In their return from the All-Star Break, the Clippers snapped a 3-game losing streak with a dominant performance. Let’s see who’s getting credit in our Clippers vs Warriors player grades.
Clippers Starter Grades
Patrick Beverley: NG. No grade for Pat, who played just 11 minutes before exiting early with knee soreness. He didn’t have a particularly large impact on the game in the first quarter, though it’s worth nothing that his 11-minute shift was much more than we’ve seen him play lately. But it seems almost pointless to discuss his performance when his contributions are defined by his availability.
Paul George: B. A bad night in the box score for George, but I thought he was really victimized by poor officiating throughout the first half, where his repeated drives to the rim were met with illegal contact but no whistle. But he found his stroke from deep and found his way to the line in the second half, contributed to LAC’s suffocating defense, and made all-around contributions that transcended his scoring.
Kawhi Leonard: A-. Some turnovers aside, Kawhi was absolutely killer offensively in this game, with 28 points on 10-17 shooting in 31 minutes. On a lot of possessions, the Warriors even defended the Clippers well–it just didn’t matter, because Kawhi was hitting high-difficulty shots. His 14 first-quarter points kept the Clippers in despite sloppy early play, and they ended up coasting to victory as he added 9 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals.
Nicolas Batum: B. The Clippers may be looking to save Nic’s legs a bit and/or get Marcus Morris on the court more in the second half of the season, as he checked out earlier than normal in the first quarter and played just 16 minutes (he would have ended up with more if the Clippers weren’t up by 30+ heading into the fourth quarter). But he was his normal self, plugging holes on both ends of the court without being the center of attention.
Serge Ibaka: A. Rested Serge is DIFFERENT. He started the game on a tear offensively, scoring 9 of his 16 points in the opening frame, and added a season-high 14 rebounds to his efficient scoring outing. I particularly liked seeing him, on the opening play of the game, set a screen for Paul George about 18 feet away from the rim but deliberately step backward on his pop to create a look from three instead of a mid-range jumper. Not only is it the more efficient shot because of the extra point, but it forces the defense to cover more ground to contest, giving the ballhandler more space to operate.
Clippers Bench Player Grades
Reggie Jackson: A-. Reggie may have only shot 1-7 from the field in this game, but I thought he actually had a really nice, methodical, patient game from the point guard position. He had 5 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists with just 1 turnover. His passing was on point and he continues to be the Clippers’ quickest guard in transition, which is a bit of a relief for one of the slowest teams in the NBA.
Marcus Morris: B. A perfectly average night for Marcus, who added 9 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block in 23 bench minutes. He hit some shots, but the Clippers didn’t need him in high volumes tonight. Also, that dribble thing was… weird?
Terance Mann: B. On the one hand, three blocks!! On the other, he didn’t really have an impactful game other than that, aside from hitting a transition corner three on a nice find by Luke Kennard. Terance didn’t get very much meaningful run in this game, but as the schedule picks up (the Clippers are fully rested now but will likely play 10 guys regularly again once the games start piling on) and if Patrick Beverley misses time, he’ll get more opportunities.
Ivica Zubac: B. Zu had his moments around the rim on both ends tonight, and was overall successful in his minutes, but wasn’t quite able to dominate in the way you’d like to see from him against a much smaller Warriors frontcourt. He probably shares responsibility for that with his teammates, who didn’t seem particularly focused on exploiting that size mismatch.
Lou Williams: A. Great performance in a small dosage for Lou Will, who had 14 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals in just 14 minutes. He was 5-7 from the field and the Clippers really piled it on the Warriors when he checked in to run the offense in the late third.
Luke Kennard: B. Luke played really well in his 12-minute fourth quarter run, with 8 points on 4-8 shooting, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals. That shooting includes going 0-3 on spot-up threes, which is out of his control but displays some potential that this coulld have been a truly explosive performance if he caught fire. This was better than a B-level performance, but I’ve decided that the dude who got a 4-year, $64M extension isn’t getting As for garbage time. I have faith that Luke will get another crack in the rotation and make the most of it, but I’m not exactly celebrating a player of his stature scoring 8 points in garbage time.
Patrick Patterson: B-. PatPat came in for 11 minutes, took two spot up threes, made one of them, and grabbed 4 rebounds. The Clippers lost that garbage-time run, but the Warriors were fielding a more competitive lineup than LAC played up 30+. He mostly did his job tonight, but I’m still a little skeptical of why this is his job when he’s making more than the league minimum.
Amir Coffey: C-. Remember when Amir went 10-13 from the field and 7-9 from deep, scoring 28 points in 58 minutes across two games last month where he was pressed into rotation duties due to a number of injuries ahead of him on the wing? Well, let’s consider ourselves lucky that he had the shooting nights of his life in those games and saved the 0-5 outing for garbage time here.
Mfiondu Kabengele: C-. Fi didn’t really have much to do in the last 5 minutes of this game except just “be on the court,” which he just managed to pull off. He even scored! But 3 fouls in 5 minutes screams “unable to play at this level,” which isn’t exactly revelatory since we’ve reached the point with Fi where he can’t even get in the game at the start of the fourth quarter of a 30-point blowout with the rest of the benchwarmers.
No Grades
All 14 healthy Clippers played (and scored!) in this game! The two not-healthy guys, Daniel Oturu and Jay Scrubb, continue to recover from their respective injuries and it’s unclear when we’ll see them again (if at all this season). Patrick Beverley, as noted above, received a NG after exiting the game with just 11 minutes under his belt.
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