It’s like deja vu all over again–the LA Clippers and Dallas Mavericks will meet in the first round of the NBA playoffs, just as they did last year in the Orlando bubble. For both teams, who made upgrades but kept their cores relatively intact, the re-match will be a test of how effectively they tweaked in the margins in the last year.
The Big Picture
Would you believe me if I told you that the Clippers were worse this season than they were last season? They went 47-25, winning 65.3% of their games, after winning 68.1% of their games last year and posting a record of 49-23. In terms of advanced numbers, their net rating decreased slightly from 6.3 to 6.1. The team finished third in offensive rating after coming in second last year (though they still improved markedly on offense as part of a league-wide scoring surge), but dropped off from 5th to 8th in defensive rating. And while Paul George and Kawhi Leonard both missed substantial time, it was more or less level with last season: George played in 6 more games this year compared to last while Leonard played in 5 fewer.
Of course, there’s a difference between measuring what has happened so far and predicting what is to come. That the Clippers had a worse record and worse net rating than last season is fairly easy and uncontroversial. There are also some pretty easy ways to offset those concerns–starting with the fact that the two-game difference in win-loss could have easily been made up if the Clippers had been at all interested in winning their last two games of the season against the tanking Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder. But the organization, seemingly convinced that the path to playoff success was easier from the 4-seed, out-tanked some of the most shamelessly tanking franchises in the NBA (mostly by feeding the ball to Daniel Oturu a ton), and the result was a pair of losses and a dent in advanced metrics.
Still, LAC was far from dominant this season. It’s times like this that I start to be a bit wary of the success that the Canoes–as coined by Brian Cullen, the second- and third-string Clippers who provided the best moments of the season in some severely shorthanded wins. Luke Kennard going 8-8 in the second half against the Atlanta Hawks and Reggie Jackson having 29 points and a gamewinner in Detroit may have been the two most fun moments of the year for Clippers fans… and neither is particularly relevant for how LA will play in the postseason. The good news is that as the Clippers shorten their rotation and play George and Leonard each around 40 minutes a night in the playoffs, that the team has a +17.6 net rating when that duo shares the court this season. Last year, that number was +13.2, in over 100 fewer minutes.
The increased success in George and Leonard’s shared minutes is likely twofold: first, because of the other three players on the floor (Marcus Morris and Nic Batum manned the PF position all season this year instead of Moe Harkless up until the trade deadline last season), and second, because new head coach Ty Lue has deployed his stars in a more complimentary fashion than his predecessor, Doc Rivers. Leonard works more frequently out of the post, coming off of cross-screens from a guard to create size mismatches that force defenses to help and scramble to the Clippers’ elite three-point shooters. The result was more shots in the paint for Kawhi than last season, converted at a higher rate. In total, he shot 55.7% on two-point attempts this season, his highest mark as a high-usage star, after a career-worst 50.6% last year. George is the de facto point guard, running a ton of pick-and-rolls that allowed him to step up his dribble penetration (33.1% of his FGA came from within 10 feet, compared to 27.5% last season and 29.5% career average) and distribution (his 7.6 assists per 100 possession blew his previous career high, 6.2 last season, out of the water).
But as each star’s new role produced greater highs, some warts have been magnified. George in particular is often sloppy with the ball, giving away 5 or more turnovers 14 times this season in sometimes particularly careless fashion. When Leonard plays without George, the team’s offensive flow tends to become a bit stagnant, with Kawhi holding on to the ball and hunting mid-range shots as static shooters watch. As much as the discourse surrounding this Clippers team will focus on changes to its role players–the undeniable upgrade from Montrezl Harrell to Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum’s redemption arc, and Rajon Rondo’s presence as a battle-tested veteran guard–it’s most often the case that a team’s success or downfall in the postseason has to do with its stars rising or shrinking away from the moment. While his reputation as a playoff failure is dramatically overstated, George clearly has more to prove in this regard than two-time NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard–but at the end of the way, neither guy rose well enough to the occassion in the team’s second-round collapse against the Denver Nuggets, even as we rightfully blame that series on the Doc Rivers-Montrezl Harrell dynamic. If LA, with Paul and Kawhi performing at their bests, runs into another contender headlined by superstars performing at their bests, then the impact of role players in the margins will be significant. But if Ty Lue can’t maximize his stars, it’s unlikely that a good weak-side rotation and extra pass from Nic Batum is swinging a series.
The Antagonist
Clippers fans, naturally, will already be familiar with the Dallas Mavericks, in particular young superstar Luka Doncic, after the two teams ran into each other in the playoffs last season. It didn’t help matters that Dallas came out firing in the teams’ next meeting, running the Clippers off of the STAPLES Center court by 51 points in an outright embarrassing post-Christmas effort.
A lot of what we’ll see from Dallas in this series will be similar to what we saw from them last year. After all, Luka Doncic, now 22 years old, isn’t going anywhere any time soon. He’s among the most dominant individual offensive players in basketball, and he’ll once again get some down-ballot MVP votes and an All-NBA berth after leading the Mavericks to the 5th seed in the Western Conference. Doncic only averaged 36 minutes per game in this series last season, but trips to the locker room with a nagging ankle injury and extra rest during garbage time of game 5 makes that number a bit untrustworthy–in reality, Luka will be on the court for almost the entire series, and the ball will be in his hands for most of Dallas’ possessions. The first question of any gameplan against the Mavericks has to be how you hope to contain Luka… and the second might be how to make damn sure you win the non-Luka minutes. The advantage that the Clippers have with their ability to stagger Paul George and Kawhi Leonard should give them a notable advantage in that regard.
Beyond Luka, two of Dallas’ most important players will be back in the lineup this time around. Kristaps Porzingis, who played the first three games last year before being sidelined with a knee injury, is the Mavs’ second most prolific scorer, but nearly 80% of his shots are assisted. He’s the primary beneficiary of Doncic’s creation–and with 14 30+ point games in the last two years, including game 3 of this match-up last season, he’s capable of producing big scoring nights playing off of Luka. In terms of shot creation, Jalen Brunson, who missed the entire series last year, will play crucial role off the bench in running the offense and helping buy Luka rest. While Brunson isn’t necessarily likely to have explosive scoring outings, his hard-nosed defense and heady offensive leadership make him one of the most valuable Mavericks.
Supporting scorer Tim Hardaway Jr., who has shot the ball at a blistering rate in recent weeks (40.7% on high volume over his last thirty-four games), is the most likely third Maverick to have a huge scoring game. He’s broken the 30-point threshold 5 times this season, including a 42-point outing. And just a couple of weeks ago against Miami, he made 10 three pointers in a game. Hardaway did have a solid series against the Clippers last year, scoring 17.8 points per game, but they kept his efficiency in check (just 42% from the field and 35% from deep). Other key rotation fixtures for Dallas include two-way wing Josh Richardson, 3-and-D forward Dorian Finney-Smith, and versatile 4/5 Maxi Kleber–one of my favorite role players in the league. Dwight Powell also played a larger role down the stretch of the season, but it’s hard to see where he fits against the Clippers. If Powell plays at PF next to Porzingis and guards Morris, that necessarily forces Doncic to defend Patrick Beverley (they won’t assign him to one of the stars), leaving Rick Carlisle in a position where he either has to move Hardaway Jr. back to the bench or put him at a major disadvantage defensively against Paul George.
From where I sit, the Mavs should probably start Doncic on Morris, Hardaway on Beverley, Porzingis on Zubac, and two of Richardson, Finney-Smith, and Kleber against George and Leonard. Kleber drew the Leonard assignment last season, and while Kawhi still had a strong series I thought that Maxi did as good of a job as anyone on Dallas’ roster. Then, the third defender, Brunson, and Powell should make up the core of Carlisle’s bench rotation. We should expect a sprinkling of spot minutes for other players as well, though: Trey Burke had a fantastic series against LAC last year with Brunson injured and is still with the team this year as an extra scoring option on the bench, former Clipper sharpshooter J.J. Redick joined the Mavs in a mid-season trade and figures to make an impact at some point, and Boban Marjanovic and Willie Cauley-Stein give the Mavs two completely different utility center options.
Sub-Plots
- Redemption: While Paul George’s body of work in the playoffs is dramatically underrated, there’s little doubt that he had a really, really bad series against Dallas last season–most notably in games 2, 3, and 4 (LAC lost games 2 and 4), where he averaged just 11 points and shot a cumulative 10 of 47 from the field. After a resounding bounceback in game 5, he revealed that being isolated in the NBA’s Orlando bubble had caused him mental health struggles that contributed to not feeling like himself on or off the court. PG hasn’t been shy about having a chip on his shoulder coming into this year, and after a stellar regular season campaign, this series is yet another important proving ground. I’ll say this: the upgrade from 2020 round 1 Paul George to normal Paul George would be more significant for LAC than having Porzingis back in the lineup will be for Dallas.
- Doc, Trez, and Boban: In a bit of foreshadowing, one of the Clippers’ most glaring weaknesses in their series against Dallas last year was, sure enough, Montrezl Harrell. Rick Carlisle (along with everyone else in the universe except for Doc Rivers, apparently) knew that Boban’s sheer size had a history of overwhelming the small but energetic and skilled Harrell, whose inability to step outside and hit jumpers led to general ineffectiveness against a guy 8 inches taller than him. It’s not even really Trez’s fault at that point. In the 65 minutes that Boban and Trez shared the floor last time around, the Mavericks won by 25 points. And remember Luka’s iconic game 4 buzzerbeater? (How could we forget?) One lost piece of context is that in that game, the Clippers had a 21-point lead… and lost Harrell’s 17 minutes by 19 points (Doc really never did learn from his mistakes). That won’t be a factor this time around.
- Big Zu: In this space 9 months ago, I asked “Can Zu stay on the floor?”, worried about Dallas’ floor-spacing bigs and Zu’s foot speed defending the pick and roll. But Zu was fantastic in the series, punishing Dallas on the offensive glass and walling off Doncic’s drive in help defense as Rivers smartly switched Zubac onto Finney Smith and encouraged him to leave the corner shooter and allow other Clippers to rotate when they forced Luka to kick the ball out. Consider the following:
| Matchup | Min | Luka FGA | Luka FG% | Luka AST | Luka TO | +/- |
| Luka ON, Zu ON | 123 | 64 | 43.8% | 30 | 21 | LAC +61 |
| Luka ON, Zu OFF | 92 | 64 | 56.3% | 22 | 10 | DAL +23 |
- Grudge Match: The Clippers and Mavericks had a tense series last year, and both teams will definitely be ready to pick up right where they left off. In the meantime, Dallas gave the Clippers a historically embarrassing home loss. Plus, former Clipper J.J. Redick has since joined the Mavs, and even more notably, much-maligned former Maverick Rajon Rondo joined the Clippers. There’s bad blood here… but at least we won’t have to hear about how Doc Rivers paid for Seth Curry’s wedding every game of the series, with that pair united with Philadelphia this time around.
- Preview Podcast: Out tomorrow, we’ll have a special series preview episode of The Lob, The Jam, The Podcast with The Athletic’s Dallas Mavericks Beat Writer, Tim Cato. In the meantime, check out our season recap episode with voice of the Clippers Brian Sieman–it was a treat to get him on the show and he was wonderful, as always.
Clippers and Mavericks First Round Prediction: Clippers in 6
As much as we can get into the nitty gritty of who is going to guard whom, and what the rotations and strategies will be for each side, the ultimate reality of this series is that the Clippers are just the better, more talented, deeper team–just like they were last year. Each team has some reasons to feel like they’re stronger (George’s mental state + the removal of Doc/Trez vs the health of Porzingis, Powell, and Brunson), but the overall calculus doesn’t seem to have changed.
That said, Dallas is fully awake. After a slow 8-13 start to the season, they finished 34-17 and had won 12 of 15 to close the year (against a very soft schedule). They’re going to show up to STAPLES Center Saturday afternoon and punch first. The Clippers… just don’t feel there yet. Even as they won 17 of 20 from March 20th thru April 23rd, they did so with a rotating group of players (George and Leonard only played together in 9 of those 20 games). Serge Ibaka and Patrick Beverley both missed a huge swath of the season and only returned in the closing games. Neither has gotten much time at all alongside Rajon Rondo, who joined the team at the trade deadline. Beverley in particular has not looked like himself since returning to the team. The playoff rotation hasn’t gotten together and gone through a few battles intact yet. I think that as they round into form, they’ll drop one of the first two games in LA and then a second later in the series when an unstoppable Luka performance comes at the same time as a barrage of threes from the supporting cast. In fact, the Clippers winning games 1, 3, 5, and 6–just like last year–wouldn’t surprise me at all.
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