Clippers: How to win frontcourt battle at Golden State without Serge Ibaka

The LA Clippers will be without Serge Ibaka tomorrow night against the Golden State Warriors.

Serge Ibaka was likely not going to start, but he’s an important player for this team considering he’s one of very few true big men that we have. He may not be the starter, but he is a quick big who is still a good shot blocker and can stretch the floor due to his athleticism and three-point shot.

The Warriors, however, like to go small quite a bit. This is likely to be especially true with two of their bigs out for the game themselves. The Warriors will be without both Center James Wiseman and Power Forward Jonathan Kuminga.

The LA Clippers may be able to win the frontcourt batter at Golden State a little easier than people think.

The LA Clippers not having Serge Ibaka is not good at all, but the Clippers don’t need bigs to beat Golden State’s frontcourt.

In the Warriors’ first game, they came out with this starting lineup:

PG: Steph Curry

SG: Jordan Poole

SF: Andrew Wiggins

PF: Draymond Green

C: Kevon Looney

To combat this, the Clippers will likely come out with this lineup:

PG/SG: Eric Bledsoe

PG/SG: Reggie Jackson

SF: Paul George

PF: Marcus Morris Sr.

C: Ivica Zubac

Well, as far as the small forward position goes, George is leaps and bounds better than Wiggins. Morris is certainly not at Green’s level, but the Clips have the advantage at center in Zubac.

Zubac is our worst frontcourt starter, but he may not even be needed all that much. The Warriors played Looney 15 minutes in Game 1. In fact, those 15 minutes are the only minutes the Dubs played a center at all.

They like to go small, and if they want to, the Clippers can play that game as well. They can swap Zubac out of lineups with many different players like Nicolas Batum or Terance Mann. They’re wing-heavy, so they can match up with Golden State if they want to be wing-heavy themselves.

If the Clippers only need a big man in there to defend a Warrior center for 15 minutes, Ibaka may not even be all that needed. We’d still love to use him, and are better with him, but this isn’t a matchup where he’s as necessary as he’d be in some other matchups.

The reason Ibaka would be valuable in this matchup is that the Clippers could have a length advantage throughout the whole game. Looney may not be in there for too long, and the Clippers could have a big man in as long as they’d want if Ibaka was still in the picture.

Also, Looney’s only 6’9″ anyway. The Clippers would be towering over the Warriors if they had Ibaka. Sure, Ibaka’s just one inch taller than Looney, but he’s got the length of someone seemingly about sixth inches taller than Looney.

But once again, however, having a lot of size on the court isn’t necessary to beat a smaller team like the Warriors.

It’s going to be good competition. The Warriors looked good in their first game against who many are picking to win the Western Conference in the Los Angeles Lakers. That being said, the Clippers are great at playing Golden State’s ‘small ball’ style of basketball, and can absolutely keep up with their talented squad.