With Kawhi Leonard and Karl-Anthony Towns watching from the sideline, the LA Clippers would crush the shorthanded Wolves Tuesday evening. The visitors from Minnesota were also without starter Josh Okogie, who has been an important piece of their small-ball attack this season, and their defense just couldn’t contain LA’s high-powered offense.
Clippers vs Wolves Game Summary
After a catastrophic 51-point loss on Sunday afternoon, there was some thinking that the Clippers would come out with a high level of intensity tonight and look to make a statement against a lottery team that was missing their best player, All-NBA center Karl-Anthony Towns. That didn’t quite happen. The Clippers turned the ball over three times in the first 2 minutes of the game, each starter picked up a foul in the first half of the opening period, and the team fell down 16-7–only a slight improvement from their 19-5 deficit early against Dallas.
Then, the Clippers grew into the game a bit. The starters, a lineup that included Luke Kennard in place of Kawhi Leonard for the second straight game, began to find a rhythm offensively despite Paul George’s early struggles shooting. Patrick Beverley hit two early threes as Luke Kennard’s best game so far as a Clipper boosted the offense, and then Lou Williams came off the bench and simply didn’t miss as LA surged. The Clippers carried a 33-29 lead into the second quarter.
That’s when the bench unit hit the floor and earned LA some separation. Without Leonard and Marcus Morris, and with the Wolves’ extremely small lineup essentially taking slow-footed stretch forward Patrick Patterson off the table for Ty Lue, the Clippers turned to a four-guard bench unit of their own, with Reggie Jackson, Lou Williams, Luke Kennard, Terance Mann, and Ivica Zubac on the floor. I don’t really know what it says that each of the five had what was their best stint so far this young season in these minutes, but it’s true.
Jackson avoided egregious mistakes in a guard-heavy lineup and combined an efficient night offensively with an active night on the defensive end, including a block at the rim against 6’8″ forward Jake Layman. Kennard had 15 points and 4 assists on 6-9 shooting, finally finding comfort in the offense in his fourth game back from a year-long absence. Mann was free to make an impact defensively and in transition with others focused on the half-court offense. Zubac brought a killer combination of industrious offensive rebounding and great rim protection. If we measure the “bench” minutes from when Paul George exited the game until when he returned, these Clippers turned a 1-point deficit into a 12-point lead.
From there, it was downhill sledding for the Clippers. The core starting group of Beverley, George, Batum, and Ibaka stretched the lead to 20 by halftime and then to 30 in the third quarter, securing the team’s ability to rest down the stretch with a game against Portland looming tomorrow.
Clippers vs Wolves Game Notes
- Bounce Back: Even a 52-point win tonight wouldn’t have fully erased the sting of the Clippers’ 51-point loss on Sunday. But it definitely feels nice to be on the right end of a blowout and get back on track after such a disorienting loss. Plus, since misery loves company: the Miami Heat lost by 47 points to the Milwaukee Bucks tonight.
- Back to Back: This was the front end of the Clippers’ first back-to-back of the season, as they’ll host the Portland Trail Blazers tomorrow night. While Kawhi’s absence tonight was credited to his mouth laceration last week, and Lue has been noncommittal when asked about load management plans, the expectation is that Leonard will only play one leg of each back-to-back. Getting wins on the games he misses (even against the Wolves, even without KAT) and even doing so by a big enough margin for other Clippers to play low minutes makes this a good result for LAC.
- Shooting Variance: There’s more to the NBA than three-point shooting, but the difference between hot and cold can be the difference between slamming the door shut with a lead or being unable to claw back into a game. After a miserable 4/33 from deep on Sunday, the Clippers were 16-31 from beyond the arc tonight. You’re gonna lose any time you shoot as poorly as 4/33, and you’ll probably win most games where you hit more than half your shots from deep.
- Bev’s Fouling: While Pat did commit one frustrating foul against Ricky Rubio in the corner, he managed to avoid having his foul trouble impact the Clippers’ rotation patterns for the first time this season, as he finished with just a pair of offenses in 22 minutes before exiting early for garbage time.
- Farewell Fi: Just before game time, it was reported that the Clippers will decline the third-year contract option of Mfiondu Kabengele, who has done little to demonstrate he’s an NBA-caliber player since being selected 18 months ago. Still, it’s rare for a player to be given up on so soon–quite frankly, it’s an embarrassing admission by the team that they made a major error on draft night, which can’t feel too good for the player either. While Fi is still on the team, his newfound status as an expiring contract seems to set him up to be the casualty of a mid-season trade to clear hard cap money.
- A Wolf Among Wolves: As you all know, 213Hoops is an independent Clippers blog and network owned by Clippers fans, for Clippers fans–independent of any corporate oversight or agenda. While we don’t have any formal partnerships with kindred blogs, we like to recognize our friends who do the same kind of independent work as we do. For the Wolves perspective on this game, please check out the excellent, independent Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx at A Wolf Among Wolves.
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