Los Angeles Clippers: Winning Streak Shows Doc Rivers Must Change Rotation

By Aaron Mah | Jan 11, 2016

Dec 12, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers talks with guard Chris Paul (3) during the third quarter against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center. Los Angeles Clippers won 105-100. Mandatory Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports /

Without the presence of Blake Griffin, the Los Angeles Clippers have once again gone streaking. Their impressive play without their star forward, however, should serve as an unspoken indication for change.

It has become somewhat of a Los Angeles Clippers annual tradition: lose one of your two franchise players to a midseason injury, exercise the Ewing theory, go on an unprecedented winning streak, continue that torrid play when said injured star becomes healthy, and rampage into the playoffs with a headwind of momentum only to falter in the postseason when a lack of depth rears its ugly head.

Sure enough, this season is following the same exact script. More specifically, the Clippers have gone streaking since Blake Griffin went down with a bummed quadriceps some two weeks ago — recently extending their winning streak to nine over the weekend.

Without Griffin — a consensus top-5 power forward in the association — the Clippers have been able to maximize their spacing on the offensive end by going small and spreading the floor with a four-out one-in alignment.

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By surrounding the Chris Paul–DeAndre Jordan high pick-and-roll with a battalion of shooters, the Clippers have the right concoction of ingredients to effectively adhere to the modern day principles of pace-and-space basketball. Not surprisingly, the secondary tenants at the Staples Center sport the third most efficient offense in the league over the last nine games, ranking third in the NBA in both offensive rating and effective field goal percentage during that stretch.

Moreover, the play and the numbers of Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan, and J.J. Redick have gone to another stratosphere since Griffin’s injury — thriving with the extra touches and conducive offensive environment emitted by the absence of their 20-feet and in, high usage forward.

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But if their results of seasons past are of any indication, the Clippers should continue their fine play once they integrate Big Bad Blake back into the mix. Once the playoffs hit, however, the team will crumble under the bright lights as their bench fails to produce yet again.

Which begs the question: What can head coach Doc Rivers do differently this year to prevent history from repeating itself?

If their annual winning streak without either Griffin or Paul has taught us anything, it is that the Clippers can succeed without one of their two stars — in fact, the fluidity and spacing of their offense improves incrementally when they either complement the Paul-Jordan pick-and-roll, or the Blake Griffin pinch post iso, with a bevy of role-playing snipers.

There’s no denying the Clippers house one of the best starting 5s — or should I say “starting 4” and whoever just so happens to start at the small forward position — in the league. By no means do the Clippers struggle when Paul, Redick, Griffin, and Jordan share the floor.

However, to ameliorate their perpetual issue of bench depth, instead of overhauling their entire second unit every offseason, why not try staggering Griffin’s and Paul’s minutes and ensure that one of them is on the floor at all times?

According to NBAWowy!, Blake has only played approximately 27.9 percent of his minutes this season without CP3 on the floor, and this does not account for the games Chris missed in the beginning of the season when he was fighting through a laundry list of maladies.

Explicitly, Doc has a propensity to deploy wholesale changes when he goes to his bench, making hockey-style line substitutions whenever he gives his starting 5 a breather.

When Griffin, whose return is still “weeks away,” per Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times, makes his way back on an NBA court, Rivers has to exercise an untapped experiment: take Griffin out perhaps at the six minute commercial timeout mark, insert Paul Pierce to act as the stretch-4 until the end of the quarter, and insert Blake Superior back into the game with the likes of Austin Rivers, Jamal Crawford, Wesley Johnson, and/or Pablo Prigioni/Cole Aldrich.

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At the end of the day, Doc has to try something, because as nice as their mini-winning streak is for the team morale, their play still pales in comparison to the upper tier of the Western Conference — namely, the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs.

To be taken seriously as a title contender in a year where the Dubs and the Spurs are winning at a historic pace, the Clippers have to strengthen their bench, and staggering Blake Griffin’s minutes in conjunction with the second unit’s may just be the “doctor’s” remedy.

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