Los Angeles Clippers Have Leg Up for Now in Rivalry with Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors still lead the league with a 23-5 record, but Christmas Day's 100-86 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers served as a sobering reminder that they're hardly alone atop the Western Conference.
Head coach Doc Rivers' club moved to 20-10 this season—just four games behind Golden State in the standings—and reasserted its edge over the team it outlasted in last season's memorable seven-game opening round, avenging a 121-104 Nov. 5 loss to the Warriors in Oakland.
Rivers noted his team's growth subsequent to that contest after the game, telling reporters, "We're better than we were."
Jamal Crawford led the team with 24 points in just 28 minutes off the bench, but he wasn't the only one doing his part to make a statement in what's become one of the league's most entertaining and competitive rivalries.
Blake Griffin contributed an all-around performance with 18 points, 15 rebounds, six assists, two steals and a block, while seven-time All-Star Chris Paul added 22 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three steals of his own.
And while his 14 points won't turn heads, center DeAndre Jordan played an important supporting role with 12 rebounds, two blocks and an efficient 6-of-8 outing from the field.
Though Los Angeles made just 39.1 percent of its field-goal attempts and opened the game just 1-of-17 from the field, the Warriors' 42.5-percent mark wasn't much better. The big difference is that the Clippers were doing the little things while Golden State was making mistakes.
Head coach Steve Kerr's club turned the ball over 16 times and grabbed six fewer rebounds, spotting the Clippers an opportunity to compensate for their poor shooting. Golden State also gave the Clippers 31 free-throw attempts, giving Griffin alone 13 shots from the charity stripe.
Between the rebounding deficit and inability to protect the basket without fouling, one suspects the Warriors are seriously missing center Andrew Bogut. The 30-year-old 7-footer has missed his last eight games with a knee injury, and he's proven difficult to replace. There's plenty to like about Draymond Green, David Lee and Marreese Speights, but Bogut is a far superior defender in the paint.
In turn, the Clippers exploited an already marked size advantage. Griffin and Jordan's 27 combined rebounds were the first hint, but the club's 11 offensive boards were more telling. Even Paul had three offensive rebounds. Without Bogut's size and physicality, the Warriors' margin for error on the perimeter is slim at best.
It certainly can't afford for Splash Brothers Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to make just three of their 15 combined three-point attempts. The Clippers' aggressive containment of ball-handlers flustered an ordinarily in-sync offense that ranks fifth league-wide in efficiency with 107.3 points per 100 possessions, according to Hollinger Team Stats.
The Warriors' 86 points represented their lowest scoring output of the season, a testament to what Los Angeles' uneven defense can accomplish when the effort is there.
SB Nation's Mike Prada was among many who lauded LAC's ability to gut this one out:
"This win in particular shows the Clippers' resiliency when they dig deep down. The game was the Clippers' third in four days in three time zones, thanks to a grueling back-to-back that began in San Antonio and ended in Atlanta. Forty-eight hours later, they were back in L.A., and it showed early with that 1-17 start. Most teams would have called it a day and accepted the schedule loss.
Yet the Clippers didn't fold.
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There's little doubt about what Paul, Griffin and Co. can accomplish on the offensive end. But it will take these kind of two-way displays to build upon last season's appearance in the Western Conference semifinals. The rest of the competition will have too much firepower to withstand anything less.
While the Clippers have struggled to exert consistent energy on both ends of the floor, their unique dynamic with the Warriors just might bring out a little extra heart. These teams may respect each other, but they don't like each other. Last season's lack of holiday spirit made that point pretty vividly.
As The Associated Press noted (via FoxSports.com) after Thursday's contest:
"Last year's Christmas night game between the Clippers and Warriors at Oakland was a wild one. Draymond Green was ejected at the end of the third quarter because of his flagrant 2 foul against Griffin—who subsequently was thrown out with 10:43 remaining after an incident involving himself and Andrew Bogut earned Griffin his second technical foul.
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The uneasy relations continued into the postseason and cultivated a subplot that's helped make this one of the NBA's premier matchups. By April, Griffin was taking exception to comments Thompson made about the former's penchant for flopping. Good as the basketball between these teams has been, it's the collective personality clash that keeps things particularly interesting.
Some added holiday pageantry and a national audience certainly doesn't hurt.
"Playing on Christmas Day is special," Lee told reporters before the game. "You know it's a bigger stage than a normal regular-season game would be, and we enjoy that and we enjoy the challenge of facing a good Clippers team that we beat once this year. It's two teams that have had fun the last couple years playing against one another."
Riding a franchise-best start under Kerr, the Warriors' evolution has made that stage even bigger.
Thursday night's game went pretty smoothly aside from some mild jawing. Kerr earned a technical foul for arguing a call, and Griffin picked one up after stepping over Harrison Barnes in what could be interpreted as mild taunting.
But don't let the relative lack of theatrics fool you. This game mattered to both sides.
Coming off Tuesday's shocking 115-105 loss to the now 9-20 Los Angeles Lakers (sans Kobe Bryant), the Warriors were looking to avoid just their second two-game losing streak of the season. Now 12-3 at home, the Clippers could use some momentum of their own. They play their next eight games at Staples Center and may be poised to climb the standings from the current perch at the No. 5 seed.
Gutting out a compelling victory against the rival Warriors isn't a bad start.
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