One Player the LA Clippers Can Expose on Each West Contender
LA Clippers’ Target on the Utah Jazz: Bojan Bogdanovic
If the Utah Jazz and the LA Clippers meet in the playoffs. eyes will be on how Donovan Mitchell fares against the Clippers’ defense, and how well Gobert can lock down the paint. But the eyes of the Clippers coaching staff should also be on Bojan Bogdanovic.
Bojan is an offensive spark plug for Utah who hasn’t quite been able to spark against the LA Clippers. In three meetings, Bojan has managed 11.3 points, 2 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 2 turnovers per game on 39.4/33.3/80 shooting splits in 29.9 minutes.
That’s down from his season averages of 15.2 points, 4 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.4 turnovers on 41.9/38.4/86.7 shooting splits in 30.4 minutes. The LA Clippers have found a way to stop Bojan from being a positive on offense, and it’s led to him being a team worst -3.3 against the Clips.
Nobody is going to sing the praises of Bojan on defense; if he’s not scoring well, he’s not contributing to the team. Coach Lue knows this, and if he can keep up the defensive pressure on Bogdanovic, he’ll have an easy target on the other side of the ball. Getting Bojan switched onto Kawhi or Paul George is a solid way to ensure 2 or 3 points to the good guys.
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30 minutes a game of a scorer who can’t score and can’t defend? The LA Clippers will happily exploit that every game, and expose Bojan’s struggles scoring against the Clips. With other solid defenders on the Utah Jazz, the Clippers need to target every weakness they can, and Bojan will certainly be one of those.