Los Angeles Clippers' Road Map to Becoming Legitimate NBA Title Contenders

Past performance does not indicate future results.

Too many people are trying to make the Los Angeles Clippers' Wednesday night overtime win over the Miami Heat a little more meaningful that it is.

Let's not forget that nearly one year ago to the day (Wednesday, January 12, 2011 to be exact), the Clippers beat this very Heat team at Staples Center with the exact same margin of victory.

They also beat the Spurs, the Bulls (in Chicago) and the Celtics (in Boston).

All that success against the league's top teams translated into a season that saw them finish behind all but two teams in the Western Conference—so don't count me among those claiming that vanquishing Miami validates the Clippers as legitimate NBA title contenders.

That being said, I did see a lot of positive signs that indicated to me that L.A. could morph into contenders if they continue to improve in several key areas.

First and foremost is defense.

In this regard, the Clippers showed their ability to lock down defensively against Miami, holding the Heat to under 40 percent from the field and limiting the league's most prolific Big Three to 36/16/56 (FG/3-PT/FT) percent shooting and nine assists to 11 turnovers.

A supremely impressive defensive effort that saw the Clips prevent Miami from making any shots from the field over a one-minute stretch from the end of the fourth quarter into overtime. L.A. ranks in the bottom third of the league in defensive efficiency, opponent points per game, opponent field goal percentage and opponent three-point field goal percentage.

With no true shooting guard on the roster, the Clippers have the league's smallest backcourt. This creates all kinds of matchup problems for L.A. against wing scorers.

While the team did a phenomenal job keeping Wade and James in check, just one night earlier, Portland's much-less fearsome swingman combo of Gerald Wallace and Wes Matthews combined to shoot an effortless 13-for-19 from the field.

Chauncey Billups is currently allowing opposing two-guards to post a PER of 22.0 against him. (To put that figure into perspective, only two shooting guards in the entire league had a PER of at least 22.0 in 2011.)

And that's after doing a decent job holding down Dwyane Wade on Wednesday night.

Without a wing stopper, the Clippers will struggle mightily in the Western Conference playoffs against the likes of Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Manu Ginobli (who lit up the Clips last month to the tune of 24 points in 27 minutes on just 10 shots) or even Rudy Gay.

Aside from last night, the Clippers haven't showed a willingness to commit to the defensive end of the floor. Their rotations have ranged from slow to nonexistent, and their screen-and-roll defense has been abysmal.

In the second half of the Blazers game on Tuesday night, L.A. consistently left LaMarcus Aldridge wide open to take his 19-foot wing jumper off of pick-and-pop situations. When the team finally adjusted and had someone rotate to Aldridge, all it took was one extra pass to a shooter in the corner to unravel the Clipper D all over again.

An even more disconcerting manifestation of L.A.'s lackadaisical approach to defending is the team's woeful rebounding numbers. Even with really good rebounders such as Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and Reggie Evans, the Clippers average the fewest number of rebounds per game of any team in the NBA. They also rank next-to-last in rebound rate and rebound margin, getting out-boarded by nearly six rebounds per game.

One contributing factor to this disturbing trend is how badly Jordan and Griffin sell out to block shots. Those two high-flyers always go out of their way to challenge shots at the rim.

When they are unsuccessful—which in Griffin's case is practically every time—their man is left unchecked for easy offensive rebound and putback opportunities.

Even though Jordan is currently the league leader in blocked shots per game, he always goes for the swat—leaping at pretty much every ball fake thrown at him, which consistently gets him out of position. Also not helping the cause: The Clippers have virtually no backup big men, and Evans just recently returned from injury.

That leads to the next problem for the Clippers: their bench.

Anytime Brian "please stop calling him 'Cookie'" Cook is your backup center, you know you lack depth.

Cook gets my vote for the worst rotation player in the league, hands down. His 0.8 PER ranks 317th out of 318 qualified players (somehow Austin Daye has managed to earn a negative PER thus far), and the PER of player number 316 (Jamaal Magloire), is actually double Cook's!

Cook contributes less than nothing to the team and has recorded as many assists in 85 minutes of court time as I have writing this article.

The Clippers can't afford to ride Griffin and Jordan into the ground, especially in this grueling four-month sprint of a season. They need to acquire at least one more player who can bang bodies down in the post and rebound the basketball from time to time.

The Clips are also in desperate need of bench scoring. Mo Williams is an early frontrunner for the Sixth Man of the Year award, but no one else on the Clippers second unit is a real scoring threat.

Of the four bench guys not named Mo Williams who have appeared in at least half of the Clippers' games so far, no one is averaging more than 5.5 points per game or shooting better than 44.4 percent from the floor.

None of L.A.'s backup big men have the ability to put the ball in the basket, so teams have no fear in doubling Williams and Randy Foye coming off of screens and forcing them into tough pull-up jumpers. It seems that whenever the second unit is in for the Clippers, the game slips away from them.

Against Miami, the reserves scored a total of eight points in almost 58 minutes of floor time.

Even though Mo Williams is their only viable threat off the bench, the Clips have to look into trading him away to either get back pieces to add to their depth at a position other than point guard, or to give them more cap flexibility to go out and sign the requisite players needed to bolster their dismal bench.

The final—and probably most correctable—step for the Clippers to transform themselves into legit contenders is for Chris Paul to take on a bigger scoring role in the offense.

Paul is only a couple seasons removed from averaging 21-plus points a game in back-to-back campaigns. He hasn't looked for his shot at all this season, despite shooting a career best percentage from the field. 

Paul is passing up open looks at the basket all too often—easy mid-range jumpers that he knocks down in his sleep—to get other guys less open shots further from the basket. He's not driving to the hoop nearly as much as he's done in his career either, and his free-throw attempts have catered to a career-worst rate by a large margin.

His lack of aggressiveness in getting his own shot has also hurt his ability to get the most out of his teammates. Back when Paul was scoring over 20 a night, he was also leading the league in assists at over 11 a game, because he drew so much attention from opposing defenders. 

This season, with Paul taking a much more laid back approach, defenses are able to focus more on his passing targets, producing Paul's lowest assist total since his rookie year.

Paul needs to have more nights like he did against Miami, where he scored 27 points on 21 field goal attempts, and was able to dish out 11 helpers as well. 

If CP3 gets back to playing at the MVP-level that he's capable of, the Clippers tighten up their defense, kick their rebounding up a notch and find adequate reserves for their second unit, the team can put themselves firmly in the competition to win the wide open West.

But until any of those issues are resolved, the Clippers will struggle just to keep their heads above the murky waters of NBA mediocrity.