No. 2 LA Clipper who needs to step up with Kawhi Leonard out: Marcus Morris
Marcus Morris is going to have to be the Morris he was in Game 4 of this series offensively, and he needs to step up defensively if the LA Clippers want to win this series.
The Jazz have some pretty good offensive players on the wings if you haven’t heard. Jordan Clarkson just won Sixth Man of the Year, and Donovan Mitchell is a rising superstar who needs no other introduction.
In fact, Mitchell has been averaging an absurd 37.3 points per game while shooting a good .468 clip from the field and draining 45.1% of his three-point shots. He’s a lot to handle.
So, regardless of whether Morris is going to pick him up or not, a lot of the Clippers’ attention in general will be on Mitchell. Therefore, in whatever Morris’ assignments will be, he’ll need to be better with Kawhi out.
Kawhi isn’t there to help out with Mitchell and the Jazz offense runs through him. That means everybody will need to lock-in on defense, and that applies to Morris in particular as a veteran who’s one of the better defensive players on the team.
And offensively, he played great in Game 4, nailing 5 of 6 threes and finishing with an outstanding 24 points. Those types of performances need to happen more often than not if the Clips want to win this series. Morris is important.