Buy or Sell? The LA Clippers Are Bad in the Clutch
This issue really started gaining traction in the last handful of games for the LA Clippers. Just a bit before the All-Star Break, we started hearing “The Clippers aren’t clutch. They crumble when the game is close.”
To an extent, this is another concern that’s a little bit overblown. Some of the statistics you hear about the LA Clippers in crunch time lack context at best, or are intentionally misleading at worst. Citing per-game stats when some teams have double the clutch minutes per game as the Clips is a headline grabber that forgoes honesty in favor of a headline.
Failing to mention that some of these clutch games didn’t feature at least one of our stars, or features a serious rest imbalance. If Kawhi Leonard and Paul George aren’t playing and it’s our fourth game in six days, it doesn’t shock me that the clutch stats don’t look good. That’s the kind of context that’s needed.
That said. Even when you normalize for minutes and look at rate statistics, the picture isn’t great. The LA Clippers are still a bottom-third team when it comes to ball movement, rebounding and defense in the clutch. Some of that is explainable by rest, but not all of it.
Ty Lue has a reputation – mostly because he said it himself – for running his system for the first three and a half quarters, then letting the stars run the show when the rubber meets the road. That’s going to lead to less ball movement than you’re seeing throughout the rest of the game, and the offense will grind to a halt. And if the offense isn’t clicking, the defense starts to slip.
That said times two. Lue has also been up front that he’s only implemented less than half of his system, and that there’s more to come. So we’re keeping our eyes on this, but it’s not a huge concern to us. We’re BUYING on this concern, but only secondhand, at a discounted price.