In the grand scheme of the marathon 82-game NBA season, we often joke about the meaninglessness of random Tuesday nights in January. For this Clippers team, however, January represents possibly the most pivotal stretch of the year as they attempt to stay afloat with both of their superstars sidelined by injury. It’s not a controversial statement to say that this Clippers roster is a true contender at full strength, fresh off a Western Conference Finals run where they closed out the Utah Jazz despite Kawhi Leonard tearing his ACL and then pressed the Phoenix Suns to 6 games without him on the floor. Sure, there are plenty of opponents who could present challenges in hypothetical playoff series–the reigning champs in Milwaukee, the threat of a juggernaut in Brooklyn if the Nets can figure out their issues, and a resurgent Golden State Warriors squad all represent threats greater than what LAC has had to face so far. But the Clippers have to feel pretty good about their chances in a “if you can get everyone healthy” scenario.
The bigger problem that they’re going to have is getting there. Without both stars, the Clippers are almost always going to be pretty major underdogs, and while it’s actually not that crazy for undermanned teams to find the occasional shocking win, like LA did last week in Boston and Brooklyn, it’s really, really difficult for a team to consistently win over an extended period of time without their best players. The details of the Clippers’ pursuit of a championship in May and June are going to need to be figured out when and if they reach that point, and their ability to reach “contender” status this year is going to ultimately be determined by 3 questions:
- When (if at all) does Kawhi Leonard return and what version of him do they get?
- When (if at all) does Paul George return?
- How many wins can the other guys find in the meantime?
While the first two questions are essential, there’s no way to really know the answers to them until the team tells us. There’s at least a chance Leonard plays this year, but we have no way of knowing details until the time comes, and while George should hopefully return in late January or early February, there won’t be any details on his status for a few more weeks.
So let’s turn our focus to the third, pivotal question. The Clippers have a killer January schedule, with a relentless 17-game slate that features 11 road games, culminating in a 8-game, 8-city, 13-day road trip that itself ends with a 5-in-7. The good news is that a theoretical optimistic timeline for Paul George could get him back on the court in time to help the team in some of those densely-packed road games in the final week of the month–but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s break down the 15 remaining January games to figure out where a PG-and-Kawhi-less Clippers squad needs to steal games in order to keep pace. The Clippers have February 1st and 2nd off, so a relatively conservative 6-week recovery window for George would put him back on the court for that 2/3 game against the Lakers and leave exactly the month of January as the stretch LAC needs to survive without him.
First, I actually want to briefly look past the month of January to see what’s to come for LAC so that we can determine what “pace” actually means–the record that they’ll need to have to be competitive in the Western Conference playoff race, and how many additional wins they can reasonably expect to pick up in February, March, and April. Let’s say the target is the 6 seed. It’s a moving target with the Clippers among several teams in the middle of the conference that have hovered around .500 for weeks, but right now the 6 seed is at roughly a 42-win pace. For several reasons (stars getting healthy, teams finding rhythm, higher intensity down the stretch w/ clear playoff stakes on the line), you’d expect the pace for 6th place to improve slightly–let’s approximate it at 44 wins as a placeholder.
Okay, so the goal is to get to 44 wins. The Clippers already have 20 after last night’s game against the Minnesota Timerwolves, and the good news is that they close the year with an extended stretch of games nearly as friendly as January is brutal. We mentioned already that the Clippers’ January slate features 17 games in 31 days, 12 of which are on the road and 9 of which are against teams currently in playoff (top-8) position in their conferences. But to close the year, they play just 22 games in 53 days, 12 of which are at home and 12 of which are against playoff teams. This of course assumes that George is back and in good form, and a lift from Leonard would only help, but it’s realistic to think that a healthy LAC could rattle off 14 or 15 wins in this soft back stretch of the year.
While they’ll need to use that soft landing to get separation, January’s trials will be followed by an absolutely killer opening to February. From February 1st through 17th (when the aforementioned 22-in-53 light finish begins), the Clippers play 7 games, 4 against teams that are better than them (Milwaukee, Golden State, Memphis, and Phoenix) and 3 against teams they’re directly battling with for seeding (Dallas twice and the Lakers). A lot will depend on if George is able to return on schedule and play in those games, as well as how the Clippers do in January and if the team is feeling confident or defeated headed into that stretch, but you’d be happy to go 3-4 in those 7 (beat Lakers, split Mavs games, steal 1 of the 4 tough ones).
So, after losing to the Wolves, the Clippers have 19 wins so far, and we’re gonna go ahead and pencil them in for 3+15 more in the 7+22 game stretches we’ve identified in February, March, and April. That means to stay on track for 44 wins, the Clippers need to get 7 more wins in their remaining January games (we’re seeing already how crucial it was for the Clippers to find surprise wins in Boston and Brooklyn last week, but also how disappointing recent winnable losses to Denver, Toronto, and Minnesota are). The “realistic” trajectory to finish January 26-27 included a win against the Wolves, so the Clippers are now a game off of my desired “pace” and on a path to being 25-28 on February 1st.
January’s trek continues on Thursday with the most difficult game left on the Clippers’ schedule this month: a trip to Phoenix to play the Suns, who are 28-8 on the year and rarely put forward bad performances at home. You never say never, just looking at the Clippers’ improbably win in Brooklyn last week, but Thursday should be as close as the Clippers come to an automatic loss.
Then, the Clippers have a trio of of home games against good teams–Memphis, Atlanta, and Denver. The Grizzlies have been playing well lately and tend to give the Clippers fits, the Hawks will be better than their 16-19 record with Trae Young and Clint Capela back from COVID protocols, and the Denver Nuggets continue to keep pace in the Western Conference despite being decimated by injuries due to the dominant play of Nikola Jokic. Frankly, while there is the potential for upsets, this is a tough stretch of opponents where, even if they can force close games, LAC will be at a huge starpower disadvantage down the stretch. But the reality of the situation is that you simply cannot afford to go 0-3 on a home stand. I have the Clippers winning just one of these three games, against the Nuggets (Memphis is the biggest challenge and they get the finally-healthy Hawks on the second day of a double-matinee back-to-back, which is a formula for Clipper catastrophe). If they can get two of these, it would make up for the Wolves loss and put them back on a 26-27 trajectory.
After that home stand, the Clippers have a trio of games against softer opponents, visiting the Pelicans and Spurs before returning to LA for their last home game of January against the Indiana Pacers. Despite the Pelicans being just 13-24 after finishing 31-41 last year, the Clippers have lost their last 4 games in a row to New Orleans by a combined 69 points. The matchup with the Pelicans’ young guards is a bad one and I’m not optimistic that the Clippers will have a better answer this time around, but I do think they’ll find wins against the Spurs and Pacers. It’s no secret that the Clippers are going to be at a talent disadvantage all month, but the margin will be smaller against the weaker teams, and I think the Clippers need to go 2-1 here and hopefully build some positive momentum before heading out on an 8-game road trip to end the month.
Out on the road, with fatigue mounting, the Clippers open the trip with three games against Denver, Philly, and the Knicks. They should be healthy underdogs against the Nuggets and Sixers and at a major talent disadvantage against Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, but both of those teams lack a ton of consistent quality outside of their two stars, so you’d hope to get lucky and catch one of those bigs on an off night. Still, the Clippers probably get to the Knicks game with an 0-2 start on the trip, needing a win against a pretty disappointing squad in order to rejuvinate the vibes and keep hope alive heading into a 5-in-7.
One of the really frustrating elements of this January schedule is that some of the Clippers’ more winnable head-to-head matchups come in the midst of this 5-in-7 finale, when they’ll be incredibly exhausted from travel and incessant games. The first back-to-back features games in Washington and Orlando, while the second back-to-back will see them visit Charlotte and Indiana, with a stop in Miami in between those two pairs of games. Based on schedule congestion and team quality, you can probably write off the game in Miami–in fact, all things considered, it might be advantageous to punt that game altogether and give some of the main guys 3 days off between the sets of back-to-backs, each of which feature a .500 team on the first night and a cellar team on the second night.
That order of games is concerning, as the Clippers are certainly prone to burning themselves out chasing a game against a good team on the first night of a back-to-back, and then, exhausted from that effort, lay an egg on the second night. It happened to them in November, when they twice lost blowouts against the lowly New Orleans Pelicans on the second night of a back-to-back after exerting energy unsuccessfully attempting comebacks against the Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors, two elite teams. I’m hesitant to say that the Clippers should outright throw their games against Washington and Charlotte so that they can focus on Orlando and Indiana, but they should absolutely be willing to wave the white flag early and conserve their energy for the next night. The Orlando game in particular is a can’t-miss opportunity against the worst team in the NBA, and one of the games on this road trip that simply has to be a win.
Despite the weaker quality of opponent in this 5-in-7, it’s going to be very, very difficult for the Clippers to consistently find their legs and put forward strong performances considering the schedule density and travel they’ll be enduring this month. Again, it’s just unfortunate timing–I’d feel a lot better about these individual match-ups if they came at a more relaxed pace, or even at the beginning of a brutal stretch instead of the end of one. Against Indiana especially, it would be hard to blame the Clippers for getting run off the floor in the last game of a 8-game roadie and 5-in-7 despite it being an otherwise winnable matchup. Beat Orlando, split the second B2B, finish the road trip 3-5. It won’t be inspiring, but it will be surviving.
Add that together with the Clippers losing to Phoenix, going 1-2 in the following home stand, going 2-1 in their three easier mid-January games, and you get to 6-9 between now and the end of the month, leaving them at 25-28 overall (man, not showing up to the Wolves loss hurts). That’s short of the 26-27 mark that you’d ideally like them to get to if they’re going to shoot for a 44-38 season overall, but those are the breaks. While you’d love for them to pick up an extra win somewhere (the weaker opponents on the road trip are especially tantalizing, but there are going to be multiple fatigue losses in that stretch), all things considered you’d take 6-9 in the upcoming 15 games if it means being alive in the playoff race and getting a healthy Paul George back for the last ten weeks of the season. A 25-28 mark will probably be enough to drop the Clippers into 9th or 10th in the conference, but it won’t push them below 10th, and they’ll still be within striking distance of the top-8.
