Behind 22-0 run, Clippers stun Nets in fourth to keep good times rolling
It took a drastic effort to get a dramatic win, but the Clippers improved to 18-4 at home.
LOS ANGELES — LA Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said he couldn’t “even remember the game” on Sunday afternoon. But I’m sure the other 19,000 or so people in attendance could replay the day’s events just fine if asked.
You can forgive Lue for not remembering due to the frantic and rather unconventional circumstances. It’s not every day you watch a team give up a 16-0 run to start a game and then see that very same squad rattle off a 22-0 run of their own to finish it.
“[Brooklyn] played small a lot and they put you in some tough positions,” Lue said following the game.
Did the Nets ever.
Brooklyn came into the game as the NBA’s best team in corner 3-point percentage. They made the Clippers pay early from beyond the arc, at one point netting more made 3s than the Clippers had attempted.
The Clippers were blitzed early by Brooklyn, falling behind 16-0 before fans had time to even get situated. L.A. did recover, though, evening the score with an 18-2 run of their own before then being on the receiving end of another concentrated Brooklyn drubbing due to the Nets’ ability to get to the middle of the floor and wreak havoc.
“It was the same way in Brooklyn when we played them,” Lue said. “They did us the same way — just drive, kick, swing, getting into the paint, a lot of middle drives. I think they had 14 in Brooklyn. I’m not sure how many they had tonight. But getting to the middle of the floor, you gotta overcommit and that’s when those corner 3s come into play. It was good for us because we got to get better and our guys need to see that as well.”
Even with the Clippers trailing by 18 early in the fourth and later by 11 with 5:33 to go, the thought of “pulling the plug” never once crossed Lue’s mind.
“I just thought let them play it out, because we had three days off, four days off actually, and so we haven’t really played,” Lue explained. “So, even if we didn’t win the game, just to get the cardio, the conditioning, guys catch a rhythm, so I was gonna just play it out just so they can get their normal minutes and get a chance to play because we haven’t played in four days.”
But no plug was needed to be pulled because the Clippers rallied with one of the more improbable runs you’ll see from a team this season. Trailing by the aforementioned 11 points, the Clippers scored 22 straight to close the game and won, 125-114.
L.A. made seven of their eight shots during that time while the Nets missed all nine of their attempts. The Clippers forced Brooklyn into two costly turnovers as well, getting easy baskets on the other end as a result.
“That was a different game,” said Paul George after the win. “Definitely a different game. Happy to be on the winning side of that one instead of having a start like that and not being able to finish.”
The Clippers were able to make that run with a lineup that consisted of Russell Westbrook, Norman Powell, James Harden, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard. It was a group that had spent just 12 total minutes together before this game. They played six minutes on Sunday, outscoring the Nets by 20 overall.
A big part of that was their defense as they employed a switching style to combat the problems that the Nets were presenting earlier in the game.
“They started switching and we couldn’t get no points,” Brooklyn center Nic Claxton said to reporters postgame. “They just played with more energy than us in the fourth quarter and things were flowing for them.”
When asked why switching presented problems to the Nets down the stretch, Claxton explained it was due to how much it disrupts the offensive rhythm.
“It makes you want to look for mismatches and play slow and seek out certain matchups instead of keeping the flow offensively and running sets. Teams want to play ISO-ball and [switching] can definitely be used effectively.”
It was all-hands-on-deck for the Clippers in this one as James Harden (24), Russell Westbrook (23), and Kawhi Leonard (21) all topped the 20-point plateau. Paul George had 12 but hit one of the biggest shots — a 3-pointer following a timeout that brought the Clippers within eight and started the 22-0 run.
Harden added in 10 assists and five rebounds in 38 minutes while Leonard scored 14 of his 21 in the fourth and was the one who gave the Clippers their first lead of the game with 2:50 to play. Leonard followed that up with two big free throws and a mammoth 3-pointer with a minute to go to all but ice the game.
Westbrook was a star in his 31 minutes off the bench, supplying nine rebounds, six assists, and hitting 10 of his 16 field goal attempts while playing as the team’s de facto center in the small-ball group that neutralized Brooklyn.
“All the small things that need to be done, I’ll do it,” Westbrook said. “Whatever it takes to win basketball games. And tonight, my job was to guard the five and do a great job of being in coverage, reading defenses, communicating. And, you know, I did the best of my abilities to be able to close the game out.”
Terance Mann hit two early 3s to claw the Clippers out of a 16-0 hole and finished with 13 points. Mason Plumlee once again started in place of the injured Ivica Zubac, finishing with seven points and eight rebounds. Daniel Theis had eight points off the bench while Norman Powell added 12, including a corner 3-pointer with roughly four minutes to play that brought the Clippers within one. Amir Coffey had five points in 15 minutes.
The Nets can be a tricky team, and for roughly 42 minutes on Sunday night, they provided the Clippers with plenty to be mystified about. But the Clippers notched their 27th win of the season to move to 27-14. Brooklyn is now 17-25 on the year and a full game out of an Eastern Conference play-in spot.
Mikal Bridges scored 20 of his 26 in the first half, Cam Thomas added 20 off the bench, and Nic Claxton and Spencer Dinwiddie each had 16.
While Tyronn Lue might not remember much about the game due to how whirlwind it was, those who watched it from up close and afar will probably look back at this as being an all-important victory should things shake out the way that the Clippers hope.
The Clippers have reached the midway point as winners in 24 of their last 31, something that lends some credence to this team being a bit different than past iterations.
No person might have put it better than Terance Mann did when on Saturday ahead of practice, Mann said that the team goes “into every game really feeling like we’re going to win.”
Mann continued: “We maybe had lost that for a little while losing six in a row, but now, it’s every game, we feel like we’re going to win. You feel it in the locker room, you feel it on the plane going to wherever we’re going, so it’s nice to have that.”
On Sunday, even when things weren’t going well, there was a general belief amongst the group. It planted itself front and center late in the fourth.
Even if Lue can’t remember it.