What Is Wrong with Los Angeles Clippers' Offense Right Now?
Paging Alvin Gentry. You're needed for a cleanup in the Staples Center.
Yes, the Los Angeles Clippers offense is a bit of a mess, and it's Gentry's job to fix it. At least, the Clips wish it were.
L.A. had the NBA's most efficient offense a year ago. But that's not true anymore
Actually, in some ways the Clippers' personnel is better than it was a year ago, even with the struggles at small forward.
J.J. Redick and Chris Paul are healthy, and Spencer Hawes is an upgrade on the Louis Sachar-sized hole the Clips had for a third big. But the most significant turnover for the Clips may have come on the bench.
Gentry departed for Steve Kerr and the Golden State Warriors. Meanwhile, Tyronn Lue made the move from L.A. to Cleveland before ESPN.com's Dave McMenamin deemed it trendy.
The Clippers replaced their lost assistants by bringing in big names. Doc Rivers lent credence to cult jokes about him overvaluing half-a-decade-old Eastern Conference relevance by hiring Mike Woodson, Lawrence Frank and Sam Cassell.
Now, for a multitude of reasons, they've sleepwalked to ninth in points per possession. With the addition of Gentry, the Warriors have risen from 12th to sixth.
The Clippers have struggled in the running game. After finishing second in fast-break points per game last season, a team with Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan is averaging almost eight fewer points a night in that category.
Offensive rebounding has had a major hand in the struggles, as well; the Clippers sit dead last in offensive rebounding rate by a wide margin. Still, hitting the glass was never a major strength last season for a squad with below-average rebounding wings.
We've seen teams like the San Antonio Spurs not prioritize offensive boards and still churn out point after point efficiently. In the end, the basic offense has been quirky. The Clippers' problems have been schematic, and when you hear "schematic," a little light bulb with Gentry's face on it should go off in your head.
The Gentry Effect
The Clips were 13th in offensive efficiency heading into Wednesday evening's win over the Orlando Magic, and proceeded to put together their best statistical offensive performance of the season: 114 points, 53.6 percent shooting, 12-of-21 from three. But the offense appeared to be running out the same schemes it had shown over the season's initial nine games. It just happened to be making shots.
Jamal Crawford drained some contested jumpers. Paul created aptly out of the screen-and-roll. Jordan Farmar had his best single-game production of the season. The Clips were just fortunate to be playing against the Magic.
This year, we're not seeing Griffin facilitate out of the pick-and-roll nearly as often. Certain screens and plays that were so effective a season ago have gone away. Worst of all, the offense has a tendency to go stagnant for long periods of time, especially against disciplined defenses (see: Monday night's 14-point third quarter against the Chicago Bulls, subscription required).
Those are partly Gentry influences, which have seemingly evaporated or at least eroded. Actually, Gentry, one of the NBA's most respected offensive-minded assistants, has his fingerprints all over NBA offenses now, ones he doesn't even coach.
Why It Matters
Go back to Nov. 13, when the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Sacramento Kings on that preposterous tip-in-that-wasn't-actually-a-tip-in play with 0.3 seconds remaining in regulation. Here's the play in reference:
Well, the Griz won that game for two reasons.
First off, I'm sure Dave Joerger would love to thank Kings coach Mike Malone for allowing his guys to defend the perimeter and chase players around the floor instead of explaining the Trent Tucker Rule to his team, sending out his tallest lineup, and mandating that DeMarcus Cousins, Jason Thompson and Ryan Hollins all stand in front of the rim with their hands over their heads.
Secondly, he can send appreciation Gentry's way, considering he didn't exactly come up with the play to get Courtney Lee open.
"I got to coach the game in Phoenix a couple years ago, and it was double overtime," explained Joerger of the one instance he filled in for then-Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins back in 2010, via Ari Alexander of WMC Action News 5 Sports. "There was 0.4 seconds left. Yes, I unabashedly stole the play from Alvin Gentry, who ran it against me for Jason Richardson to get the tip-in to put it into overtime."
The Suns play from 2010 is equally as superb. And you know what? There's a specific part of this play that screams, "Alvin Gentry!!"
Check out this Marc Gasol screen, which sets up Lee to twirl around and sink the game-winning basket:
That screen is so fantastically Suns, something we saw in Phoenix for years. So, what does this all have to do with the Clippers?
I'll give you a hint. Does this look familiar?
Dizzy yet?
ClipperBlog's Andrew Han endearingly calls the entirety of this play "Floppy Merry-Go-Around," something the Clips ran early and often when Redick was healthy.
Floppy is a common NBA set that gives a shooter, Redick in this case, the option of running off a stagger screen on one side of the court or a single screen on the other. "Merry-Go-Around"—well, that's just Han's little touch, representative of the Gentry twirling screen used often last year between Redick and Jared Dudley.
It's basically a screen-the-screener play, almost exactly what Lee and Gasol run above, but Redick doesn't actually lay a pick.
Here's what the result looked like:
So, why is this relevant? The Clippers aren't really doing it anymore, and it's not so much about the set as it is the symbolism behind it. It's just one of the numerous Gentry idiosyncrasies that's missing this year.
The Clips are still running floppy for Redick, still running him off screens, but it's not yielding nearly as sufficient results. It doesn't have the Gentry stamp. And on top of that, this roster doesn't hold a 3 who can move off the ball and knock down attempts consistently, which it did last year since Dudley was hitting shots early in the season and Matt Barnes got hot late.
In the end, the offensive regression isn't about this set, something the Clips mostly didn't even run in the half-season Redick missed. The loss of the team's effective offensive coordinator is on display over so many schemes.
Especially on that floppy play, the reason the Clippers offense was fluid a season ago was because of its options. Now, it almost looks like a quarterback who locks into his first receiver and takes off from the pocket if his guy is covered. The Clippers aren't going through their reads.
The Bulls defense found success in Monday night's 16-point win over the Clips because it took away those first options. After that, the team had nowhere to go, exemplified by Griffin trying mightily to get the ball to Paul in the post, only to do so without enough time left on the clock to make a legitimate play:
The Bulls froze the Clippers offense out.
There are these two words that have made their ways into the vernacular of basketball fans in recent years: "Spursy" and "Spursian." The Clippers had Spursian moments last year, and however you want to define those adjectives, this sort of play isn't one of them.
When the Clippers ran a pick-and-roll, Paul would pass to Griffin at the free-throw line with the intent of turning Blake into the decision-maker. He could shoot, pass or dribble.
That was part of what turned the Clippers power forward into a top-three MVP candidate last season: his rare facilitating ability from the power forward spot.
We weren't seeing many plays like the one above where the offense simply goes dead. It's that key word: options. Last year's offense provided multiple options.
A Different Blake Griffin
Griffin may be more skilled this year, but he hasn't looked nearly as explosive, as evidenced by his nine dunks on the season (he usually averages two or more a game). It could be injury-related or not, but either way, he's not being put in the same position to succeed.
Almost half his field-goal attempts are from mid-range. He making a shade under 40 percent of them, more than ever before, but Griffin's strength is around the rim. Even he knows he needs to make more of a concerted effort to get to the paint.
“I need to do a better job of mixing up and attacking more, not settling for jump shots,” Griffin said, via Rowan Kavner of Clippers.com. “That’s something I’ve got to work on, something I’ve got to kind of figure out. Hopefully that brings a different dynamic to our offense.”
That quote is from Nov. 7. But still, we're not seeing much of a change. Griffin's jumpers have stood in for face-ups and penetration, and he's seen his efficiency drop with it.
Griffin getting into the paint isn't just about scoring, either. The facilitating gene surfaces most prominently when he's barreling to the hoop, drawing defenses in on him and getting teammates open.
Every once in a while, Griffin will receive a pass from Paul at the nail and loft to Jordan for an oop on that flowery tic-tac-toe pick-and-roll, but it's not as often. The high-low game isn't as prevalent as it was last year. The kickouts off such ball screens are seldom.
Migrating North
Many of the characteristics that made up this Clippers offense a year ago have gone north, now living somewhere in Oakland.
Good offenses follow Gentry everywhere. That's not a coincidence. Doesn't it feel like he's going to parlay this success into another head coaching job sooner rather than later, especially after how we've seen the Warriors offense morph since his arrival?
The Clippers are talented enough that they're not going to stagger around average offensive levels for too long. A squad led by Griffin and Paul can't churn out such mediocre production over 82 games. Eventually, there's progression to the mean. But there's reason to think the scoring attack won't be as effective as it was when it was best in the league a year ago.
It's difficult to evaluate exactly how much a head coach does without being in the locker room and around the team at all times. It's even more challenging to appraise assistants. But Gentry's impression on the Clippers last year was so patently obvious that, in this case, his absence is almost hard to ignore.
Basketball society always talks about the best coaches in the NBA. Rivers, Gregg Popovich, Rick Carlisle, Erik Spoelstra, among others, often come up. Assistants, faces buried in a sea of suits on a bench, get lost because their value is so hard to approximate.
Rivers aside, the Clippers completely changed up their bench this summer. We brushed it off as predictable coaching movement. But maybe the organization would've been better off ponying up the money to keep Gentry around. The downfall of the offense leads you to believe that the turnover meant more than we thought it would.
Fred Katz averaged almost one point per game in fifth grade but maintains that his per-36-minute numbers were astonishing. Find more of his work at WashingtonPost.com or on ESPN's TrueHoop Network at ClipperBlog.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FredKatz.
Joerger quote recorded firsthand by Alexander. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of Nov. 20 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference and NBA.com.
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