Defense on right track
Now, the Clippers say, they have seen the resurgence of their once vaunted defense. Now, the Clippers say, they are back to trusting their defensive principles. Now, the Clippers say, they are poised to finish out the regular season being a defensive-oriented team.
“Defensively our trust has never been higher,” Blake Griffin said late Tuesday night after the Clippers defeated the Lakers by 24 points. “And I think I talked about this our last game, but just our talk has been at times phenomenal.
“We’re kind of erring on the side of over-help. That’s important, making teams kind of do what you want instead of letting them dictate what you do.”
The Clippers’ defensive revival is over a small sample size and comes with a rather large caveat.
Over the last three games the Clippers defense has given up 97.3 points per game. The three wins, though, have come against less than stellar competition.
The first victory was over a Cleveland Cavaliers team that rested LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
The next two victories, over the New York Knicks and Lakers, were against two opponents that won’t get a whiff of the playoffs and have two of the worst records in the NBA.
But, to be sure, the Clippers are communicating better on defense, and that has helped tie them together.
“It’s absolutely necessary for us to get back to how we started the season,” Griffin said about a 14-2 start in which the Clippers were one of the league’s top defensive teams.
“The talk just eliminates the small errors, eliminates the times when you get stuck and nobody rotates or something like that. Nobody knows who’s behind them. It eliminates all that. So that’s important for us.”
Bench impressive
Tuesday’s win against the Lakers was another game in which Clippers Coach Doc Rivers was impressed with how his bench performed.
Rivers couldn’t argue with how his substitutes combined for 57 of the team’s 133 points and 21 of the 48 rebounds.
Austin Rivers (18 points), Jamal Crawford (15), Marreese Speights (10) and Brandon Bass (10) were the primary scorers.
Speights also did work on the backboards, collecting seven rebounds.
“In the past, when the starters have played well, the bench will come in and think it’s an offensive contest,” Rivers said. “Tonight, they came in and got stops, and realized if they get stops, they even score more.”
To rest or not rest
When the Clippers play at Dallas on Thursday, Rivers said he had “not yet” made up his mind about resting any of his players for the game against the Mavericks.
“Right now everyone is going on the trip,” Rivers said Tuesday night. “But we’ll decide on the plane after we email the commissioner.”
That would be NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who sent a memo to owners expressing his dismay with teams resting players for games.
“No, I’m just joking,” Rivers continued. “That’s not true. You can’t even joke about that right now.