The Clippers have lost two critical games in a row, and have a golden chance to turn things around in a get-right game against the woeful Kings.
Game Information
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, California
When: 6:00 PM PT
How to Watch: FanDuel Sports SoCal, KTLA, AM 570
Projected Starting Lineups
Clippers: Darius Garland – Derrick Jones Jr. – Kawhi Leonard – John Collins – Brook Lopez
Kings: Devin Carter – Nique Clifford – DeMar DeRozan – Precious Achiuwa – Maxime Raynaud
Injuries
Clippers: Isaiah Jackson Out (Ankle), Yanic Konan Niederhauser Out (Foot), Bradley Beal Out (Hip)
Spurs: Domantas Sabonis Out (Knee), Zach LaVine Out (Hand), DeAndre Hunter Out (Eye), Russell Westbrook Out (Toe), Drew Eubanks Out (Thumb), Keegan Murray Out (Ankle), Isaiah Stevens Out (Ankle)
The Big Picture
The Clippers have had multiple days off for the first time in a long time, and those rest days were desperately needed after back-to-back awful losses to the Blazers and Wemby-less Spurs. The Clippers looked rather discombobulated on most fronts in those two defeats, with early-season habits like awful turnovers and slow transition defense coming to bite them. The loss of Isaiah Jackson and Yanic Konan Nierderhauser has loomed large, as Brook Lopez has been forced to play a lot of minutes and the Clippers have had to go small when he doesn’t play – unlike Clippers’ rosters of yore, this team is not built to play small-ball. Hopefully Jackson can return before the postseason, because if not, this team’s already limited chances of a run diminish by a real margin. A big win tonight against a moribund Kings team could at least help the Clippers get some momentum the last few games of the NBA season heading into the postseason.
The Antagonist
The Kings can’t get out of their own way. Having possessed the worst or second-worst record in the NBA for nearly the entire season, a late “surge” (they’re 4-6 in their last 10 games and have won their last two) have propelled them “up” to a tie for the fourth-worst record in the league. The flattened lottery odds mean even the 4th or 5th worst team has a pretty good chance of winning the lottery, but the chance of the Kings dropping all the way down to 7 or 8 is about as grim as it gets for a fanbase that has seen little in the way of good fortune in two decades. At least this season hasn’t been a total lost cause: rookie Maxime Raynaud looks like a pretty legit NBA player, and fellow rookies Nique Clifford and Dylan Cardwell might stick around too. Outside of that though, it’s been a brutal season for the Kings, who were not able to get value for any of their veteran players.
Notes
Standings Watch: The Suns and Warriors are at the periphery of tracking for the Clippers’ seeding purposes – it’s now very, very unlikely that they climb to 7 or fall to 10. That said, there’s still a chance. The Suns play in Chicago early this afternoon in a game that they will likely win. The Bulls are still playing a number of their actual players, but have been very bad since they All-Star Break when they blew up their team, and even on the road the Suns should be able to clean them up. Conversely, the Warriors are playing at home against the Rockets, who are a better team and have won five in a row. The Warriors are getting Steph Curry back for what should be a raucous crowd, but Steph will likely be rusty after having missed a couple months with injury, and the Rockets should be overwhelming favorites. A Clippers’ win plus Warriors’ loss would all but clinch the Clippers’ being a top-nine seed in the West.