Clippers down Suns in Game 1
Leonard’s 38-point night and Westbrook’s menacing defense lift L.A. to the road victory in opener.
PHOENIX — The car carrying Russell Westbrook arrived at the empty practice facility housing Arizona State’s basketball programs at 7 p.m. Saturday.
In a season unlike any other in Westbrook’s 15-year NBA career, the former most valuable player who had been without a team in February began a night like any other. For 45 minutes, he continued the ritual he said he has followed for years, but rarely discussed: a latenight, solo workout to help find his rhythm, feel confident in his preparation and clear his mind.
When Westbrook is in Los Angeles, he waits until his three children are asleep, then dips out of the house. Sometimes his destination is Lawndale, inside the Leuzinger High gym where he starred as a teen. On Saturday, the Clippers arranged time for him at the same Arizona State facility where only hours earlier the team had practiced.
“Since I been in the league, the hardest thing to do is be consistent,” he said. “I got to find ways to stay consistent throughout all season, steady in my craft. I learned that at a young age and I’ll continue doing that regardless of bad games, good games. But consistent over time, it will pay off.”
Twenty hours later, inside a downtown arena raging with noise , it did during a 115-110, series-opening Clippers playoff victory over the fourth-seeded Suns.
Amid a three-for-19 shooting night, Westbrook never hesitated when Kevin Durant’s long-armed defense denied an easy entry pass to Kawhi Leonard with 17 seconds left. Backing down Phoenix’s Devin Booker in the post, the Clippers nursing a one-point lead, Westbrook drew a foul with 17 seconds to play. As he
necessary scoring punch, with 38 points in 42 minutes. This heavy of a workload, Lue said, was why the Clippers had managed his minutes so carefully throughout the season.
“It’s one win,” Lue said, “but I like what we did tonight.”
Lue has never been one to overreact to series openers, which explains why the Clippers entered 0-3 in them under Lue, yet had won two playoff series. He told The Times in early April that the uncertainty surrounding what an opponent will run leaves him to “kind of throw it out the window because you don’t know what they’re trying to do.”
Entering Sunday without All-Star Paul George, who is considered a long shot to appear during the first round while he rehabs a sprained knee, had changed those calculations, Lue acknowledged.
“We don’t have a lot of margin for error so it’s not really a feel-out game for us,” Lue said before tipoff.
It was exceptionally tight. The Suns made 39 shots, the Clippers 41. The Clippers made four more three-pointers, the Suns made three more free throws.
Durant scored 27 points, but his best work in the first quarter came, unexpectedly, on defense. Purposefully sagging off of Westbrook, he drew a pair of missed jump shots early in the shot clock — exactly the kind of shots Westbrook had studiously avoided since joining the Clippers. Westbrook missed his first seven shots and after the last walked back on defense as Phoenix ran back for a dunk.
Yet against a rotation of defenders including Westbrook, Gordon and Batum, Durant was not the force many feared after his superlative shooting season. Even at nearly 7 feet tall, he missed his first five shots and didn’t see an easy, open look until midway through the second quarter while playing against a physicality the Clippers vowed would be critical to stay in the series.
Westbrook, who learned all of Durant’s offensive tics as Oklahoma City teammates for eight seasons, blocked one shot from behind and poked away his dribble.
“I loved our physicality,” Lue said.
The dam could not hold forever. Scoreless during his first 13 minutes, Durant scored 17 in his final nine of the first half, seeming to find the answers as the game went on. Keeping both Durant and Booker in during the half’s final minutes could have been a gamble, as both had two fouls, with Booker narrowly avoiding a third. It paid off: When the two combined to score 17 of Phoenix’s last 19 points before halftime, the Clippers’ lead had dwindled from 16 to five.
That advantage was gone just seven minutes later. Westbrook’s shooting struggles continued but were no outlier as the Clippers went four minutes without scoring, a drought made more damaging by Phoenix scoring 15 unanswered points to lead 77-68. When Phoenix couldn’t maintain control, mustering just four points in the quarter’s final four minutes, the Clippers stayed calm and pulled even behind a lineup of Leonard and four reserves to enter the fourth quarter tied.
With Leonard having already played 34 minutes, Lue took a risk with less than 10 minutes to play and replaced him with Westbrook, not because his offense ever recovered, but because he was “too good defensively.”
Gordon’s 27-foot heave late in the shot clock pushed their lead to 109-103 with 93 seconds to play, but the margin would not hold. It was Westbrook who finally sealed it.