Jamal Murray, Russell Westbrook spark the Nuggets' 131-115 win over the Clippers

DENVER (AP) — Nuggets interim coach David Adelman sensed one of Jamal Murray's patented playoff performances coming, and he was right on the money — just like his point guard.

Murray's 43-point outburst powered Denver's 131-115 win over the Clippers on Tuesday night that handed Los Angeles its first back-to-back losses since March 4 and put the Nuggets one win away from a Round 2 matchup with Oklahoma City.

Murray was 17-of-26 shooting, including 8 for 14 from long range.

“Tonight, he played great," Kawhi Leonard said. "He came out, made shots, got hot, found his teammates and we pretty much couldn’t stop him. He played amazing. Russ (Westbrook) came in and played great, as well.”

Westbrook scored 21 points in his return from a left foot injury, including 16 of them in 12 first-half minutes as Denver led wire-to-wire.

Adelman, the Nuggets' interim coach, said some of Murray's shots “were absolutely ridiculous. And I said before the game it's coming with him. You know it is, in these big moments, these situations. He was born for this.”

This marked Murray's best scoring game outside the Disney World bubble during the pandemic.

“When he's aggressive, we're a different team,” Westbrook said. “When he's got that swagger and he's going out and competing at the level he did tonight, we're a tough team to beat."

Murray got plenty of help, including 23 points from Game 4 hero Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic's 21st career playoff triple-double (13 points, 10 rebounds, 12 assists) to go with Christian Braun's double-double (11 points and 12 rebounds).

Braun also provided stellar defense of James Harden, who scored 11 points on 3-of-9 shooting with four turnovers. For the second straight game, he didn't speak with reporters afterward.

And for the second consecutive game, Denver took a 22-point lead early in the fourth quarter only to watch the Clippers go on a furious run.

In Game 4, L.A. erased its entire deficit only to lose 101-99 when Gordon's buzzer-beater provided the first walk-off dunk in NBA playoff history. This time, the Clippers went on a 17-4 run to cut their deficit to single digits at 116-107, but the Nuggets fended off another frenetic finish by going on an 11-0 run with Murray scoring six and Gordon five to compel Clippers coach Tyronn Lue to empty his bench.

Game 6 is Thursday night at the Intuit Dome and another win by Denver would set up a second-round series against top-seeded Oklahoma City, which swept its first-round series with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Ivaca Zubac led the Clippers with a playoff career-high 27 points, Leonard added 20 and Bogdan Bogdanovic added 18.

Westbrook's return allowed Adelman to use his bench more after all five starters logged at least 42 minutes in Game 4. Only Murray logged more than 40 minutes Tuesday night.

Murray “came out being aggressive, which we knew we would," Lue said. "That’s why we started off with a blitz against him, just trying to slow him down. We knew in Game 5 he would come out aggressive, and he made every shot — pull-up 3s, mid-range. We blitzed him, we dropped, we switched, we did a lot of different coverages, but he had a hell of a game.”

"Holding Joker to 13 points and losing the game is tough. But that’s how they beat you. If you worry about him too much, other guys can beat you. But I just thought Jamal Murray was excellent tonight.”

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Los Angeles Clippers guard Bogdan Bogdanovic, right, struggles to drive to the basket as Denver Nuggets guard Russell Westbrook defends in the second half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Los Angeles Clippers center Ivica Zubac, left, dunks the ball for a basket as Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic defends in the first half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Los Angeles Clippers guard James Harden, right, collects a loose ball as Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray defends in the first half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard (2) is fouled by Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray in the second half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard, left, is fouled by Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray as forward Aaron Gordon (32) looks on in the second half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Los Angeles Clippers guard James Harden, center, drives to the basket between Denver Nuggets guards Jamal Murray, left, and Christian Braun (0) in the second half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, right, drives past Los Angeles Clippers guard Kris Dunn in the first half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, left, works the ball to the basket as Los Angeles Clippers guard Kris Dunn defends in the first half of Game 5 of an NBA basketball playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)