LA Clippers chemistry needs to improve to win NBA title
Minnesota Timberwolves visit the LA Clippers in an NBA Primetime clash, live on Sky Sports Mix on Saturday at 8:30pm
Monday 3 February 2020 07:06, UK
Despite rarely having their best line-up on the floor together this season, the LA Clippers have only lost 15 games so far, and are currently in a tussle for the second seed in the Western Conference.
Having such a good record despite missing key players could be seen as good news, but taking a closer look at those losses, especially ahead of Saturday's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, there are concerns.
Of those losses, seven have come against teams that are under .500 on the season. You expect some nights to be tough, especially against the Utah Jazz, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Denver Nuggets, but the majority of the Clippers' losses against winning teams are on back-to-back nights or when LA's best are not on the teamsheet.
But losing to the Phoenix Suns, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Chicago Bulls, the Atlanta Hawks and the Sacramento Kings - as well as others failing to keep a positive win-loss record - shows that the team still has issues focusing, and is playing down to its competition.
When The Athletic's Jovan Buha and Sam Amick wrote about some chemistry issues on the Clippers, especially with their top stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George regularly sitting out managing their load, the team's key defensive pest Patrick Beverley was quick to shoot it down.
This might be a case of protesting too much.
In the team's most recent losses, Leonard sat out against the Kings, and a few games previous against the Hawks, head coach Doc Rivers was without Leonard, George, and Beverley.
At the start of the season, a number of pundits had the LA Clippers as the team to beat in the Western Conference. In many ways, this is still the case, as they are 14-3 with George and Leonard on the roster.
But the Western Conference is no cakewalk. The in-arena rivals, the Lakers have made their conference-leading record a relatively comfortable affair, but alongside the Clippers are tough and rising Denver Nuggets, the defensive Utah Jazz, the offensive Houston Rockets, the exciting Dallas Mavericks and the surprising Oklahoma City Thunder.
There are just five losses separating that group - the only easy first round in the playoffs at present is to secure the number one spot.
While many have expressed concerns about the Lakers' stars over-playing, the chemistry that team has built is becoming legendary. Speaking to ESPN's Zach Lowe, forward Danny Green said the team in purple and gold is the closest he has experienced - this is a man who played on the NBA-title winning Spurs team in 2014, and the Toronto Raptors squad that won a championship last season.
Those teams were revered for their welcoming attitudes and supportive infrastructure. Those things matter, especially at the very highest levels of competition that the Clippers hope to reach.
What makes it worse, is that Coach Rivers will find it difficult to know who to play. Of the five-man line-ups that have played at least 10 games together, Leonard and Paul feature in two that have had a positive effect on the basketball court. Alongside Montrezl Harrel, Lou Williams and Beverley, they have beaten their opponents by an average of just 1.8 points. And when you replace Harrell and Williams with Ivica Zubac and Mo Harkless, it improves slightly to a positive outcome of 2.0.
That is not a very positive result, and it will not be enough against the elite teams. However, it is not a great sample size to judge anything on.
The Clippers will reach the playoffs, and when they do, Rivers will be coaching on the fly, which is why they need the highest seed possible. But to do that, they need to beat the teams that should be easy to beat, which is what makes the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves so much more enticing.
