The Clippers beat the Pistons 142-131 in overtime on the road to secure a win in one of the worst and most embarrassing basketball games I’ve ever seen.
Summary
The Clippers startd off hot, buoyed by a great few minutes from Reggie Jackson, who scored 10 of their first 12 points in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, in a first-half theme, the Clippers were unable to get any separation because the Pistons kept making threes. The game seesawed back and forth for much of the first, with the substitutions not arriving until late at the 3:52 mark. Nico and Zu exited, and the Clippers went small with first Morris and then PG/Mann as their “big men”. Unsurprisingly, the defense and rebounding of this unit was awful, and the Pistons scored a bunch down the stretch to go up 36-31.
Zubac came in for George to reset the defense, which more or less worked, and the Clippers quickly tied the game back up. John Wall had a nice shift with some great passes, though the Clippers missed on a number of looks that could have given them a real lead against a horrid Pistons bench unit. The Clippers’ offense continued to scorch late in the period with a number of threes, and as the Pistons cooled off just a tad, the Clippers opened up a five-point lead at halftime.
The Clippers came out pushing, consistently attacking the basket to draw fouls and kick for open threes. Entering the bonus at the 8:53 mark, a parade of free throws and threes saw the Clippers grow their lead to as large as 15. All looked well. Then the wheels came off. A series of Clippers’ turnovers got the Pistons into transition and easy buckets. When the Clippers did get up shots, they missed them. The Pistons cut into the lead, and then, somehow, took the lead during a four-minute Clippers’ scoring drought. The run was 19-3, the play embarrassing on both ends. The defense stiffened a bit when Zu was re-inserted, but not enough, and the Pistons led 101-96 after three.
The Clippers started the quarter with four small guards and Zubac, and, predictably, weren’t playing great defense. Fortunately, the Pistons were no better, and the Clippers were able to keep the lead close in the early minutes. However, as the starters came back, the game seemingly slipped away, with awful turnovers and lazy offense combining terribly wit bad defense to get the Pistons up by 14. At that point, with 3:34 to go, Ty Lue seemingly waved the white flag, putting in Moses Brown, Amir Coffey, Terance Mann, and Norm Powell alongside Batum (and then Luke for Norm a minute later). The Pistons seemingly thought the game was won and stopped playing, while the Clippers, with actual defenders and size in, were able to get stops and scores in transition.
With 26 seconds left, the Clippers had the ball trailing by two. Paul George was re-inserted, and quickly drew a foul. He missed the first and made the second. Clippers down one with 21 to go. Killian Hayes was fouled, and also made one of two free throws. The Clippers called their final timeout. On a completely broken play, Terance made a midrange jumper to tie it up with five seconds left. Bogdanovic missed a tough three, and the game went to OT.
The Clippers continued playing an actual lineup with size, defenders, shooting, and ballhandling with a Luke-Mann-PG-Nico-Zu unit. And, fittingly, that lineup dominated the Pistons, allowing only three points o a tough Burks three, and consistently getting easy looks of their own. The Clips outscored the Pistons 14-3 in OT, cruising to a 142-131 win.
Notes
No More Four-Guard Units: John Wall, Reggie Jackson, Luke Kennard, Norm Powell, and Terance Mann are all good players in their own way. However, only Mann is a truly good perimeter defender with size, and even he’s best at the 2 or maybe 3, not the 4. When the Clippers play three of these guys together, much less four, they’re asking for defensive breakdowns, no rim protection, and poor rebounding. It’s even worse when those units are paired with a small-ball five like Marcus Morris or Nic Batum. The Clippers need to do something different, and that probably involves one of the smaller guards exiting the rotation for a true center, Robert Covington (seems unlikely) or even Amir Coffey. These units are too small and defensively impotent – and aren’t even dynamic enough offensively to make them worth it. I think Wall is the guy whose minutes need to be reduced, but not sure if that will go over.
More Nico, More Mann: I’m a broken record at this point. Nic Batum has been awesome this season and needs to play a lot. At the same time, I don’t want him to get worn down in the regular season, so a guy like RoCo who a lot of the stuff Nico can seems like a good sub to keep Nic’s minutes down. Why he doesn’t play is a mystery. Terance brings energy, activity, defense, and rebounding, and is therefore a unique skillset that also needs to play more. While Marcus Morris has played well this season and is a steady rotation presence, it seems fairly clear he should not be closing most games unless he’s hot.
Embarrassing: The Clippers pulled out this win in miraculous fashion, and we will all probably forget about this game in a few months. If they hadn’t, it would have been the worst loss of the season, an inexcusable performance against an awful Pistons team that didn’t even play well outside of some semi-hot shooting. Some of that is on the Clippers’ coaching staff for their poor rotations, but that’s not to let the players off the hook for their lazy passing and poor effort on defense and on the glass. This is an unserious basketball team right now (for the most part) with unserious rotations, and that will need to change at some point.
