It’s weird. Add good players to a good team and they play well. Whoda thunk? Well, some had their doubts. They were warranted to be honest. Most Clippers fans are naturally pessimistic. This front office hasn’t given us many reasons to be, but for the first 16 years of my life, then honestly into the Lob City era (hello Josh Smith, Lance Stephenson and Jeff Green) — this team’s decision making was bad more often than not. This has changed the past two seasons. The Clippers have made oodles of smart trades to acquire (or have the assets to acquire) everyone on this current roster. Snatching up Reggie Jackson and Marcus Morris — for Morris, an expiring contract and a late first-round pick this year, and for Jackson a bowl of lint and some ointment — were two moves that looked fantastic on paper, but still had an air of risk about them.
Would Morris accept his newer, lesser, role after averaging career highs across the board with the Knicks? Would he be a ball stopper and take away shots from Kawhi and PG? Would he be a distraction? With Reggie Jackson, would he be fine with his newer, way lesser, role as a true backup point guard after being a starter in Detroit for more than half a decade? Is he a good enough shooter and passer to warrant 18-20 minutes off the bench? Will he take time away from Patrick Beverley and Landry Shamet?
All of these questions needed to be answered fairly quickly in order to soothe Clippers fans worries. Again, the moves looked amazing on paper. You are adding a combined 34 points a game to a team with enough offensive firepower to power a small city and two veterans with deep playoff experience. Shouldn’t be a problem right? So far, the affirmative has come true, and it’s been fun to watch Mook and Reggie integrate themselves within the team and have genuine positive impact.
There’s been a small tizzy made over the past two games against the Grizzlies and Suns. They were two solid wins, sure, but were against injured squads that are both taking tumbles at this point in the season. With the Clippers full roster, they are currently 6-0. These past two represented the last two wins in that W column, but are they a good barometer of what we can expect with this team at full strength? That might be a harder question to answer. We will get a better one tonight against the second place Denver Nuggets. However, one takeaway from these games is that the fit of Mook and Jackson so far has been good.
Where these two have been successful has been in accepting their roles. Mook knows that his job right now is as a catch-and-shoot bail out option who can also take a few dribbles when his defender closes out and hit from the mid-range. That’s his bread and butter, and similar to the role he had in Boston. He’s looked more and more comfortable with each passing game.
He came to LA shooting 43.9% from three on a career-high six attempts a game. In LA, while those numbers have gone down to 35.5% and 5.2 attempts, Morris is hitting the shots he needs to, especially in the past two games. Morris has gotten comfortable in an offense where the majority of the time he will be doing a lot of standing and shooting. If he is hitting at around 37-38% from three, while also providing his normal tough presence, playing solid D, and not stealing shots from Kawhi or PG, his fit will continue to work.
Mentioning his defense, Morris has been a surprising revelation on that end. I know it’s a small sample size, but in the last two games, the starting five of Pat-Kawhi-PG-Mook-Zu has a defensive rating of 95.5 (!). Absurdity. Morris alone has a defensive rating of 105.1, his lowest since in the 2015-16 season. His net rating of 5.1 is the 2nd highest of his career. This is while being less efficient on the offensive end, where Morris typically gets most of his shine. Again, a small sample size of six games, but this is a great early indication. Morris looks as though he has truly bought in. In the game Wednesday against the Suns, Morris made the right rotations, had a block, disrupted switches, and played stellar help defense. He has shown the ability to be a hybrid 3-4 or small-ball five and guard those positions well too. All said, if Morris keeps this up on the defensive end and continues to knock down shots, he will be a huge asset for the potential championship run.
Reggie Jackson is 2-1 as a Clipper. In his first game, a start against the Kings, everyone struggled. I actually liked what Reggie brought to the table in that game, and think he had an argument for more minutes. He succesfully ran an offense he has little knowledge of , was the only starter without a negative +/-, knocked down two threes, and had four assists to two turnovers. Since the opening game, Reggie has looked even better. Against the Grizz he had six assists, and against the Suns Jackson scored 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting.
All Reggie has to do to be successful in a Clipper uniform is not have egregious turnovers, knock down some open shots, not gamble too much on D, and run the offense. A.K.A what every point guard in the NBA should be able to do. However, Reggie, in the past, has offered even more. He’s shooting 38% from three this season, is typically aggressive in attacking the rim, and is solid in the PnR. With Trezz as his main option off the roll, this gives the Clipper bench now two lethal PnR guard options to choose from.
A lot of the reason Reggie was brought in was for insurance for a Clipper squad that has been injured as hell this season, especially for Pat Beverley and his aching groin. As an insurance policy, Jackson is about as good as it gets. Dude has been a walking 15 and 5 for the majority of his career and a mostly efficient shooter and ball handler. If LA can continue to get what Jackson has done in the past three games, they have a backup PG that can help them win ball games. As Doc Rivers said in press availability after the Suns win (Via Jovan Buha of The Athletic), “As I said the other day, they’re both going to win at least one playoff game each for us.” He’s probably right.
Both of these guys are succeeding on the fly in LA. It’s obviously tough to come into a winning team, with championship aspirations, and make an impact that pleases both fans and coaching staff, but Mook and Jackson have seemingly done so. All they have to do is keep playing the way they are already and this team, at full-strength, is DANGEROUS. But don’t tell Nick Wright or Bill Simmons this. They’ll get mad.
