The LA Clippers have absolutely owned the Portland Trail Blazers as of late, sweeping them in each of the last two years.
7-0 against them since that start of the 2019-2020 season, the Clippers are going to be playing them here in LA tonight on a nationally televised game (NBA TV).
Interestingly, they play them again on the road on Friday, and will have our season series against them finished up by December 6th. We’re getting all of our games against them out quickly, and so we will likely not have Kawhi Leonard back for any of them. To be able to sweep the Blazers with no Leonard, we’ll need to nail these three things:
No. 3 thing the LA Clippers need to do to sweep the Portland Trail Blazers again: Apply ball pressure on defense
The LA Clippers have been getting torched by great opposing point guards so far this season, and we have Damian Lillard up across from us this time.
One thing we had success against great point guards with last year was sending Patrick Beverley to put a ton of ball pressure on ballhandlers. Not that the Clippers haven’t been aggressive this year, but they need to take it to another level.
They need to emphasize ball pressure throughout defensive possessions. The only team averaging less turnovers per game than the Blazers is us. The Blazers are a team that can hang with us in the turnover battle.
We need to apply as much pressure as we can to try to force turnovers on an offense that has done a great job protecting the ball so far.