It was a rough shooting night for the Clippers against the Thunder, but LA will earn solid player grades as they took an early lead and held on to it against an OKC squad that has scrapped out a number of surprising wins early in the season.

Clippers Starter Grades

Patrick Beverley: B. Pat made a nice well-rounded contribution, with 8 boards, 2 assists, 3 steals, and +23 in 30 minutes of play. But on a night where the Clippers were a bit starved offensively, his only scoring production was splitting a pair of free throws as he went just 0-2 from the field on two missed threes. Defensively, he made contributions, forcing turnovers. And we should never take for granted having a point guard who rebounds so well. But he got caught reaching on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and picked up 4 fouls as the former Clipper put together a 30-point night to keep the Thunder close throughout the second half. Pat didn’t really do anything wrong, but he also didn’t bring enough good to the table to earn a better grade tonight.

Paul George: B+. It’s kind of surprising that the Clippers didn’t shoot well on a night when PG individually continued to put up efficient numbers: 10-19 from the field, 3-7 from deep, and 6-6 from the free throw line. Less efficient? His distribution. He’s been turnover-prone all season, but 5 assists and 5 turnovers isn’t very good. I will give Paul a ton of props for balancing a 3-11 second half by getting to the rim and earning all six of his free throw attempts in the second half.

Kawhi Leonard: A. After a couple games of being slightly irked with Kawhi taking possessions for his struggling mid-range game while the rest of the offense thrived from deep, it was fitting that the Clippers won this game despite going cold from beyond the arc in large part because Kawhi was lethal inside of it. Despite going just 1-7 from beyond the arc, he hit 9 of his 14 two-pointers and scored a game-high 31 points. Add in 8 rebounds, 2 assists, and a massive 3-steal, 2-block defensive performance, and it’s clear that Kawhi was the best player on both ends of the floor tonight.

Nicolas Batum: A. After being cleared to play just shortly before gametime due to spending the afternoon in the hospital for the birth of his daughter, Nic put up a classic “new dad” game, making all four of his threes en route to a box score-stuffing 14 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 2 blocks. It’s only been 16 games but Nic is clearly distinguishing himself as a Clippers folk hero.

Serge Ibaka: A. Serge had his second-highest points total of the season and his second-highest rebounds total of the season all in one go, as he put up 17 and 11 and absolutely dominated OKC’s inferior interior. Aside from hitting one of his two three-point attempts, he was a perfect 6-6 on his other looks, all within 10 feet, and grabbed 4 offensive boards. Things won’t come so easy against teams with NBA-caliber front courts, but you can’t ask your bigs to do anything more than dominate inferior competition.

Clippers Bench Player Grades

Marcus Morris: B-. Marcus had another quieter night after his two explosive games against the Kings and Pacers last week, but he made an impact with 7 points on 7 shots, 4 rebounds, and a block. But I would have liked to see more from him offensively than one point per shot, no assists, and a pair of turnovers. His job in this bench role is to be a do-it-all interchangeable part in the team’s forward rotation when things are going well, but also come in and lift the team offensively when things aren’t. He didn’t take them backwards but he also didn’t bring as much as a positive contribution as I would have liked.

Lou Williams: B+. For his part, Lou created a lot of efficient offense off the bench. Even if his 9 points on 8 shots (he was 3-5 inside the arc but 0-3 from deep, struggling on threes like the rest of the team) wasn’t some classic Lou Williams explosion, his 8 assists to 1 turnover provided a big lift off the bench. The difference between a B+ and A- here is the timing of his contributions: Lou had 4 points and 7 assists in the first half when things were going well for LAC offensively and just 5 points and 1 assist in the second half when they were struggling.

Luke Kennard: C-. I think people were being a bit melodramatic about how bad Luke’s all-around performance was tonight. Actually, I liked that he had a quick trigger from deep–haven’t we all been begging him to put up more shots, especially from three? He happened to go cold on the same night as most of the team, missing all 5 of his three point attempts. But he’s still shooting 46% from deep on the season and I still want him to take five more on Sunday. It was a night to forget for Luke, but not much more than that.

Ivica Zubac: A. Zu was absolutely dominant, especially in the first half as he checked into the game and quickly registered three straight dunks. He finished with 8 points, 6 assists, and a block in just 15 minutes. Honestly, he should have played more tonight, but I get why he didn’t. As I wrote above, Ibaka also had one of his best nights of the season tonight. Plus, with the Clippers working on small-ball lineups in practice this week, I bet that Ty Lue saw tonight’s game as a relatively safe opportunity to give that group some live reps. Keep this in mind, though: the Clippers won this game by 14, and they won Zu’s 15 minutes by 14. OKC played them even the other 33 minutes of the night. Zu wasn’t singlehandedly behind that–he was helped not only by other Clippers playing well when he was on the floor, but by OKC going ice cold from deep in the first half before starting to hit in the late second quarter and into the third–but it’s really nice to feel like his minutes are a strength again instead of the weakness they’ve been at times early on this season.

No Grades

Terance Mann, Mfiondu Kabengele, and Daniel Oturu all got in in the waning moments of the game, and Oturu got a freebie dunk after the Clippers broke OKC’s press, but we didn’t really see anything from any of them. Reggie Jackson and Patrick Patterson were unused substitutes. Amir Coffey was inactive, as was Jay Scrubb who continues to recover from foot surgery.

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.

Lucas Hann

Lucas Hann

Lucas has covered the Clippers since 2011, and has been credentialed by the team since 2014. He co-founded 213Hoops with Robert Flom in January 2020.  He is a graduate of Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, CA and St. John's University in Queens, NY.  He earned his MA in Communication and Rhetorical Studies from Syracuse University.

26 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments