In a sadly familiar performance, the LA Clippers blew another big halftime lead against the Nuggets, losing 111-98
It happened again. The LA Clippers came out firing on all cylinders early, leading by as many as 19 points and taking a 16 point lead into the half. Then, the tire fire started. After scoring 63 points in the first half, they could only manage 35 points in the whole second half, while giving up 64 to the Nuggets.
If you’re one of the Clippers fans bemoaning our rotations in Game 5, in which Montrezl Harrell saw a lot of negative minutes in a series which does not play to his strengths, this game was torture for you.
Harrell saw 15 minutes of playtime and was a -19. JaMychal Green was hot in the first quarter, then cooled off. Ivica Zubac was the only positive plus-minus on the team, but the big man only saw 30 minutes on the court.
Coach Doc Rivers may have been looking at a different plus-minus than the rest of us. Speaking to the media afterward, Doc said:
"If you go by plus-minus, I don’t think either of our 5s were effective tonight."
He would go on to say that the game film suggested poor performance from both centers.
And sure, a +11 for Zubac isn’t exactly world breaking. But it’s just a bit better than -19 and -10 from Trezz and JaMychal. The only big who gave Nikola Jokic much of a fight was Zubac; Jokic can just see straight over the top of Trezz.
There were certainly other issues plaguing the Clippers. Lou Williams, Landry Shamet and Marcus Morris combined to shoot 6-19 from the field, 2-9 from three. As a team, LA shot 37% from three as a team, compared to the Nuggets at 48%.
The Nuggets shot better than the Clippers. They got more rebounds, they fouled less and the turnovers were similar. Looking at the stats, you wouldn’t guess that there was a 19 point Clipper lead at any point in the ball game.
But Doc’s rotations have to be at the forefront of the conversation. The story is familiar: the starters build a lead, the reserves come in and lose the lead, and then the starters have to try to reclaim it. And in the past two games, the starters haven’t been able to reclaim it.
Look, the Clippers are a deep team. There’s a lot of talent that can come in as a backup. But it’s not showing up right now, and it’s up to Doc to recognize that. Failure to do so last game lost the Clippers an incredible Kawhi game, and failure to do so this game lost us a big Paul George game (33 points, 6 rebounds, 5 steals, 3 assists).
In the playoffs, we can’t afford to waste these great performances, but that’s what the team has done the past two games. We need Doc to recognize what is working and what is seriously not working.
Game 7 is on Tuesday at 7:00 PM Eastern. Happy thoughts to all of us watching it.