Behind balanced attack, Clippers eclipse Suns once again
All five starters scored in double figures as L.A. won their second straight game against Phoenix.
LOS ANGELES — If these two meetings within the past week are any indication, it certainly appears that the LA Clippers have the Phoenix Suns’ number.
The Clippers used a balanced attack to repeatedly rip through the Phoenix defense en route to a 138-111 stomping of the Suns in downtown Los Angeles on Monday night.
“Tonight, I think after losing that game yesterday, [it] kinda woke us up,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said after the team secured their 23rd victory of the season to move to 23-13 and a full five games up in the loss column of the Suns.
“The way we played defensively I thought was really good tonight, in that second half, especially. And just showed them different coverages and I thought offensively, the ball moved. We created easy shots for one another. That’s how we gotta play.”
The ball did indeed move on the offensive end as Lue alluded to.
One night after tallying just 21 assists, the Clippers finished with 32 helpers. They made 53 baskets on the night, their second-most in a game this season behind the 56 they made against Indiana on Dec. 18. They also made 15 of their 29 long-range attempts, converting 51.7 percent which was also their second-best mark this season behind the prior meeting against the Suns (52.9 percent).
It wasn’t any one player who stole the show.
Paul George finished with a team-high 25 points on 10-for-19 shooting, adding in seven rebounds as well, but the stellar wing wasn’t alone in carrying the load on this night.
James Harden and Ivica Zubac both finished with 19 points.
In Harden’s case, the dazzling guard also supplied 10 assists and seven rebounds. Fifteen of Harden’s 19 came in the second quarter as he helped the Clippers outscore the Suns during a pivotal portion of the game.
Zubac had eight rebounds and three assists while making eight of his nine field goal attempts, continuing a recent string of great play that’s allowed the center to take his game to the next level ever since the arrival of Harden.
“I just think putting in the work every day,” Lue answered postgame when asked what has allowed Zubac to play this well as of late.
“They have a 15-minute session with James, Zu, [Daniel] Theis, Brandon [Boston Jr.], Kobe [Brown], running pick and roll, just how to adjust the screens, how to get off the screens, and if they’re playing it this way, how James wants those guys to roll and how he wants them to screen. So, just getting better in that two-man combination, getting better every night. Just putting the work in every single day after shootarounds and practices.”
Kawhi Leonard joined the double-digit scoring party with 17 of his own, plus netted five steals along the way. Leonard rebounded from his rough shooting night on Sunday to drop in eight of his 15 field goal attempts against Phoenix.
Norman Powell aided the Clippers with 14 off the bench, including a 3-pointer that seemed to ice the game with just over eight minutes to go that also helped put the bow on a monumental 15-0 run which saw the Clippers’ lead balloon from seven to 22 in what felt like the blink of an eye.
Starting forward Terance Mann continued his recent uptick in shooting form, knocking down three of his six 3s. Since the calendar has flipped to 2024, Mann has gone a blistering 10-for-18 from downtown.
“They’re giving him open looks,” Leonard said to reporters after the game. “So, he’s just got to keep shooting the basketball and making open shots and he will do that. Everybody has slumps and it’s about fighting and keeping shooting it.”
Phoenix’s warts were apparent throughout the night.
The Suns possess the necessary offensive firepower to be a legitimately tough team for any opposing squad to face, but their defensive shortcomings are particularly glaring when these two teams have met in the last week.
Kevin Durant had a game-high 30 points while Devin Booker finished with 20. But no one else showed up in a big way. Bradley Beal had 15 points on 15 shots, and only Eric Gordon could join those three superstars in double figures for the Suns as the veteran guard finished with 12 points.
While Phoenix was keying in on spreading the floor and attempting to make the Clippers pay for their size, the Clippers were content working the ball inside-out and feasting on the Suns’ lack of rim protection. In the end, the Clippers racked up 62 points in the paint, tied for their second-best mark in a game this season.
“I think if you want to be a good team, you have to win different kinds of games in every different way,” said Lue. “You could win pretty, you could win OK, you could win nasty games, ugly games. It all depends on what team you’re playing and how they are playing. You have to have a different approach every night, so we understand that. If we’re playing good defense, if we’re playing offensively the right way and everyone is touching it, the ball is moving, making the right pass, making the right read, we are a tough team to beat, and just keep building off of that.”
You could not draw up any two different games for the Clippers than the last 24 hours have been.
On Sunday, the Clippers looked like a team unsure of how to make a shot even while they generated fantastic looks. On Monday, they took clear advantage of every ounce of wiggle room the Suns afforded them.
According to shot data obtained from Second Spectrum, the Clippers registered a 56.4 percent Quantified Shot Quality (qSQ) — which measures the likelihood of any shot going in, if the average player takes that particular shot. It was slightly above the 54.8 percent they managed on Sunday.
But unlike Sunday, the Clippers didn’t underperform. Instead, they overperformed to a large degree, seeing a 14.8 percent difference between their Effective Field Goal Percentage (71.2 percent) and their qSQ on the night (56.4 percent). What a difference a day can make.
As a result of Monday’s victory, the Clippers guaranteed at least a split of the season series against Phoenix. The two teams will not meet again until April 9 and April 10, a home-and-home back-to-back that may or may not be important for Western Conference seeding purposes.
The Clippers still sit in fourth at the moment, a scant one game back in the loss column of third-place Denver and two games back in the loss column of second-place Oklahoma City.
On Wednesday, the Clippers will get to play against a Toronto Raptors (15-21) team that has looked better since acquiring RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley from the New York Knicks.
A win on Wednesday would push the Clippers to an incredible 21-6 in their last 27 games, a once unthinkable stretch when they were 3-7 and stumbling after the acquisition of Harden.
“He’s the one who kept us together when we were losing those games,” Zubac said of Lue postgame when asked about the team fighting through that troublesome stretch.
“Now, we’re playing [at a] high level and everyone is really confident.”