Warriors Have Enough in Tank to Outlast Weary Clippers
The Clippers' march to .500 took a step backwards in the Bay Area.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Try as you might, the basketball gods end up smiting you in this cruel world when it comes to travel, days off, and lack of rest.
The LA Clippers (8-10) traveled 86 miles from Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center to San Francisco’s Chase Center, getting in just around midnight ahead of their Thursday meeting with the Golden State Warriors (9-10). While the distance isn’t a big deal, the wear and tear certainly can be.
The Warriors toppled a Clippers team that looked at the end of their rope on Thursday night, defeating L.A. by a 120-114 scoreline.
It would be understandable if the Clippers were indeed tired. Over these last seven days, they’ve had to play against five good-to-great teams: the New Orleans Pelicans, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Sacramento Kings, and Golden State Warriors. They went 2-3 in the stretch, a not-too-troubling record considering everything but certainly not the one they hoped to achieve when they set out on this journey.
Kawhi Leonard led the Clippers with 23 points, seven rebounds, and two steals. Leonard made nine of his 17 field goal attempts. The Clippers won Leonard's minutes by two points.
“I feel like we’re starting to get a little flow going,” Leonard said after the game. “Still need to improve on the defensive end, I feel like. Lot of easy layups for them tonight, open threes, we got lucky because they missed some.”
Those open threes were certainly noticeable early on as the Warriors sank 10 of their 22 three-point tries in the first half. The Golden State bench alone was 6-for-7 from deep in that time.
The Warriors were able to leverage that three-point success early on into attacks at the rim in the second half as they scored 26 points in the paint over the final two frames while also generating 20 trips to the line, making 14 of them.
For the Clippers’ stars, this was another heavy minutes game at the end of a tough stretch.
Leonard played 35 minutes while Paul George and James Harden each logged 37. That trio each played at least 175 total minutes across this stretch of five games in seven nights. It definitely looked like it as Thursday's game dragged on.
George finished the night making only six of his 18 field goal attempts, scoring 15 points, and was just 2-for-11 through three quarters. The wing did have a game-high 10 assists to just one turnover, though, further showcasing that even on off nights as a shooter he can still impact the game in other ways.
As for Harden, he started well by tallying seven first-quarter points. Harden would contribute just 11 more for the rest of the game, notching 18 for the night, but he, like George, found some success as a playmaker as he notched seven assists.
The Clippers outscored the Warriors by one point in the 26 minutes and 24 seconds that the trio was on the floor together.
Beyond fatigue, where the Clippers ultimately lost this game could be attributed to their bench. Clippers coach Tyronn Lue went to a 10-man rotation on the night, at least if you include the four minutes that Bones Hyland got to play at one point in the second half. But the Clippers weren't able to get much out of Hyland or rookie Kobe Brown despite their best efforts.
“Just some offensive energy,” Lue said after the game when asked what the thought was bringing Hyland into the game late in the third quarter.
“Being able to push the ball, some shooting on the floor, and I put [Bones] in a tough position, but just thought the game was a little too fast for Kobe tonight, so we wanted to just try to switch it up a little bit, but it is what it is.”
In the second quarter, the Clippers’ lineups that didn’t feature Harden and/or Leonard were hammered by nine points in roughly five minutes. It pushed the Golden State lead from seven to 16, and the Clippers were fighting an uphill battle the rest of the way.
While the Clippers did cut the deficit down to four at one point in the third quarter, a 7-0 Warriors run quickly snuffed out hope.
Ivica Zubac had his fifth double-double of the season, finishing with 18 points and 13 rebounds in 27 minutes. The Clippers won Zubac’s minutes by seven.
Terance Mann added nine points and five rebounds in his 34 minutes.
The starting lineup outscored Golden State by four points in their 21 minutes and 59 seconds on the floor, bringing their season total up to plus-73 in 147 minutes since the starting lineup change. The Clippers have gone 5-3 in that span.
Off the bench, Russell Westbrook supplied the team with 14 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists with no turnovers on 5-for-13 shooting. Daniel Theis finished with 10 points, two rebounds, and two assists, and Norman Powell played 18 minutes despite suffering an injury Wednesday night but was only able to score five points.
Now the Clippers have to recover from this loss, and they have to do it quickly as they travel back to Los Angeles to take on these very same Golden State Warriors on Saturday afternoon. It’s a pivotal game not just for the Clippers’ mental stability but for also evening the season series with Golden State. A loss and they can’t win the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The Clippers shot 44.2 percent for the game and made 12 of their 32 three-point attempts. They also registered 26 assists.
Even despite the loss, there are reassuring things showing up for the Clippers. Once again, the team had a very low turnover outing as they coughed the ball up just six times. That makes a scant 13 turnovers over the last two games, which is a positive that the team can take away from this one.
We’ll see if they can turn that into a win on Saturday. And then they’ll have a few days of rest to recalibrate and attack a new stretch of tough matchups.