Rivers says Clippers season is "the strangest thing" he's ever seen.
Monday 9 December 2019 11:14, UK
The Los Angeles Clippers are finding their form a third of the way into this season, despite bizarre circumstances, according to coach Doc Rivers.
Two days after their worst loss of the season, the Clippers bounced back with a commanding 135-119 win in Washington on Sunday.
While the team has been adjusting to the addition of Paul George, who was recovering from double-shoulder surgery to start the season, and the "load-management" resting of Kawhi Leonard, it has stumbled to the second-best record in the Western Conference.
"I think our chemistry is really good, but I don't think we're playing well yet as a group - that's two different things," said Rivers. "Usually those things go hand-in-hand. They don't this year because (although) we're around each other a lot, we just don't play with each other a lot. It's really the strangest thing I've ever seen."
Kawhi Leonard had 34 points and 11 rebounds, while Paul George scored 27 points and Montrezl Harrell had nine of his 20 in the fourth quarter for Los Angeles, which improved to 4-6 away from home, two games into their six-game trip.
The victory came two days after Los Angeles, now second in the Western Conference, opened the trip with a 119-91 loss at East-leading Milwaukee.
"I think the key to it is just getting more games, more times on the court," said George, one of several Clippers who battled early-season injuries while searching for team chemistry. "That's really the only way we're going to learn to trust, learn to play with confidence with one another, and learn to play together."
After seeing Leonard and George held to just 30 points combined against the Bucks, this time the Clippers frustrated one of the NBA's elite scorers, holding Bradley Beal to 20 points on 5-for-18 shooting.
Nine of Beal's points came from the foul line, and the Wizards' 30 foul shots were three more than the Clippers had. But Beal believed he and his team-mates got the short end.
While the Clippers were making progress, the Wizards wanted the refs to make more calls.
"It's completely unfair and unacceptable," Beal said of the refereeing, "that they allow a lot of stuff to go on with me out there and not get calls. Period."
Washington's bench kept the game competitive for more than three quarters. Davis Bertans tied his season-high with 25 points, including six three-pointers. Troy Brown Jr. scored a career-high 20 points.
The Wizards earned three of the games' five technical fouls, with Bertans even picking one up from the bench and Ish Smith picking up his during the fourth quarter.
"When Ish gets a tech, I know something's going on," said Wizards coach Scott Brooks, who received the other Wizards technical. "That guy's is the nicest guy on the planet. He gets a technical by just telling a referee to call it the same on the other end. But we've got to play through it."
Los Angeles closed the game with a 22-10 run, including a stretch when Leonard and Harrell combined to score 17 consecutive points.
Leonard turned his 10th defensive rebound into a transition dunk and unconventional four-point play after absorbing a personal foul and Smith's technical to make it 121-109.
Later, he added a reverse layup and a pull-up jumper to stretch the lead to 125-112. Harrell followed with a thunderous baseline dunk and three-point play, and then another layup to make it 130-114.
"We found mismatches and just kind of put the game away," George said.
