The Clippers got back on track with a win against the Wolves Wednesday night–let’s see how it shoot out with a round of player grades.
Clippers Starter Grades
Patrick Beverley: B. I’m giving Pat a bit of a break here because it was his first game back from injury, playing on a minutes restriction. But he wasn’t really impactful, with just 6 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 4 fouls in his 18 minutes. I’m sure that as he shakes the rust off and gets his minutes restriction lifted, he’ll be bagck to his normal ways.
Reggie Jackson: B. This is the balance of a pretty dreadful first half for Reggie with a more effective second half, even if most of his production just came from easy runouts created by others. Reggie is actually doing a decent job bailing the Clippers out of bad possessions late in the shot clock, but he’s also often the one presiding over the offense when it routinely produced bad possessions. In the second half, when the Clippers were creating transition offense with good defense instead of trying to get things going in the halfcourt, he burst free and finished with 15 points on 4-6 shooting and 6-7 from the line. But his overall decision-making and execution were just not good in this game.
Kawhi Leonard: A-. Kawhi was certainly the hero tonight, with 36 points on 13-25 shooting, 5-6 from deep, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists. His shot-making was one of the few things keeping the Clippers afloat throughout the game, and he was perfect down the stretch as they held off Minnesota in the fourth quarter. But the knock comes from some of his first half play–he was disengaged defensively and forcing bad looks on offense, largely being responsible for the first-half hole LAC found themselves in via lazy defense and stagnant offense.
Nicolas Batum: A-. Batum’s 8 points on 2-6 shooting don’t jump off the box score, but but his 10 defensive rebounds sure do. He led the team on the glass in a game where they really struggled there, allowing 16 offensive rebounds to the Wolves. Additionally, with Ibaka struggling defensively, Batum switched on to Karl-Anthony Towns and while I won’t overstate the job that was done (Towns had a tidy 18 & 10 in his first game back from COVID), it’s a real luxury to be able to trust him like that.
Serge Ibaka: C. Serge had perfectly respectable low-volume offensive game, with 10 points on 4-4 shooting, 3 offensive rebounds, 2 assists, and 0 turnovers. But he was absolutely nonexistent defensive, pulling down 0 (!!) defensive rebounds in 20 minutes of play and getting walked all over on defense, both in his matchup against Towns and in help.
Clippers Bench Player Grades
Lou Williams: A. I feel like I’ve written in this space “this wasn’t a vintage Lou Will night, but he helped” a lot in the last few weeks. This was a vintage Lou Will night–27 points on 10-15 shooting as the Clippers’ best offensive player, earning trips to the foul line and creating good looks for his teammates. For most of the night, it felt like the Clippers were actually playing normal offense when Lou was playing and had no clue what to do when he sat. His creativity is essential with Paul George out, and he showed tonight why he needs to be playing and featured more than he has been.
Marcus Morris: C-. Marcus really didn’t make his mark on this game, and the reasoning for the grade comes from a few places. First, he didn’t have a great night shooting the ball–2-7 from three isn’t horrible but it’s nothing noteworthy. Second, he had a poor decision-making night inside the arc, forcing some looks from the mid-range that were heavily contested and fully unneccesary in the flow of the offense (he was 1-5 on two-pointers). And lastly, he continues to make a minimal impact on the game outside of his shot-making, meaning that while I love him getting 7 looks from deep in 25 minutes, I wish he was more noticeable with rebounding, creating for others, getting to the rim, or making an impact defensively.
Terance Mann: A. The stat sheet doesn’t scream high marks for Terance–a modest 4 points on 2-4 shooting, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 3 turnovers in his 20 minutes of play–but I fully believe that his early entry in the third quarter changed the game for the Clippers and helped them uplock an energy and pace that they had lacked all night. Moreso than the up-and-down Jackson or the invisible Kennard, Mann has proven to me that he can make a (limited) impact in his role. I bet that when the intensity and workloads for the Clippers’ core players are dialed up in the playoffs, his minutes will be better off with a sharpshooter like Kennard. But on some of these lethargic mid-season outings, he comes in and raises the entire team’s engagement levels.
Ivica Zubac: C. Zu was active in this game, but with mixed results on both ends. He rolled to the rim and grapped offensive boards, but got stripped or blocked several times around the rim. He had a pair of assists, but didn’t do enough to find the weak-side shooter in the corner when help defenders crashed in on his rolls, resulting in a lot of his misses and turnovers. Defensively, he put in some work in the paint but was also responsible for some breakdowns and Minnesota offensive rebounds. Naz Reid, the Wolves’ backup center, led Minnesota with 23 points. Between switching Batum onto Towns and needing to play small to cover Reid’s scoring as well, the Clippers had to play much of the second half without a center on the floor.
Luke Kennard: D. If Luke wants to come in and go 0-4 from three, I’d say that I know he’ll hit 40+% over a larger sample size as long as he keep shooting. If he had a couple of turnovers trying to create for others, I’d say it wasn’t a good outing within his role. But he didn’t have a role tonight. He wasn’t a spot-up shooter, he wasn’t a bench creator, he wasn’t anything. The Clippers might as well have played 4-on-5 with him on the floor by both process, where he was absolutely invisible, and results, where they lost his 12 minutes by 16 points. Guard minutes are competitive on this team, especially with Beverley back in the lineup and George hopefully returning soon. Luke has to make his presence felt in his minutes, or there won’t be any left.
No Grades
Paul George is not with the team on this two-game trip as he conitnues to recover from bone edema. Daniel Oturu and Amir Coffey are with the Agua Caliente Clippers in Orlando, with their first game of the G-League bubble set to tip off Thursday afternoon. Jay Scrubb is also on the Agua Caliente roster, but is not currently with the team as he recovers from foot surgery that will likely cost him the full season. Mfiondu Kabengele and Patrick Patterson were the team’s two unused subs tonight.
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