The Sixers have Joel Embiid.
The Bucks have Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Lakers have LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
The Clippers have … depth?
The Clippers beat the Lakers on Wednesday. Officially it was a home game for the Clippers, but the sold-out crowd at New Staples (Crypto.com Arena still sounds weird) had a decidedly Lakers vibe. Six players scored in double figures for the Clips. Eric Gordon was a point away from making it seven. Paul George (knee) and Marcus Morris (back) didn’t play. They shot 52.4% from the floor, 44.4% from three and made 85.2% of their free throws. There were two lead changes in the first quarter. There were zero in the next three.
Said Norman Powell, “I love the battle of LA.”
There is star power in LA, of course. Kawhi Leonard had 25 on Wednesday. At 31, Leonard remains at the peak of his powers. He’s a reliable offensive player—Leonard is on pace to shoot above 40% from three for just the second time in his career—and a terror on the other end. He’s averaging 27 points per game since the All-Star break. When Paul George is healthy, the Clippers have one of the best 1-2 wing duos in the league.
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But it’s more than Leonard and George. It’s Russell Westbrook. I was as skeptical as anyone when the Clippers signed Westbrook—the basketball equivalent of a hand grenade—off the free agent scrap heap last month. But it's worked. He has sparked a transition offense. His three-point attempts are down. His three-point percentage is up. He is scoring off turnovers. “I didn’t know he would be this good, this quick,” said Clippers coach Ty Lue. Against the Lakers, Westbrook set the tone early, collecting ten points (including a couple of threes) and three assists in the first quarter.
“Our game plan was for [him] to shoot the ball, and he made them,” said Davis. “He made the shots, and that snowballed down to everybody else.”
It’s Powell. A shoulder injury limited Powell to five games with the Clippers last season. He has played 58 in this one and is one of the NBA’s top sixth men. His per-36 minutes are the best of his career. When James and the Lakers surged in the third quarter, it was Powell who beat them back.
It's Ivica Zubac, who scored 17 points. It’s Bones Hyland, who added 14. Gordon’s nine points was the first time in five games he has not cracked double digit scoring. As risky as LA’s midseason shakeup was—when Reggie Jackson, John Wall and Luke Kennard went out and Westbrook, Hyland and Gordon came in—there are signs that it could pay off.
“We’re building that identity,” Powell said. “That’s the biggest thing for us. We’re such a deep team and trying to utilize everybody’s specific skill sets and I think we’re starting to do that. Not saying that we didn’t trust, but the trust is coming more.”
There’s the rub. Depth is great … if you are part of the rotation. Morris could be back as early as this weekend. The Clippers are hopeful George will return at some point during the playoffs. Postseason rotations usually go eight players deep. Maybe nine. The Clips have 11 players who believe they should be a part of it. And that doesn’t include Robert Covington, a DNP-CD on Wednesday night.
“We got a lot of weapons,” said Powell. “It’s all about just figuring it out. Not every night is going to be your night. You just want to cheer for the guys, be locked in, just play the game with a pure heart. That’s what we’re starting to do.”
A real test could come. Wednesday’s win was significant. It pushed the Clippers (for now) into the No. 5 seed and dropped the Lakers (for now) into the play-in tournament. But the fifth seed likely means a first-round matchup with Phoenix, which is undefeated with Kevin Durant in the lineup.
It will be a challenge. Lue was measured about his team’s performance on Wednesday. He liked the way the Clippers started. He liked the effort from the bench. But he didn’t like how they allowed the Lakers to creep back in the game in the third quarter and saw a team with several still new faces trying to fix some defensive mistakes.
“We gave up a lot of points on our mistakes,” Lue said. “If we clean those up, we can be a real dangerous team going into the playoffs. We just got to take pride on that defensive end, taking ownership of when we make a mistake, we got to do a better job with our game plan mistakes. We can’t have those kind of mistakes, especially against good teams.”
Like Phoenix. The Suns have Durant, Devin Booker and Chris Paul.
The Clippers will counter with Leonard and George.
And depth.
