Missing the shots they usually hit
The Clippers were the last team in the NBA to tip off their season when they arrived in San Francisco on Thursday. Now, they’re just like everyone else — trying to find ways to improve after opening night.
Four takeaways from their 115113 loss to Golden State:
The decisive drought
The Clippers extended their lead to 98-90 with 10:36 to play but didn’t score for the next six minutes. Those 11 offensive possessions changed the game, and rewatching the sequence could drive coach Tyronn Lue to annoyance and also make him feel better for the same reason: The Clippers generated quality, open shots. They just didn’t make them.
Marcus Morris — statistically the second-most accurate threepoint shooter in the NBA last season — missed three three-pointers with a defender well away from him. The last look was made possible by Eric Bledsoe’s drive, which tilted the defense away from Morris, the exact kind of play they sought when they traded for Bledsoe.
Last season, Reggie Jackson made 42% of his three-pointers taken in the shot clock’s final four seconds. He took two such shots in Thursday’s decisive stretch and missed both. Running to the top of the arc, Luke Kennard took a pass and fired a deep three, which missed. He made 45% of his zerodribble threes last season.
Steph on it
After nine days off and playing lineups Lue said weren’t used during practices because of Nicolas Batum’s late scratch for personal reasons, the Clippers weren’t sharp defensively to start. They lost Stephen Curry at times on back cuts and even after made baskets when they could set their defense, en route to him scoring 25 first-quarter points.
“We told them, ‘You can’t relax. He’ll shoot it from anywhere. The best shooter of all time,’ ” Lue said.
But there were encouraging signs. Golden State grabbed 53 rebounds, 15 more than the Clippers, but only 10 were offensive. The Warriors can be turnover-prone, and one-fifth of their possessions ended in a turnover, 21 in all. The Clippers committed only seven.
Something foul
There was a confidence about Jackson before tipoff as he walked to the locker room after his pregame routine, bumping fists. But the guard struggled to re-create the dynamic offensive performances that turned him into a postseason hero last summer. He missed all five shots before halftime, was two for 13 after three quarters and finished four for 19.
Like Paul George, he didn’t shoot a single free throw, at one point snapping at an official when a drive didn’t draw a call.
George has long wondered why he doesn’t draw more foul calls. It took only one game this season for him to shake his head and describe his zero-free-throw night, in a game in which he took seven shots within three feet of the hoop, as “crazy.”
“Draymond [Green] got nine of them [free throws], so honestly, I don’t know what he did that I wasn’t doing,” George said.
Small lineups, big things
The Warriors force certain matchups with their speed and ball movement. It’s why Lue favored Lilliputian lineups instead of playing backup center Isaiah Hartenstein. But even on nights when a reserve big man could feasibly fit, the Clippers have fresh evidence that their small lineups can cause havoc.
Their 25-5 run to close the first half, which erased a 19-point deficit, took place without a true center on the floor. Zubac didn’t play the final 7:30 before halftime. Their top three lineups, as gauged by plus-minus, shared one constant: the presence of wings Luke Kennard and Terance Mann.
TONIGHT
VS. MEMPHIS When: 7:30 On the air: TV: Bally Sports; Radio: 570, 1220 Update: Lue said Thursday he anticipated Batum would play against Memphis (1-0). … Until Curry’s 45-point performance against the Clippers, Memphis guard Ja Morant laid claim to one of the season’s most impressive early outings when he scored 37 points in a season-opening win against Cleveland. In his first game since signing a four-year, $105-million extension, and coming off a season in which his effectiveness varied following knee surgery, fourth-year big man Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 13 points.