LA Clippers: Predicting the Record at the End of the Season

The LA Clippers have 33 games left in the season after a 130-104 walloping of the Golden State Warriors that wasn’t as close as the score suggests. The rest of the Clips’ slate is friendlier than the first half in terms of opponents, but the scheduling of the games is no less brutal.

The LA Clippers currently sit at 25-14, which is the second most wins in the Western Conference, but due to weirdness involved with games being postponed in the first half, they sit at 3rd in the Pacific Division and 4th in the Western Conference.

Those standings make it seem more dire than things are; for example, the Lakers and LA Clippers are both 3.5 games out of first place, but because the Clippers have played more games they have a slightly lower win percentage, so they’re technically behind the Lakers.

Can the LA Clippers keep their winning ways going in the second half of the season?

It’s tempting to look at our position in the standings and be pessimistic about the LA Clippers moving forward, but I don’t think that’s fair. Per ESPN, the Clippers have faced the 7th hardest strength of schedule in the league. Of the three teams ahead of us in the standings, Utah has faced the hardest record in the league, Phoenix the 15th and the Lakers the 17th.

The LA Clippers have faced a harder schedule than most and they’re still in the mix for one of the top Western spots. Let’s play a little guessing game, and make predictions on what the record will look like at the end of the year.

The Clippers have six weeks where they play 4 games in 7 days – these are the weeks – these weeks aren’t consecutive, so “week 6” just means the sixth week of the schedule that has 4 games in 7:

1. Pelicans, Mavericks, Mavericks, Hornets
2. Hawks, Spurs, Spurs, 76ers
3. Lakers, Trail Blazers, Suns, Rockets
4. Pistons, Pacers, Pistons, 76ers
5. Timberwolves, Trail Blazers, Grizzlies, Rockets
6. Knicks, Raptors, Hornets, Rockets

The LA Clippers (as well as every team in the league) are good at losing a few games you really don’t expect them to, so I’m very hesitant to predict a clean sweep in any of those weeks. The sixth one, though, I could see them running.

Weeks 1, 2, 4, and 5 I’m seeing them winning three out of four. I don’t want to bet against the Mavericks twice in a row, and weeks 2 and 4 end on a 76ers game that will certainly be difficult. Week 5 is one that probably should be a sweep, but again, there’s always some weird game against a team like the Trail Blazers that the Clips drop. That leaves week 3, which I could easily see being a 2-2 week, with losses to the Lakers and Suns.

If everything goes exactly the way I predict it, those 24 games will have the LA Clippers going 18-6. That’s a bit ambitious, so I’m going to allow for a couple extra games that shouldn’t be losses, but the Clips just don’t show up for. Let’s say 16-8 in those games, which is a winning percentage just a bit higher than they have right now.

The remaining weeks have the LA Clippers playing Milwaukee, Orlando, Denver in one week, New Orleans, Phoenix and Denver in another, Toronto and Los Angeles in the third, and then Oklahoma City on the last day of the season.

Milwaukee, Orlando, Denver is a tough three games in 4 nights, and it comes on the tail of two straight weeks of 4 in 7. I think the tired Clippers drop the Bucks and Nuggets games but beat the Magic.

The Pelicans, Suns, Nuggets game comes after a two day break, at least, and I think the LA Clippers win all three games. The Suns don’t scare me much in the regular season, and the Clips led by as much as 31 in their first matchup before the Suns made a spirited comeback attempt that fell flat.

The Raptors and the Lakers being the only games in an entire week is a lovely bit of rest for the LA Clippers, and I’m never ever going to predict a loss to the Lakers, so 2-0. Finally, the Thunder game at the end of the season could very well feature two teams that don’t really care about the result. Let’s call a weird loss there.

That totals up to a 6-3 record in those games, and I feel fairly comfortable about that. You add that to our predicted record in the other games of the second half, and we’re at a total of 22-11. Combining that with the current record, and I’m predicting a 47-25 record after the last game of the season. In an 82 game season, that’s a 53 to 54 win season, which I think would be a win given the tough scheduling.

What do you think the record ends up being? Make sure to let us know in the comments and on social media, and be sure to bookmark this to either laugh at me or sing my praises when the season is over!