendency to go through rough shooting nights.

Last year, Harden shot 7-28 in Games 5 and 6 of their series against the Mavs as he and Paul George finally succumbed to the unbearable weight of having to lead the Clippers past a motivated Dallas squad. But this year, Harden should have an easier time against a Nuggets defense that does not have the weapons the Mavs deployed against him in 2024.

Harden will have a field day picking on Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray on switches, and he will have plenty of space to operate considering how much defensive attention the likes of Kawhi Leonard and Norman Powell also demand.

It is definitely bold to predict that Harden won't be having a bad game in this upcoming Nuggets series, but that's exactly what's going to happen as a 35-year-old Harden figures it out and leads the Clippers past the Nuggets in six highly competitive games.