The Clippers are not dead yet
It would be easy for fans of the LA Clippers to look at what happened the last two nights and start to panic about their team. There is no doubt that the Clips drew the short straw coming back from the break by having to face the two best teams in the league, back-to-back. Playing without Chris Paul they gave up an NBA season-high 5o point third quarter of a 123–113 loss to the Warriors; and even with Paul back in the lineup for the first time in weeks they were unable to defend their home court against the Spurs last night.
I thought it was a smart decision waiting until last night to bring back Paul. There’s no reason to bring back the All-World point guard on the front end of a nasty back-to-back. It’s going to take a little while for Paul to get back into game shape, but there were moments in last night’s game where you could see the pieces coming back together.
Looking back, the Paul injury may be a blessing in disguise for LA, as it gave Austin Rivers a lot of playing time, and it’s clear that Doc’s sun has used that time to gain confidence and improve his game. Surprisingly, the area in which Rivers really needs to improve is his defense, his defensive box plus/minus is -1.6, which is a big drop-off coming from Chris Paul who is positive 1.6 on the year and clearly the better defender. You still don’t want see him on the court for extended minutes against the other teams starters (as the Warriors game clearly showed)but he has worked himself into a very serviceable second unit mainstay, which is huge for the Clippers playoff chances.
What LA needs is time for their rotation players to play together and get back into sync before the playoffs begin, and the Basketball Gods have smiled on them with relatively easy, end of the year slate. They lay the lowly Lakers and Kings twice more before the end of the year, and have court advantage in their games against the Rockets, Wizards, Cavaliers, and Celtics. Right now the Clippers are sitting in the fifth seed in the Western Conference, but they’ve weathered the storm and are finally (knock on wood) looking healthy. They are currently five games behind the Rockets for the third seed in the West, but they have the easier schedule and have two home games against Houston. Getting the three seed is important this season because it’s the difference between playing the Spurs or the Warriors in the second round, and as good as the Spurs are this season, the Clippers would much rather play the latter than the former.
Sometimes winning titles comes down to simply being in the right place at the right time, just ask the 2011 Dallas Mavericks, a team that had a cohesive core playing at the top of their game against a newly formed Super Team. Does any of that ring a bell? I think this years Warriors squad is better than the 2011 Heat, but all it takes is a minor injury to one of Golden States core players and all of a sudden the West in a tossup. Despite their recent travails against them, I still believe a healthy Clippers squad has the potential to give the Warriors a hell of a series. Blake Griffin is playing much better basketball since he came back from knee injury in late January. DeAndre Jordan is still a problem for any team on the glass, and Chris Paul is still capable of being the best player on the court in any game.
So I would warn anyone who is quick to write-off LA because of these last couple of games to not be so hasty. This is most likely the Clippers last chance of winning a title with the this core group of players, and we haven’t seen them play their best basketball yet this year. It’s easy to look some of the up-and-coming teams like the Rockets and Jazz and proclaim them the rightful contenders to the Western Conference elite, but the Clips have the talent and playoff experience to knock off any team that shows weakness in April and May. Don’t expect these battle hardened vets to go out without putting up one hell of a fight.
