LOS ANGELES — This time, they were short-handed by design.
It was the Clippers’ regular-season finale, against an opponent in Oklahoma City with more incentives to improve their draft lottery odds than their win total. It was their second game in as many nights. It came, most importantly, just 48 hours before a playoff berth would be on the line with Tuesday’s play-in tournament matchup in Minnesota.
It was why, then, there were nearly as many Clippers in off-court clothes as uniform on the sideline, as Norman Powell and starters Paul George, Reggie Jackson and Marcus Morris Sr. rested up during the 138-88 rout of the Thunder ahead of Tuesday’s opportunity to grab the West’s seventh seed and secure a first-round series.
But the irregular rotations, jumbled lineups and sidelined starters were nothing if not a reminder of the nights when their roster was left depleted for reasons well outside of their control — 385 total games missed this season because of either injuries, COVID-related absences or other reasons. That included an entire season without star Kawhi Leonard and 50 games without another all-star, Paul George.
That the Clippers (42-40) still managed the West’s eighth-best record while clinching an 11th consecutive winning season, the NBA’s longest active such streak, was one reason the Clippers briefly paused in the season’s final days, before their focus turned entirely toward a playoff push, and considered the improbability of how they had navigated a choppy season where inconsistency reigned and arrived here, on the verge of a fourth consecutive postseason berth.
“I think the story is very revealing,” George said Saturday. “A, is T Lue is a hell of a coach. B, we have a hell of a roster. And C, things would be a lot different if we were healthy. I think this group, we’ve been resilient, we have been tough, we have battled.
“We’re connected. If you look at it, we are probably one of the closest teams in the NBA. I think it shows. Anytime you take myself, Kawhi out of a lineup and you still have a team that is competing, it just says what kind of locker room that is.”
That locker room has included 23 players who appeared in at least one game and 26 different starting lineups. Their most-used lineup logged just 221 minutes — by contrast the league’s most-reliable lineup, from Denver, played nearly three and a half times that many -- and included Amir Coffey, who was re-signed to a two-way contract on the last day before training camp and was a rotation afterthought until George’s elbow injury in December thrust him into the spotlight and helped him earn a promotion to a standard contract.
Coffey scored a career-high 35 points and grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds as the Clippers made their first six three-pointers to prime the blowout from the start. The only moment of worry came in the fourth quarter when Luke Kennard reinjured the right hamstring that cost him a game Wednesday. Kennard scored 20 points. The final minutes were an exhibition for players such as Brandon Boston Jr. and Xavier Moon — players called upon heavily when the roster continually at its thinnest.
The blowout was so pronounced it helped the Clippers emerge from the regular season with a positive point differential of two points after entering the night having been outscored overall by 48. And with 18 more three-pointers, they added to the single-season three-point record they reset Saturday.
In January, Kennard and coach Tyronn Lue spent long COVID quarantines in New York, away from the team and in February Powell played just three games before injuring a foot, costing him seven weeks. March led to the season’s hardest stretch in Lue’s opinion, a five-game losing streak the Clippers might have broken had they extended key contributors’ minutes, only to pull back to keep Morris and Jackson fresh in case George and Powell were able to return. waited to learn whether reinforcements were coming.
Having assured themselves of finishing at least .500 late Saturday, Lue and his staff discussed in their arena locker room this season’s long and winding road. Before tipoff Sunday afternoon he thanked even the four players traded for helping them navigate the most short-handed stretches in December and January.
“It was collective, it wasn’t just one person, one coach, it was everybody,” Lue said. “I’ve been pretty excited about the journey we had this year and where we’re at today.
