LA Clippers: Defense Needs to Perform Again Vs. the Warriors

The LA Clippers take on the Golden State Warriors in a rematch. If they want to pull out another win, they’ll need another good performance from the defense

After gutting out a 108-101 win against the Warriors on Wednesday, the LA Clippers are looking to repeat that performance tonight. While the offense will, of course, have to be clicking, the Clips will really be relying on another big game from their defense.

Warriors superstar Stephen Curry, who is averaging 30 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds on the season, was held to 13 points on 5-17 shooting (1-6 from deep). The good guys accomplished this mostly by never giving Curry room to breathe.

Double teams, traps, Patrick Beverley, the Clippers threw everything they had at Steph, and it worked. By taking the ball out of his hands, the Clips forced players like Draymond, Oubre and Wiggins to beat them. And while Wiggins seems like he always has good games against us, you take that over making Steph beat you.

They’ll have to do it again tonight, and I expect Steve Kerr to be ready for it. The obvious thing I’m afraid of is more Curry-Wiseman pick and rolls. The LA Clippers have been very switchy on defense, but we can’t afford to switch Ibaka onto Curry on the perimeter.

I’m sure Lue would be ready to adjust to that; he’s too smart and too good of a coach to let something that simple beat him. It will be an interesting chess match to watch Lue and Kerr figure out just what to do with Stephen Curry.

Another problem Lue might have to face is the defensive performance of the second unit. It’s been stated over and over again, but it bears repeating. The Warriors’ starters were all negatives in plus/minus last game. Meanwhile, four out of the 6 bench players for Golden State were positives.

Meanwhile, for the Clippers, Reggie Jackson was the only bench player to see more than 1 minute and register a plus/minus above zero (Kabengele was a positive but he saw exactly one minute, and Zubac was at a net zero).

The answer might be even more staggering. He’s been great at that already, but it might need to ramp into hyperdrive, especially with Marcus Morris being willing to take on a non-starting role. The Clips can’t afford to lose the minutes that Curry sits.

We’ll see if the LA Clippers can keep up the defensive effort tonight. If they can, I expect another notch in the win column.