Things continue to look up for the mile- high Clippers
George has another big night with 23 points but Leonard exits late after injury.
Christmas in Denver was never going to be entirely about the ghosts of matchups past for the Clippers. There was enough to focus on in the present already.
A sore knee led starting forward Marcus Morris to miss his f ifth straight game Friday, preseason included, with coach Tyronn Lue continuing to call Morris — the team’s four- year, $ 64- million man in free agency — “day to day.” The road trip was also the team’s f irst, which meant adjusting to restrictive, new NBA protocols governing life on the road. Instead of a group Christmas Eve dinner, there was a meal in a to- go box.
If Clippers players framed Friday’s 121- 108 win — the teams’ f irst meeting since Denver ended the Clippers’ season in September by clawing back from a 3- 1 second- round series deficit — as payback of any sort, Lue said he had not heard it.
“Can’t worry about what happened last year,” Lue said. “Just got to continue to move forward.”
When asked to ref lect on last season’s bitter end, the Clippers consistently have called this a new team focused on a new season. Yet it cannot be overstated how hitting rock bottom during September’s collapse shaped the very Clippers roster that arrived for its mile- high matchup Friday.
A loss in the second round might have spurred changes on its own, but the embarrassment suffered by the Clippers against the Nuggets virtually guaranteed that consequences would be paid for throughout the organization.
By dismissing Doc Rivers and promoting his former assistant Lue, the Clippers hired a coach whose f ingerprints were clearly evident Friday. Lue has promised better ball movement since his f irst official day on the job; Los Angeles assisted on 20 of its f irst 23 baskets en route to a 21- point thirdquarter lead.
Lue also has displayed a willingness to let the Clippers attack from three- point range, and the team responded by making 19 of 38 three- pointers.
One f irst- half threepointer was contributed by Serge Ibaka, the kind of center with deep- shooting range the team targeted after seeing how little Denver was bothered by rotations that relied heavily on center Montrezl Harrell, a specialist at getting to the rim. Luke Kennard, a bouncy reserve guard the team believed was an upgrade from Landry Shamet, made two of his first three from deep. Just as in September, there was little the Clippers could do to disrupt the rhythm of Nuggets star center Nikola Jokic, who coaxed early foul trouble out of Ibaka and backup Ivica Zubac and had attempted 10 free throws by midway through the third quarter, which helped cut the Clippers’ lead to 16 points.
But unlike in Game 7 of the second round, there was also little the Nuggets could do to throw off Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Coming off a 33- point game in Tuesday’s season- opening victory against the Lakers, George scored a team- high 23 points with nine assists and five rebounds and Leonard added 21 points with seven assists and five rebounds.
Leonard left the game in the fourth quarter when he took an inadvertent elbow to the mouth from Ibaka. Leonard was evaluated by the team medical staff after the game with Lue saying “he’s going to be fine.”
More than just his statistics, Leonard continued to display the speed and physicality he lacked for the f irst several months of last season while recovering from offseason surgery.
“I think it was hard on him,” Lue said. “I just talked to him [ this offseason] about playing with pace. His pace has been phenomenal in the first game and in practice, being able to use his frame and his strength to get downhill, create mismatches.”
The difference was easily noticeable. So was the way in which these teams will be inexorably connected throughout this season.
Though Denver coach Michael Malone said before tipoff that his team was more concerned about its struggles during a seasonopening loss to Sacramento than “the story” of the Clippers rematch, the memories of September were nonetheless fresh and the motivation for both sides palpable — and that was even with former Clipper JaMychal Green, who joined Denver as a free agent despite the Clippers’ attempt to re- sign him, sidelined because of a calf injury.
“The Clippers were talking a lot when they were winning, when they were up,” Malone said in a video published by the Nuggets before tipoff. “They weren’t talking as much in Game 5, 6 and 7.”
Instead, the Clippers’ bench was yelling Friday, as the lead grew to 24 late in the third quarter after George’s fifth three- pointer.