Is Something Wrong With The Los Angeles Clippers?
Premature panic button alert, and not just because Blake Griffin is sporting a porn ‘stache these days.
Three games is hardly a large enough sample size to judge the Los Angeles Clippers by, but after a surprisingly bad preseason and an underwhelming start to the 2014-15 campaign, Lob City definitely has some areas for improvement.
It feels convenient to write those words following a disappointing 98-92 loss to the lowly Sacramento Kings on Sunday, but the truth is this team hasn’t looked like the contender it’s pegged to be since the start of preseason.
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It’s not that the Clips’ mediocre play has come back to hurt them. With a 2-1 record, Los Angeles is currently situated at No. 7 in the Western Conference standings. Even if they were 0-3, Lob City would still be just fine since, again, we’re three games into the freaking season. But with the Oklahoma City Thunder missing their two best players and the San Antonio Spurs as old as they’ve ever been, this is the perfect opportunity for the Clippers to make their move.
So far, they haven’t shown they’re ready to rise to the occasion.
In the preseason, Lob City went 2-6, tied with the Denver Nuggets and Philadelphia 76ers for the worst record in the league. They gave up 107.9 points per contest and had a point differential of -8.5. Matt Barnes couldn’t make a shot, the bench struggled to produce outside of Jamal Crawford and Spencer Hawes and a little bit of doubt began to creep in. Still, preseason play isn’t a huge cause for concern.
Then again, it becomes a concern when poor preseason play translates into mediocre regular season play. In their season opener, the Clippers faced an OKC team that was missing Kevin Durant and lost Russell Westbrook in the second quarter due to a fractured hand. Yet somehow, Los Angeles let the Thunder hang around and barely escaped with a three-point win against a team headlined by Serge Ibaka and Perry Jones.
Chris Paul and Blake Griffin did their part, combining for 45 points on 17-of-36 shooting. But J.J. Redick went 1-for-10 for the field and the Clips had only one other player — Jamal Crawford — who reached double figures. Los Angeles also missed 23 three-pointers and got out-rebounded 47-33 in the game.
One bad debut isn’t a big deal though, right? After all, an ugly win is better than a pretty loss. But in the second game of the season, the Clippers once again played down to their competition, barely beating the Los Angeles Lakers in a game that required a fourth quarter comeback. The Clippers actually trailed after three quarters and the defense gave up 111 points to their short-handed inner city rivals.
Still, the Clippers were 2-0 with another 80 games to round back into championship-contending form. But then Sunday’s loss to the Kings showed us how far Lob City has to go.
Griffin struggled with his shot, going 6-for-20 from the floor. Chris Paul finished with a 16-11 double-double and Spencer Hawes had 17 points off the bench, but nobody else stepped up for a team that’s increasingly looking like it doesn’t have enough depth to win the West.
Clippers screwed if anything happens to Jamal Crawford or J.J. Redick on the wing. Don’t know if Barnes is hurt but he’s officially lost.
— Aaron Bruski (@aaronbruski) November 3, 2014
So far, DeAndre Jordan hasn’t been able to step up on the offensive end. Barnes has been largely ineffective, Crawford missed Sunday’s game with a rib injury and Chris Douglas-Roberts hasn’t had much of an impact on either end of the court. Redick bounced back from his awful season opener, but the Clippers are still shooting 30.2 percent from three-point range on the season (22nd in the league).
After Jordan led the NBA in rebounding last season, the Clippers are averaging a league-worst 34.5 rebounds per game and have been out-boarded 133-104 through three games. Their defense is giving up 100.5 points per game (18th in the league) and the offense is shooting just 43 percent from the field as a team. A few months after being the league’s highest scoring offense, the Clippers rank 15th at 101 points per game.
Again, this early in the season, any trends we’re seeing are completely fixable within the context of an 82-game season. But since all we have to go off of so far are eight meaningless preseason games and three underwhelming regular season contests, it’s worth noting that right now, the Clippers have a long way to go if they want to be Western Conference favorites.