LA Clippers: 3 Surprises From the First Eleven Games

LA Clippers Surprise #3: The Incredibly Slow Pace

When Ty Lue took over as head coach of the LA Clippers, one of the things he mentioned repeatedly was pace. He wanted to play at a high rate and get the Clippers out and running.

Well, that hasn’t been the case so far. The Clips rank 27th in the league in pace, not even cracking 98 possessions per game. For what it’s worth, the fastest team in the league is the Washington Wizards, who have 107 possessions per game, almost a full 10 more than LA.

Part of it is their transition game; the Clippers are only scoring 11.3 points per game in the fast break, good for 21st in the league, and 7.9 fewer than the Raptors in first place in the statistic.

They’ve gotten by on the strength of their half-court offense, which is scoring very efficiently, but that’s not always going to be good enough. When the majority of your possessions run to nearly the end of the shot clock, you open yourself up to runs by the other team.

It’s harder to come back from a double digit deficit when you’re playing as slowly as the Clippers are, and I’m very surprised at the pace so far, especially given Coach Lue’s insistence that it would be a focus for his system.

Of course, it’s possible that the Clips are still getting their legs and getting into shape for the season. Maybe this changes, and after another 20 games we’re seeing a springier LA Clippers team. But for now, the catchphrase of the offense is “take your time.”