Suddenly, Clippers Seeking Legitimacy Against Warriors

Just two years ago, the unproven Golden State Warriors were looking up at the Los Angeles Clippers. Laden with established stars and a title-winning coach, L.A. was something of a measuring stick.

Now, as these two teams prepare to square off Wednesday for the final time this season, it's the Clips who are hoping, somewhat desperately, they'll measure up to the Warriors.

Losers in four of their last five and still stinging from back-to-back defeats against the injury-riddled Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans, the Clippers are struggling. Meanwhile, Golden State will face L.A. as a 63-7, history-devouring basketball siege engine.

The Warriors are in the midst of the franchise's most dominant era—one that, given the youth on the roster and organizational health, could last for years. The Clippers, in contrast, are trying to retain their fringe-contender status for a little longer.

It wasn't always this way.

From 2011-12 to 2013-14, a period we'll call the Early Chris Paul Era, L.A. had the upper hand. Though the Warriors actually went 7-5 against the Clips during the regular season, L.A.'s overall margin in those dozen games was plus-13. The latter logged almost all of the dominant, message-sending wins: a 19-point beatdown on Christmas Day in 2011, a 26-point shellacking on Jan. 5, 2013, and a 13-point victory on March 12, 2014, stand out as examples.

And then there was the hard-fought playoff series during 2014, in which the Clippers dispatched the Warriors in the first round. It was a devastating blow to Golden State, a team that had advanced further the year before.

They may not have known it (or cared) at the time, but by beating the Warriors in that series, the Clippers created a turning point. Here, in an excerpt from Chris Ballard's piece in Sports Illustrated, former Warrior Jermaine O'Neal described the post-loss locker room scene:

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'Sometimes in pro sports other things trump being cut deep emotionally when you lose, so you don’t see a lot of that at the pro level,' he says. 'Usually it’s more in high school and college.' But there, across from him, were two teammates weeping: Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. This resonated. 'When your two best players are affected by losing like that, I knew right away they were going to be good the next year.'

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The Warriors were more than good the next year. They canned head coach Mark Jackson, hired Steve Kerr, unleashed Curry and Draymond Green and won a title. The graphical representation of these teams' winning percentages makes the distinct trajectories and 2014 pivot point startlingly clear:

And as the team dynamics shifted, so did the personal ones.

Curry overtook Paul as the league's best point guard in conspicuous, viral fashion:

Green tongue-wagged and Cool Story, Glenn-ed his way to the psychological high ground:

Since that first-round loss, Golden State is 6-1 against the Clippers and has ascended to a level where its only peers are historical greats (and this year's San Antonio Spurs).

Los Angeles has been good during the Warriors' rise, but never great. Seeming steps forward, like beating the Spurs in last year's first round, have been followed by disappointment. (The Clips collapsed against the Houston Rockets after eliminating San Antonio.)

Now, the Clippers are somewhere beneath the upper tier of contenders. Still dangerous offensively as long as Paul is in charge, L.A. continues to struggle because of injury (Blake Griffin) and the limited bench that head coach Doc Rivers keeps culling from the 2008-2010 Eastern Conference scrap heap.

These days, when the Warriors acknowledge there's a rivalry between themselves and the Clips, it feels like the hammer giving the nail a patronizing nod before the pounding starts.

"When it first kicked off, I was always the one to say it's not really a rivalry because, really, they hadn't won nothing and we hadn't won anything. And they were really more established than us," Green said before the two met Nov. 19, per CSN Bay Area. "I think both teams have established themselves, so it's safer to call it a rivalry now."

Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

After the Warriors took that Nov. 19 contest, Griffin offered the nail's perspective: "I wouldn't call this a rivalry," he told Diamond Leung of the San Jose Mercury News. "They're the better team. They have the upper hand."

Rivalry or not, Wednesday's meeting will illustrate just how rapidly the tables have turned. L.A. will be seeking stability, or even a rallying point to salvage this late-season skid. It needs a catalyzing win against the league's best to legitimize the staying power of its core.

Remember, after they fell last season, the Clippers faced serious questions about blowing up the Paul-Griffin-DeAndre Jordan trio.

Jamal Crawford raised them as recently as February in an interview with ESPN's Scoop Jackson: "If we don’t win it this year, and I’m not speaking for nobody, just real talk, they have to consider [blowing it up]. Because that would be, what, five years since Chris [Paul] came? Blake [Griffin]’s been here that long, and five years for myself."

This is a group that needs validation. And the Warriors are one of the last chances on the schedule (Oklahoma City on March 31 is the other) where L.A. might find it.

Weeping in defeat no longer, Golden State is gunning for 73 wins. The Warriors are now more concerned about the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls than the 2015-16 version of the Clippers they'll face.

L.A. helped start a new era of Warriors basketball. If Golden State tramples them again Wednesday, it may have a hand in ending an old one for the Clips.

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