Harden's Clutch Shot Delivers Clippers' First Win in November
It took a couple weeks but the Clippers are finally on the board in The System era.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Friday night’s game against the Houston Rockets (6-4) got off to an inauspicious start as the fire display above the stanchion in front of the Houston bench that normally would shoot off during pregame introductions was out of commission.
The bad luck, for the most part, seemed to stop there for the LA Clippers (4-7) as they staged a fourth-quarter rally to nip the Rockets near the final buzzer, 106-100, thanks to James Harden, who was able to get his first win as a member of the Clippers and end the team’s six-game losing streak.
Harden finished with 24 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists in 34 minutes. However, Harden’s crowning achievement came with the game on the line as he nailed a three-pointer, plus drew a foul, to cement a four-point play that put the Clippers in front 104-100 with six seconds to play.
“He (Harden) played great,” Kawhi Leonard said after the game about Harden’s display on Friday.
“Seven assists, three turnovers, that's a great ratio right there with as much as he has the basketball. Yeah, I mean I said this before about somebody else, but y’all know how good he is.”
When asked about the feeling of getting his first win with the Clippers, Harden noted that the team as a whole “still got [sic] a long way to go, but obviously it felt good to get a win.”
Joining Harden in the 20-point club on Friday were both Leonard and Paul George.
Leonard tallied a game-high 26 points on 8-for-16 shooting. The 26 points were tied for the most Leonard has scored since Harden officially joined the Clippers. Leonard added eight rebounds, two assists, five steals, and one block in his 37 minutes.
For his part, George chipped in with 23 points, eight rebounds, three assists, two steals, and a block in 40 minutes. George scored 18 of his 23 in the first three quarters.
“I played him a lot of minutes, but we needed this win so he got a little tired,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said after the game about George’s workload on the night. “But I kept talking to him throughout the game just seeing how he was and where he was at, and without him in the first half, we wouldn't even have been close.”
Terance Mann got the start in place of Russell Westbrook on Friday night, a move that was broken earlier in the day by Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report.
Mann played 21 minutes. While he didn’t make a single one of his three attempts from the field, Mann did chip in with six rebounds, three assists, one steal, and one block while being a plus-15. As a whole, the new starting lineup was plus-20 in 15 minutes and 44 seconds together.
“I thought we got [off] to a good start,” Lue stated postgame.
“And then now, we just got to make sure that with the bench where we’re having the right rotations and the right minutes and the right fit. But this is our first game trying to do it and we'll be able to build from this one, but it is better to build when you win than when you lose. So, it was something for us to learn from and we can tweak a few things.”
The bench was a bit of an issue for the Clippers on the night. The Clippers rolled with a nine-man rotation, allowing ample time for Norman Powell (30 minutes) to get run in lineups alongside several of the starters.
Westbrook was relegated to 17 minutes, his fewest in a game since joining the Clippers. The guard finished with eight points, three rebounds, and two assists on 2-for-9 shooting.
Westbrook declined to speak to the media following the game.
“Yeah, I mean, that's what it takes, whatever coach needs, you got to kind of suck it up and just go with it,” Leonard said postgame when asked about Westbrook sacrificing his role as a starter for the team.
“I think he's gonna be good. You know, it's gonna take time for us all to figure it out. But I think he did well, came in the game, hit a big three for us, and got some stops, great defense.”
PJ Tucker, who was acquired from the Philadelphia 76ers in the Harden trade, was a game-worst minus-24 in his 15 minutes. The Clippers were minus-23 in the 13 minutes that Tucker played alongside a center and were minus-1 in the two minutes that Tucker played small-ball center himself.
Tucker finished with zero points and took zero shots while racking up three fouls. He accumulated no other counting stats.
Adding in tonight’s game, the Clippers are now minus-59 in the 60 minutes that Tucker has played as the four next to a center but just minus-2 in the 49 minutes that Tucker has played center.
Powell shot just 3-for-11 off the bench and finished with 10 points but supplied much-needed spacing that allowed Harden and center Ivica Zubac to run pick-and-roll action down the stretch.
Zubac finished with 12 points and seven rebounds in 35 minutes. It was the most minutes Zubac has played this season and his most overall since Feb. 4, 2023, when he logged 39 minutes and 32 seconds against the New York Knicks in an overtime win.
The big man rewarded the coaching decision with a fantastic fourth quarter, including a sequence with about six minutes to go where Zubac blocked Houston center Alperen Şengün at the rim on one end and posterized Şengün on the other.
“I didn't think he was as good in the first half,” Lue said about Zubac’s performance on Friday, before adding, “I thought late he got better.”
Zubac only had four points and three rebounds in the first half. In the second half, as Lue alluded to, Zubac was much stronger, finishing with eight points, four rebounds, and blocking two shots. Zubac was a plus-12 on the night.
“I think he was experiencing some back tightness or whatever, so he had to play through some things, so he didn't really have his balance and his ability to jump and block shots early on. But he gutted it out for us like he always does. And I thought, like I said, that last part of the fourth quarter, he really did a good job of getting to his spots, James being able to find him, had a couple blocks, and so he was really good.”
Friday night’s victory marked the first time in November the team had cause to celebrate following a game, and it also ended Houston’s winning streak at six.
The Clippers now have two days off before having to face the San Antonio Spurs on the Spurs’ home floor for two games in three days. The Clippers bested the Spurs by 40 points late in October when San Antonio visited Los Angeles.
For at least one rainy night in downtown L.A., the Clippers achieved an actualization of what the team could be under the stewardship of James Harden. It is, after all, a big reason that they traded for the bearded star.
Now, they just need to carry it onto the road where they’re one of two teams to be winless away from home. The other? The team they knocked off Friday.