The Clippers played their best game of the series last night and took a 2-1 series lead. With LA back in control, and Luka Doncic fighting an ankle injury, here are five takeaways from Clippers – Mavericks game 3. For a full recap of the action, check out Thomas Wood’s writeup for 213Hoops.
Ivica Zubac has arrived
Or, more accurately, Ivica Zubac arrived months ago and has been standing on the front porch ringing the doorbell, and Doc Rivers finally let him in.
It wasn’t Zu’s most dominant stat line–15 points and a modest 6 rebounds with a block–but it was by far the most prominently he’s been used for the Clippers this season. In fact, his 29:37 on the court was a season-high, and the most he has played in any non-overtime game since joining the Clippers.
And good lord, did he earn every second of it. LA Times reporter Andrew Greif noted that when Zubac was on the court the Clippers had a defensive rating of 103.1, plummeting to 144.7 in the 18 minutes when Montrezl Harrell replaced him. Rivers started Zubac on Dorian Finney-Smith to limit Dallas’ ability to pick on him in the pick-and-rolls with Luka Doncic and big men Maxi Kleber and Kristaps Porzingis, and then allowed Zubac to provide help defense and contain Doncic’s drives and Porzingis’ rolls.
(By the way, credit to the Clippers’ entire starting unit defensively. Finney-Smith isn’t someone you can just leave open–he shot 37.6% from deep on 4.3 attempts per game this season–and pulling this scheme off required really adept rotations behind Zu to keep track of the Mavs’ shooters.
He was, simply put, excellent defensively. Add in his tidy offensive finishing (6-8 from the field), and it’s clear that Zubac has become not just a player who is playable in a playoffs setting, but the Clippers’ clear best big man who has to play big minutes consistently for them to be at their best.
Landry Shamet took Reggie Jackson’s spot
There was a time, as the bubble was just beginning, that I pondered on a podcast if Reggie Jackson had the right combination of a good start with LAC and a track record as a veteran player to emerge as the team’s 8th man ahead of Landry Shamet. Shamet, of course, has had a majorly up-and-down (and ultimately underwhelming) sophomore season, and had his arrival to Orlando delayed by a positive COVID test.
All things considered, it made me worried that Shamet wouldn’t be able to find himself in time for the post-season, and that the Clippers wouldn’t have time to wait for him. A minor foot injury that cost Landry two seeding games only further hurt his chances of being an impact player this post-season.
If Patrick Beverley was healthy and playing 30+ minutes throughout the bubble, that possibility may have materialized. But without Beverley, there are not only more minutes available in LAC’s backcourt, but a magnifying glass has also been put on the horrendous play of Reggie Jackson. Those factors left Doc Rivers desperate for a solution at point guard, opening an unlikely door for Shamet to shine tonight.
And shine he did. Landry isn’t a dynamic offensive creator, and he isn’t likely to break his guy down off the dribble one-on-one and get into the paint. He’s also not quite a great defender, although it can be hard to evaluate him on that end this season as he’s played out of position in poor defensive lineups.
Tonight, he did the perfect amount of both, playing patiently offensively to allow good looks to develop for Paul George and Kawhi Leonard while being unafraid to drive against closeouts as soon as the defense lost focus on him, including a monster dunk against Boban Marjanovic. Defensively, I didn’t notice much from Landry–meaning he was at least solid, a massive upgrade from Jackson’s constant mistakes.
When Patrick Beverley is able to return to the lineup, he’s going to take back the lion’s share of the point guard minutes. There isn’t much that any Clipper can do in his absence to dethrone the team’s third-best player. But after this performance, we can safely assume that Shamet will join Lou Williams as the bench guards featured in the nightly rotation, with Jackson reduced to spot minutes.
Doc Rivers adjusted to Boban
This adjustment came a game late, but boy did it come. Rivers did exactly what I had hoped in a recent podcast: avoid the Harrell-Boban match-up by bringing Montrezl into the game earlier. If Carlisle wants to match Trez and Boban’s minutes, make him commit to it earlier and for longer, taking Porzingis off the floor. In games 1 and 2, Doc played Harrell exactly when Carlisle wanted him to. In game 3, he adjusted to let Harrell play against Dallas’ more frail starting bigs, and then bring the taller Zubac back into the game to battle Marjanovic late in the first and anchor LA’s second unit.
In game 2, Boban had 13 points and 9 rebounds in 10 minutes, finishing +12. Harrell had 10 points (mostly coming when Boban wasn’t on the court) and 2 rebounds in 22 minutes, finishing -15. With their overlapping, Trez was a negligible -3 in 12 minutes when Boban was off the floor, but destroyed by him when they played against each other.
In game 3, Rivers flipped the script: Marjanovic, playing against Zubac, had just 3 points and 2 rebounds in his same 10 minutes, finishing -6. Harrell, on the other hand, had 13 points in 18 minutes–though he still finished -5 as a side-effect of playing in a mismatched fourth quarter bench lineup.
Kudos to Doc for this adjustment, as well as the related, aforementioned adjustment to play Zubac more by having him start defensive possessions on Dorian Finney-Smith. This battle was won, but in the war that is a 7-game series, Rick Carlisle always has another trick up his sleeve.
The Reggie-Lou-Trez trio can’t play together
So, with credits to Doc for his adjustments, there’s always room for improvement. A much-needed one is to fully eliminate the Reggie-Lou-Trez trio from the Clippers’ rotation. All of these guys have utility for LAC–yes, even Reggie, who the team can’t afford to cut out entirely and demoralize seeing as he’s their only healthy NBA point guard–but they happen to be the three worst defenders in LA’s top-10 players. You know how Seth Curry looks like Steph Curry and Trey Burke looks like a guy who wasn’t out of the league three weeks ago? That’s coming from playing against this second-unit lineup.
In the 22 minutes where these three have shared the court in the first three games against Dallas, they have an abysmal 144.7 defensive rating. In game 3, they played together (flanked by Kawhi Leonard and Marcus Morris, the Clippers’ best SF and PF) for a 2:10 stretch in the first quarter. Leonard and Morris each got a bucket on the group’s two possessions, but those were immediately followed by defensive breakdowns allowing a quick 7-0 run.
Doc isn’t in the easiest situation with Beverley out. Given the available rotation players, it’s hard to conjure a rotation that consistently properly balances the team’s quality defenders (George, Leonard, Morris, Zubac, and Green) with their shakier ones (Jackson, Williams, Shamet, and Harrell). Four of your nine guys being defensive liabilities is tough to work around.
I suggested last game, and will suggest again, that Rivers might want to consider utilizing defensive specialist Rodney McGruder in spot minutes to keep his lineups balanced. I’m not saying McGruder should fully supplant Jackson in the rotation (though I’m also not not saying that), just that having Rodney play a couple minutes here or there to bridge the gaps between lineups could help reduce the harm done by this trio.
LAC is in the driver’s seat
The Clippers, obviously, have room to improve. In particular, they need Paul George to score (if he’s gonna shoot poorly some nights, that’s one thing, but the great players find a way to get to the rim and free throw line on off nights). But tonight’s win was by far the most competent the Clippers have looked in this series, particularly in their stellar first half before some defensive slippage in the second half while holding a double-digit lead.
Kawhi Leonard has been dominant all series, but had his best game in game 3, with 36 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals, and a block on 13-24 shooting. Maxi Kleber is defending him well–but Kawhi is just getting to his spots on the floor and making shots. LAC’s talent advantage is most obvious when watching Leonard simply exert his will, and as he rounds into playoff form the Mavericks simply have no mechanism for stopping him without totally compromising their defense and abandoning shooters to bring double teams.
The last, and most obvious, reason why LAC is now in the driver’s seat in this series is the unfortunate ankle injury to Mavs star Luka Doncic. While it’s unclear exactly what the extent of Doncic’s injury is, it’s hard to see him being at full strength for game 4 after he hopped off the floor and attempted an admirable but unsuccessful return while dealing with tremendous pain. Of course, we aren’t happy that Luka is hurt–I’m personally a huge fan of Luka’s and I think everyone around the league is hoping that his injury is minor and his recovery is full. His absence obviously makes the Clippers heavier favorites in the series, but it’s also true that playing against a star of his caliber was forcing them to be better and more creative defensively.
Dallas’ offense still has abundant shooters if Luka is limited or out, so there’s risk of a hot-shooting night carrying them to a victory (plus, look out for longtime Maverick JJ Barea, who hasn’t played in this series, to bring a scoring and distribution punch if Doncic can’t play). But, despite not wanting to tempt fate, it would be dishonest analysis to come to any conclusion other than the scale being tilted heavily in the Clippers’ favor.
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