Leonard, Clippers hand Grizzlies a little payback
The Grizzlies got their attention, all right.
And so the Clippers dutifully checked off the all the adjustments on Tyronn Lue’s to-do list. Produce in the paint? Got it. Pick up the defense? Yup. Get the ball moving and keep it moving? For sure.
Most of all, the Clippers flexed the fortitude that’s kept them from dropping consecutive games all but once this season, their only losing streak so far having reached just two games.
The Clippers were plenty motivated to avoid another such spell Friday, they said.
“Probably just a little (ticked) off if
we’ve lost the first one like we did last night,” Clippers guard Lou Williams said. “That wasn’t a great representation of the way we like to play basketball. We had low energy, we didn’t take our opponent serious enough.”
The Clippers delivered an earnest effort Friday, rebounding from what their coach characterized as an “embarrassing” 28-point loss the night before at FedExArena in Memphis, where they returned the favor by beating the Grizzlies, 119-99.
“We always respond well,” Williams added. “That’s been the makeup of this group.”
The Clippers (24-11) held Memphis (14-15) to 40.6% shooting (39 for 97) while lighting it up themselves, shooting 55% (44 for 80) and boasting seven scorers in double figures.
Kawhi Leonard led the way with 30 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. And off the bench, Williams chipped in with 17 points in
The Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard shoots over Memphis’ Dillon Brooks, right, during the second half of Friday’s game.
the city where he was born to lift the Clippers’ record in the second game of back-toback sets to 6-0, the best such mark in the NBA.
Paul George added 13 points and was responsible for eight of the Clippers’ season-high 34 assists.
A game after being outscored 72-24 in the paint, the Clippers made a concerted effort to produce from close range, where they were outscored again Friday, but by a much more respectable 5450
margin. They set the tone with 28 paint points in the first half, which ended with a 13-1 Clippers run that put them in front, 63-47.
After the Grizzlies went on a 9-0 sprint shortly after halftime to whittle a 19-point deficit to a 66-56 margin, the Clippers got hot from long range to rebuild some muchneeded distance — despite recording seven of their 17 turnovers in the third quarter.
Leonard scored nine points in the third period and
Nicolas Batum had six, going 2 for 3 from long range — connecting on more 3-pointers in that quarter than he had in a single game since Feb. 12, a six-game span in which Batum shot just 26.7% from deep and averaged only 2.5 attempts, compared with the 46.2% rate he’d been knocking down the 4.8 3-pointers per game he was taking previously.
Batum gave the Clippers a complete game with 13 points, six rebounds, three assists, a steal — and a comfy corner 3-pointer that pushed the Clippers’ lead to 110-96 with 2:18 to play. He was a team-best plus-21 in the box score.
Still, going 3 for 5 from long range wasn’t enough to satisfy Lue.
“He passed up a lot of shots,” Lue said. “He passed up three or four of them tonight. He’s a good shooter, so we want him to take those shots because when he doesn’t shoot it we end up getting a worse shot. In the flow of the offense when the ball comes to him he has to take those shots, and I’m glad to see him knock down some
tonight.”
If Friday’s adjustments are any indication, expect Batum might get back to bombing away on Sunday in Milwaukee, where the Clippers have a showdown looming against the Bucks.
“T-Lue is great, he’s great at making adjustments,” George said. “He saw what we need to get better at the first matchup and second matchup he had a gameplan to address what was causing them and allowing them to score easily … It’s not easy to build habits and then try to do something else, but we listen, we follow the game plan and he’s been sharp with it, we execute it.”
To their credit, the young professionals wearing Memphis across their chest kept coming, reducing what was a Clippers’ 20-point lead to 13 points with 5:39 remaining, and then to 11 with 2:53 left and, finally, to 11 again with 2:02 to play. But the Clippers scored the final seven points, capped by a putback by second-year player Terance Mann, who scored all 13 of his points off the bench in the second half.
SUMMARY