PHOENIX — Months ago, before injuries and setbacks to their star duo came to define the Clippers' season, many within the locker room and organization saw it playing out far differently.
Yes, the league-high 61 games before the mid-February All-Star break would test their aging roster's endurance. Yet the payoff was only 21 games from there until the postseason began two months later — two months in which the Clippers envisioned resting and tuning up for the most important postseason in franchise history.
The notion now seems quaint.
Knee and ankle injuries to Kawhi Leonard and Paul George never allowed for consistency to build, leaving the Clippers to chase a top-four playoff seed — and the home-court advantage that comes with it — since the season's first month. When the once-vaunted roster's depth and talent struggled to find the court, and any rhythm, the front office remade the roster at February's trade deadline with four new contributors. Those once-envisioned final eight relaxing weeks of the season were replaced by a two-month dogfight just to make the postseason.
Clinching the fifth seed and avoiding the play-in tournament hasn't made their life any easier.
Missing George, the Clippers will start the playoffs on the road Sunday with Game 1 against fourth-seeded Phoenix, an opponent featuring Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Chris Paul. Clippers players entered the team's practice facility in October under a picture of the NBA's Larry O'Brien championship trophy are no longer favorites to escape the first round.
"I've been an underdog my whole life," coach Tyronn Lue said Saturday. "I ain't supposed to be here, so you know, you just deal with it. Like I said, you prepare and we got a confident group over here. So being an underdog is no excuse for us not to be able to win the series."
The Clippers are in this position in part because Leonard missed 30 games, George 26 and Norman Powell, a candidate for sixth man of the year, 22. Dubbed the league's deepest roster to begin the season, that depth also produced redundancy in some areas and gaps in others, the stars and role players never fully working in concert.
Given a roster stocked with wings, Lue often opted for lineups featuring three or more guards that often produced more defensive shortcomings than offensive firepower. The front office went until the trade deadline to address their absence of a true backup center, trading for Mason Plumlee, then within two weeks signed Russell Westbrook to fill the lead ballhandler role for whom Lue and others had so vocally pined.
Lue, after the regular-season finale, described the season as "a hard road … it's been a crazy year."
The Clippers are not whole, with George unavailable to start the series despite recently beginning shooting drills and it is unclear whether he can return later in this series. This is the lone first-round series without a two-day break between any of Games 1-4, which George called "bulls---" on his podcast.
Still, the Clippers have evinced a confidence that a team whose urgency and focus could wane will be locked in come Sunday's playoff opener. Westbrook pointed to the way the Clippers responded with a crisp level of execution to beat the Lakers on April 5, when the Clippers desperately needed a win to avoid the play-in.
"My biggest thing is going into the series is just, they're gonna make shots, they got great players, but just be able to cut down the game-plan mistakes," Lue said. "Those are things we can't have."
Much of their confidence stems from Leonard's all-league-caliber play since January. Lue believes Leonard is back to the form he displayed in the 2021 postseason before tearing a knee ligament.
"We all know what he's capable of," Booker said. "That's a Finals MVP, a two-time champ, he's seasoned. He's been here before. We know this is the time of year he plays."
Powell played inconsistently after returning earlier this month from a shoulder injury, but has reduced his turnovers recently and began outscoring other team's benches by himself. His unique ability to draw fouls is a key factor against Phoenix, which allowed the NBA's third-most free throws per game this season.
"If I see a chance to get a foul, an opportunity when we are in the bonus, I'm gonna do my job and pick those fouls up," Powell said. "But my mindset is to go in there and be effective and attacking and not really try to leave it up to the refs. Because I've seen how the play-in games are being called, it's playoffs, always more physicality."
On multiple occasions since his arrival via trade from Houston, guard Eric Gordon has called the Clippers a team built to play physically. That has not always happened with consistency, however. The Clippers have been as likely to undercut their chances by committing myriad game-plan mistakes as look like the team that was a trendy NBA Finals pick in October by imposing themselves on an opponent.
Just as during the season's start, the potential is there. This could be their last chance to show it.
"The time is now, right?" Plumlee said. "There's potential, whatever you want to label it, we have what we need and we can get it done. Let's go do it."
