LA’s defense finally looks scary
The LA Clippers have been defined by their offense this year. Coming into Thursday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs, LA had the league’s second-highest offensive rating, and before the Houston Rockets and Washington Wizards combined for 300+ Wednesday night, LA’s 141 points posted against the Golden State Warriors were the highest of the young season.
In some ways, it was strange. Over the summer, the Clippers were labeled as the league’s premier defensive team, which makes sense considering they had just added two-way stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to the roster.
Of course, George has not been able to play yet, but the Clippers’ team defense has been struggling — something that was not supposed to be happening, even without him.
It finally started to show during Thursday’s meeting with the San Antonio Spurs.
LA held San Antonio to a season-low 97 points, far below their previous low of 113. Just about every player had a hand in limiting their possessions and forcing tough looks, too.
Leonard had a stellar game, as is expected of him. Not only did he pick up four steals on the night, but he played a role in holding Rudy Gay to 3-of-10 shooting and made contributions elsewhere as well.
Ivica Zubac also had an impressive game defensively, helping hold LaMarcus Aldridge to just five points — far below his season average of 21.3 per game.
In total, the Spurs committed 18 turnovers. And while not all of them were forced, the Clippers did manage to pick up eight steals in the game and limited San Antonio to 33.3 percent shooting from three-point range.
Most importantly, though, there was an obvious intensity on that end of the floor that had been lacking in almost all of the games that came before it. Against the Spurs, the Clippers were quick to make their switches and rarely gave up much space between themselves and their opponent. That was something they had failed to do against the Phoenix Suns, Charlotte Hornets and Utah Jazz, which ended up resulting in losses in two out of three games.
If this Clippers defense is for real, opposing teams should start to worry about how they’re going to win games against them. LA is already one of the best scoring teams in the league — if they figure out defense, losses will be few and far between.