Business as usual or grudge match?
Return to Staples Center to face the Clippers recalls postgame drama from previous clash
LOS ANGELES — Back when the Rockets were thought to have infiltrated some “secret” Staples Center passageway into the Clippers’ locker room, prompting days of memes and jokes, a pair of two-game suspensions and ESPN’s heavyweight championship-worthy hype of the grudge rematch, Wednesday’s return loomed as the chance to go through the front door to avenge the loss and everything that came with it.
Having since swept February, the emotions of that mid-January night against the Clippers no longer seem quite so relevant. Maybe they never were, or were just left in Los Angeles along with the postgame buffet kept in that hallway that was a “secret” only to those who have never entered the Staples Center visitors’ locker room.
With the Rockets returning to face the Clippers on Wednesday, storylines have lost some of their appeal, at least compared to the
effort to push the winning streak to 14 games to match the streak from early in the season, or to take the next step in the road trip’s tour of possible first-round matchups after nights at Denver and Utah.
Yet, it seems likely that hard feelings won’t be buried too far beneath the surface.
“Another game,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said. “They changed their team. We changed our team. Another game.”
The Clippers have changed much more than the Rockets, though James Harden was out that night in Los Angeles, and Joe Johnson and Brandan Wright had not yet signed on. For the Clippers, DeAndre Jordan and Austin Rivers were out but are now back. Blake Griffin has since been traded to Detroit. Tobias Harris, who had 27 points against the Rockets while with the Pistons, now starts in the Clippers’ frontcourt.
Both teams have more important goals than showing up the other, with the Clippers trying to work their way into the playoff pack and the Rockets trying to stay in front of Golden State for the NBA’s best record and the Western Conference’s top seed.
Let’s recap
Still, if the trash talk from the end of the Clippers’ bench returns, the acrimony that was so clear that night would be difficult to avoid. Rivers and Pat Beverley, out with injuries, kept up a running dialogue in the previous meeting as Los Angeles took an emotionally charged 113-102 win and Rockets forwards Trevor Ariza and Gerald Green drew suspensions for venturing into the Clippers’ locker room. Harden and Chris Paul followed them, but they were ruled to be “peacemakers” and avoided a penalty. When Green and Ariza talked about the incident in the days that followed, neither seemed particularly agitated by anything other than the media coverage.
Yet, it could be worth considering the Rockets’ thoughts about the rematch.
“They were talking crazy throughout the game,” guard Eric Gordon said afterward. “Yeah, they were playing well. We just didn’t like how it ended. All those guys were talking big. Things happen. We’re going to remember it, though.”
The Rockets had issues then that went beyond hard feelings or even Harden’s seven-game absence. The loss was their third in six games, with the defense slipping badly.
The way D’Antoni described the Rockets’ play at the time seems more uncharacteristic than the purported invasion of the home locker room.
“Our flame has been doused a little bit,” he said that night. “We need to turn up the burner.”
The Rockets have gone 17-1 since, a run blemished only by a two-point loss in New Orleans. In that stretch, the Rockets have had the top-rated offense (tied with the Warriors) and sixth-rated defense in the NBA.
With a 13-game winning streak to go with the 14-game run in November and December, they have become just the 10th team in NBA history to have multiple winning streaks of at least 13 games in the same season.
Paul’s return a reminder
The Clippers, for all their changes, had gone 9-6 prior to Tuesday’s game at Denver since their 11-point win over the Rockets. As much as they had made a run into playoff contention then, that would seem even more the priority now. But if anyone had forgotten the events of that Jan. 15 game, Paul’s return to Staples Center will offer all the reminder anyone needs.
“It’s always like that when you hoop, especially when you’re playing against a former team and all the emotions that go into it, seeing the familiar faces,” Paul said in January.
It will not be discussed now, according to D’Antoni. It won’t have to be. The Rockets’ run since they left Los Angeles will provide ample motivation as they return. No one would be surprised if extra feelings surface, but they would come with a sense of how much has changed .
“They know,” D’Antoni said. “We’ll be up because we won 13 (consecutive games). There will be that emotion. There won’t have to be anything else.”