INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Forget what Bill Parcells used to say, the LA Clippers are convinced they are better than their record says they are.
Tuesday night, for the second game in a row, they looked like it. Having Kawhi Leonard back healthy helps.
“Just buying into it, what we’re trying to do…” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said when asked what was different in those wins. “Kawhi getting into a healthy state, James (Harden) being healthy… Just stay in the course. We hit a rough patch, and it’s been a rough season, with all the injuries, the ups and downs, losing close games. But just stay the course. And so I give our guys credit.”
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Behind 41 from Leonard and 29 from Harden, the Clippers pulled away for a comfortable win over the Rockets, 128-108. This was the first time the Clippers have won back-to-back games since their second and third games of the season, back in October.
That comes at the expense of a Rockets team that is scuffling, having lost five of their last seven games, with the 27th-ranked defense in the NBA over that stretch. The Rockets struggled from 3-point range in this game (9-of-30), but what was more concerning was that they just kept making the kind of sloppy mistakes one expects from a young team — the kind of mistakes the Rockets thought they had outgrown.
The Rockets need to find themselves in the next 48 hours, before a big Christmas Day game across town against the Lakers.
While the Rockets struggled on defense, the Clippers’ defense looked as good as it has all season.
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“Outside that first quarter, I thought defensively, we really locked in…” Lue said. “I thought we took care of the basketball, and we did a good job of moving the basketball, making quick decisions.”
“Probably the biggest things that we’ve done is the consistency in our communication — and obviously just the want, the need to play hard,” said John Collins, who shot 3-of-3 on his way to 13 points. “I feel like we’re all at that feeling we have our backs against the wall, and we just want to continue to improve and obviously change the course of the season.”
The start of this game was a fun trip down memory lane, showing the old guys still have it. Kevin Durant scored 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting, while Leonard scored 18 on 8-of-12 shooting. In what had been a back-and-forth game, the Clippers led 63-58 at the half thanks to better shooting from 3-point range (45.5% to 31.3%) and more bench scoring behind Nicolas Batum (six points) and Kobe Sanders (seven).
The Clippers took charge of the game in the third quarter with a 13-2 run in the third to take a 92-75 lead, doing it with their best stretch of defense this season. Los Angeles won the third quarter by a dozen and led by 16 entering the fourth. In the final frame, the Rockets had no answers.
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The Rockets have a lot of questions to answer before a big showcase game on Christmas.
“I feel like we just weren’t locked in defensively today, I mean me,” Amen Thompson said. “I feel like I could have been a lot better. Um, just set down my matchup.”
Durant led Houston with 22 points, while Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson both added 19 points.
The LA Clippers feel like they may be finally finding a few answers. Tyronn Lue challenged his team a couple of days ago to go 35-20 the rest of the way, which would get them to .500 by the end of the season. It’s a goal they looked like they could reach on Tuesday night, if they can just stay healthy.
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“If we get out of this situation we’re in, it’s gonna take all of us, and so it starts with (Leonard and Harden). They’re our best players,” Lue said. “And they responded the last couple of games. We got to continue to keep building days, like I said, just keep stacking days and getting better and better.”