With Patrick Beverley and Paul George sidelined, the Clippers slipped up at home on Sunday. Check out our full slate of Clippers vs Kings player grades.
Clippers Starter Grades
Reggie Jackson: B. I think that “too much Reggie Jackson” was one of the Clippers’ bigger problems in this game… but I don’t think it was necessarily Reggie’s fault. He is who he is, and he honestly wasn’t bad tonight. But he just isn’t a dynamic enough playmaker to fill the role he needs to fill with Paul George out, and the Clippers’ offense was heavy on Reggie over-dribbling tonight. To his credit, he actually did ok converting on some tricky looks late in the shot clock, but LAC’s offense so often finding itself there was an issue. The team misses Patrick Beverley and Paul George badly. That’s not Reggie’s fault, though.
Luke Kennard: C. With both Lou Williams and Terance Mann playing well off the bench and earning extended minutes, Luke only saw the court for 19 minutes of his own tonight. Much like we’ve come to expect, he wasn’t bad but made little impact: one or two nice plays, but just not enough.
Kawhi Leonard: D. For those wondering, an F for Kawhi probably looks like 4-17 for 14 points, not 9-21 for 20. But he simply wasn’t good enough today, throughout the game and down the stretch. And those scoring numbers actually paint too pretty of a picture for how much Kawhi held back the Clippers’ offense at times. On the one hand, maybe you don’t feel so bad about losing a game because Kawhi was awful–after all, he’s not going to be awful very often. If the standard is “win when Kawhi plays well, lose when he plays poorly,” then you’ll be ok. But yeah, it’s really disappointing to drop winnable games, even while shorthanded, because Kawhi can’t put together an average night.
Nicolas Batum: B-. Nic rarely gets docked in these grades because he rarely makes egregious mistakes, but at a certain point you need guys who are actively good, not passively good. Nic did have 3 assists and 3 steals in this game, and it’s not his fault that he went 1-4 from deep (after all, he’s only human). But invisibility just isn’t quite good enough at the moment.
Serge Ibaka: C. Serge is almost never really bad, but he’s typically only okay on defense, so his value hinges on his shot-making offensively, as well as his floor-spacing at the center position opening things up for the rest of the team. When he’s 3-9, and only takes one three, he just isn’t adding value in his minutes.
Clippers Bench Player Grades
Lou Williams: A-. It might be weird to give Lou an A- on a night where he only shot 6-16 from the field, but it wasn’t as bad as that makes it seem. He had a team-high 23 points on those 16 shots, was 5-11 inside the arc, got 10 free throw attempts (and made all of them), and had a team-high 5 assists. Lou was the Clippers’ best offensive player tonight, and he probably would have helped a bit more down the stretch if he hadn’t played 18 minutes straight to close the game. With Paul George out, Lou is the team’s best pick-and-roll playmaker to complement Kawhi’s post game. He’s gotta be a bigger part of the equation offensively by design, and play in shifts that won’t lead to him tiring out late in games.
Ivica Zubac: A. Another game, another dominating performance by Zubac. He had 12 points and 14 rebounds in 27 minutes, controlling the area around the rim on both ends in his typical fashion. Similar to Lou, I’m happy to see Zu approaching 30 minutes, but I’d like to see Ty be a little more careful with his shifts. Rather than playing him 18 straight minutes to end the game, why not bring him in a couple of minutes early in the third and then let Serge play at the start of the fourth before Zu comes in to close? Exhaustion from these two guys definitely played a role in the late-game execution today.
Terance Mann: B+. Mann wasn’t amazing or anything in this game, but he was very solid. He came in, defended well, had a couple of nice drives to the rim, and made a couple of plays for others. If he can make this a normal occurence, he’ll be a really nice piece.
Marcus Morris: B+. Even when things aren’t perfect with Marcus, it’s hard to deny the way that his shot-making ability can impact games. Unfortunately, he just hasn’t done enough of the other stuff. In this game, he was neither a noticeable positive or negative on defense, but I continue to feel like many of the few offensive rebounds the Clippers do concede (they’re one of the best defensive rebounders in the league) come from Morris not crashing the glass when he’s playing power forward in lineups with three smaller guys, and Zubac (typically the center Morris plays with) gets drawn out of rebounding position to play help defense. His 16 points on 11 shots were more than worth the tradeoff considering how much LAC struggled to create efficient offense… but I’d like to see him play a well-rounded game as well.
No Grades
Amir Coffey, Daniel Oturu, and Jay Scrubb were all listed as inactive due to G-League duty. Scrubb is also still out with injury, along with Patrick Beverley and Paul George. Patrick Patterson and Mfiondu Kabengele were the two available subs who didn’t see the court.
213Hoops is an independently owned and operated L.A. Clippers blog by Clippers fans, for Clippers fans. If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our Patreon. Subscriptions start at $1 a month and support from readers like you goes a long way towards helping us keep 213Hoops sustainable, growing, and thriving.