If there’s one time of year where it becomes super apparent how obsessed we all are with the NBA, for me it would be mid-August. Sure, I spend less time occupied with the Clippers during this time of year than I do during the season, and definitely less than the 24/7 mania that surrounds the trade deadline, playoffs, and draft/free agency periods. But there’s just something about everyone getting so worked up for the schedule release of all things that really lays bare how starved we are for basketball discussion this time of year, and the fact that it’s always rather anticlimactic demonstrates how large a void we’re trying to fill.

So, yes, the Clippers released their schedule today (along with the rest of the NBA), and, yes, it’s more or less what we knew it was going to be, same as every other year and for every other team: 82 games, 2 against the East teams, 4 against the Pacific division teams, and either 3 or 4 against the other West teams, some tougher stretches, some easier stretches, some tricky back-to-backs (which is a bit of a catch-22: would you rather have two bad teams back-to-back with a chance to get a win on short rest, or put a nightmare game, like @ Milwaukee, on the second night of a back to back and just punt it so that you can play the likely wins at full strength).

The LA Times’ Andrew Greif combed through the schedule to give us some broad strokes:

Honestly, on paper this seems pretty solid. Obviously back-to-backs are typically difficult games and so you’d like to minimize them, but moving away from the hideous 5-in-7s that the Clippers had to play last year is a massive, massive improvement, and at the end of the day taking away those densely packed weeks means adding games to other weeks, which results in the high back-to-back load. No matter how you distribute them, it’s still 82 games in 177 days.

Also notable is the high number of games before the All-Star break, tying the NBA record that the Clippers also tied last season. If you recall, after an especially grueling January the Clippers were able to approach March at a much more leisurely pace, and that appears to be the case this season as well. That can only be a good thing as the team tries to keep itself healthy heading into the playoffs, and loading in a ton of pre-All-Star games could also serve to allow the Clippers to utilize their extreme depth through the first three-fourths of the season, and then make the much-anticipated consolidation trade at the deadline.

Lastly is the 3x teams, which is really one of the only ways in which true strength of schedule comes into play. Ideally, you want to get out of playing good teams a fourth time (you’ll always play your division opponents 4x, so the Clippers are stuck with the Suns and Warriors), but keep all 4 games against the bad teams. The Grizzlies are one of the better teams in the conference, and the Blazers, Pelicans, and Wolves all have playoff hopes too, while the Clippers get to play all four games against the West’s bottomfeeders: Oklahoma City, Houston, San Antonio (as well as Sacramento and the LA Lakers, who are also locked into 4 matchups due to divisional ties).

Here’s how the team’s schedule breaks down by month:

• October: 7 games, 2 vs teams from the 2022 playoffs
• November: 16 games, 7 vs teams from the 2022 playoffs
• December: 15 games, 7 vs teams from the 2022 playoffs
• January: 16 games, 12 vs teams from the 2022 playoffs
• February: 10 games, 8 vs teams from the 2022 playoffs
• March: 14 games, 8 vs teams from the 2022 playoffs
• April: 4 games, 2 vs teams from the 2022 playoffs

Looking at last year’s success obviously isn’t a clear predictor of next year’s strength of schedule, as some teams get much better or worse (the Clippers weren’t even a playoff team last year and are one of the title favorites this season due to health), but across the league it helps you see the trends: the Clippers have fewer high-profile opponents in the first three months of the season, and then play almost all good teams in January and February before things reach and equilibrium in the final stretch of the season. On the one hand, this gives the team a chance to build some momentum and potentially even be in first place on New Year’s Day before facing a murderer’s row (January’s first 6 opponents, in order, are Miami, Denver, Minnesota, Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver). On the other hand, the league’s bad teams have a tendency to get more of their wins in the first half of the season before trading role players at the deadline, shutting down key contributors, and fully bottoming out in the second half of the year. You should really go 4-0 against Houston either way, but you’d rather see a couple of those games come in March when a guy like Eric Gordon is more likely to not be suiting up. The Clippers finish their season series against the Rockets on January 15th, and the overall trend skews towards playing the bad teams earlier, before they’ve given up.

Here are some of the notable games for the Clippers:

• LA Lakers: They play their cross-town rivals on October 20th on TNT (opening night for LAC, but not LAL, who visit the Warriors’ ring ceremony on the 18th), November 9th on ESPN, January 24th on TNT, and April 5th on ESPN. For season ticket holders, November and April are the Clippers home games.
• Golden State Warriors: The defending champs come to town on February 14th (TNT) and March 15th (ESPN), with the Clippers heading north on November 23rd (ESPN) and March 2nd (TNT).
• Phoenix Suns: We get rematches of the 2021 Western Conference Finals (hopefully with Kawhi Leonard finally on the court) on October 23rd and December 15th in LA (both NBATV) and February 16th in Phoenix (TNT), with the Clippers also closing their season in Phoenix on April 9th–we’ll see if that game actually matters by that point, if it does it will likely find its way to national television.
• Denver Nuggets: Nikola Jokic might be the single biggest source of both fear and trauma for Clippers fans, and he’ll come to LA on November 15th (NBATV) and January 13th (ESPN). The Clippers head to the mile high city on January 5th (TNT) and February 26th (ESPN).
• Milwaukee Bucks: The Clippers won’t see the 2021 champs and Giannis Antentokounmpo until February, on the 2nd in Milwaukee (TNT) and the 10th in LA.
• Philadelphia 76ers: Doc Rivers and Ty Lue will face off on December 23rd in Philly and January 17th in Los Angeles (TNT).
• Boston Celtics: Last season’s Eastern Conference champs come to LA on December 12th (TNT) and the Clippers head to the garden on December 29th (NBATV)

Clippers release 2022-23 schedule: key games, back-to-backs, and more
Lucas Hann

The Los Angeles Clippers released the first half of their 2021 schedule today, so we finally have details on the next several months of Clipper basketball. Here’s the full slate (click here for printable PDF):

Some key games:

• Dec 22nd @ LAL: The Clippers will open the season on TNT against their cross-town rival and defending champions, on the night the Lakers get their rings from their 2020 NBA Championship.
• Dec 25th @ DEN: After blowing a 3-1 lead to the Nuggets in the second round of the NBA playoffs, the Clippers head to Denver to play the ESPN nightcap on Christmas.
• Dec 27th vs DAL: Is the home opener significant if there are no fans who can buy tickets? Either way, just as LAC will have something to prove in their first two games, the Mavs will come into this one seeking revenge for their first-round elimination.

• Jan 3rd @ PHX: It always feels significant when the Clippers go against Chris Paul, and this will be their first look at his new team. The Suns, led by Devin Booker, went on a furious 8-0 run in the bubble that included a Booker buzzer-beater over the Clippers, but narrowly missed the playoffs. After adding Paul in the off-season, they don’t intend to miss them again–but exactly what tier of playoff team they’ve risen to remains to be seen.
• Jan 6th/8th @ GSW: The season-ending injury to Klay Thompson certainly limits any excitement that the Warriors might be “back” after a miserable, injury-marred year. It remains to be seen just how good their current core will be without Thompson or much depth–but you never want to look away when Steph Curry is on the screen.

• Jan 28th @ MIA: The Heat went on a surprising run to the NBA Finals last season out of the East, sparking a lot of contrasts to the Clippers’ disappointment–including on the topics of organizational culture and Jimmy Butler vs Paul George. While this isn’t an obvious grudge match, it’s a high-profile opponent and LAC could have a bit of a chip on their shoulders this night.
• Feb 2nd @ BKN: I missed having Kevin Durant in the NBA but I didn’t miss the Clippers playing against him. The Nets superteam that was put together at the same time as Paul George and Kawhi Leonard came to the Clippers is finally intact, and this will be LAC’s first meeting with them.
• Feb 28th @ MIL: The Milwaukee Bucks might be the only team in the NBA with as much (or more) pressure on them to perform this season, with reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo still capable of entering free agency next summer following multiple disappointing playoff exits. It’s a high-profile regular-season game that both teams desperately hope will turn into an NBA Finals preview.

Some other notes on the schedule:

• Back-to-backs: Always an important component, but particularly so given Kawhi Leonard’s tendency to miss one game of each back-to-back for load management, the Clippers have 6 back-to-backs in this stretch of schedule: Dec 29/30 vs MIN/vs PDX, Jan 5/6 vs SAS/@GSW, Jan 28/29 @MIA/@ORL, Feb 2/3 @BOS/@CLE, Feb 14/15 vs CLE/vs MIA, and Feb 25/26 vs MEM/vs MEM. In a 38-game slate, six is fewer than I wax expecting and means that Leonard should be able to play in as many as 32 games.

• Games/Home/Away: While the NBA has billed this as a “first half” schedule release, the Clippers will play slightly more than half of their games before March 4th–38/72. I’ll be keeping my eye on the total number of games other teams are playing in this span, as this could mean that LAC is getting fewer off days in the first half of the season, but more in the second. The Clippers will play 18 home games and 20 road games in this stretch of schedule, meaning they will have an additional 18 home games and 16 more road games in the back half.

• Road Trips: As part of the NBA’s plan to reduce travel this season to account for the accelerated schedule, the Clippers are one of several coastal teams who figure to have longer road trips. I know, counterintuitive–longer trips to reduce travel. But the idea is that the longer you stay on the East coast, the more games you can play, and the fewer times you have to trek across the country.
  
  The Clippers have two significant road trips in this half of the schedule–a 6-games-in-9-nights trip from January 26th through February 3rd, and a 5-games-in-7-nights trip from February 25th through March 4th. Keep an eye on LAC @ CLE on February 3rd, which will be their 6th road game in 9 nights, on a back-to-back flying from Brooklyn. They’ll be coming off a game vs a high-profile opponent, and likely without Kawhi Leonard on the second night of a back-to-back. It’s a perfect formula for a letdown loss.

• Rematches: Here’s a bit of travel reduction that makes a little more sense: playing the same team twice in a row in the same city. This happens several times on the Clippers’ schedule: they’ve got the Warriors twice in Golden State on January 6th and 8th, the Thunder twice in LA on January 22nd and 24th, the Jazz twice in LA on January 17th and 19th, and the Grizzlies twice in Memphis on February 24th and 25th.

Stay tuned to 213Hoops for in-depth coverage of the Clippers’ schedule and all of the games on it!

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.

Clippers 2021 Schedule Details
Lucas Hann

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the Clippers and Nuggets are set for a Christmas rematch as the NBA prepares to unveil the schedule for the first half of the 2020-21 season.

The Clippers, of course, were thoroughly embarrassed by the Nuggets in the second round of the NBA playoffs as they struggled to contain Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray as the series wore on, ultimately blowing large leads in the second halves of games 5 and 6 before not putting up much of a fight in a disjointed game 7 loss. The game will naturally provide ESPN with an opportunity to rehash that series excessively in the coming weeks, complete with commercials promoting the Christmas slate featuring Nuggets highlights and probably even a montage of the Clippers blowing a 3-1 lead (maybe even one of all of their playoff losses in the last decade!) for the telecast itself.

But it will also provide a revamped Clippers team with an opportunity to get a little bit of closure and potentially move past some of the baggage that most of this unit has. While a regular-season game is just that–one regular-season game–it could actually give the team a big boost to come in to what will likely be their second or third game of the season, with a new coach and a few new rotation players, and secure a win against the team that has made them a laughingstock for the last couple of months. An emphatic win would certainly be nice, but even grinding out a close, competitive game would be a refreshing change of pace from a Clippers group that seemingly did not have much fight in them down the stretch of that playoff series, and indicate some growth in the intangibles that cost them last season.

Just please, please don’t blow a double-digit lead.

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.

Clippers – Nuggets Christmas Rematch Rumored
Lucas Hann

About an hour ago, the NBA released the complete schedule for the 2021 preseason, including that of the Clippers. All NBA teams will play either three or four games between Friday, December 11 and Saturday, December 19.

The Clippers’ three games are against the Lakers on Dec 11 at 7:00 PM PT and Dec 13 at 6:30 PM PT, and then against the Jazz on Dec 17 at 7:00 PM PT. So far, no other details have been released, though because all the games are at “home”, it would seem that the Clippers will play at Staples Center.

It seems highly improbably that there will be fans of any sort for any preseason games, with team staffers likely being the only attendees. No broadcast information has been released either, but presumably all the games will be viewable in some capacity. The Lakers’ games in particular might make national TV, with the Lakers seen as favorites to repeat as NBA Champions and the Clippers maybe their strongest opponent.

Three preseason games is not much preparatory time before the start of season, but with a condensed 72 game calendar already packed with double-headers, it seems unlikely we see Paul George and Kawhi Leonard in all three games. If they and other key veterans do make multiple appearances, expect minutes counts to be fairly low. Maybe even more than most preseasons, this one will be probably be primarily played by young guys and camp signings such as Ky Bowman, Malik Fitts, Daniel Oturu, Mfiondu Kabengele, and the rest.

Well, the Clippers will officially return in two weeks time. Despite the closeness of preseason, their roster has clearly not been filled, with two spots still empty. Stay tuned for the last bits of free agency as well as player previews for the upcoming season!

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.

Clippers 2021 Preseason Schedule Released
Robert Flom