John Wall and the Los Angeles Clippers went to Oklahoma City for a quick two-game road trip where they face the Thunder twice in three days before returning home. In the first of the two games, the Clippers got smacked by the Thunder, 108-94, without both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in the lineup.
Before heading out on the road trip, Wall advised the team not to take their opponents lightly.
“They’ve got a lot of young talent over there, a lot of pieces, they compete and have been in almost every game they’re been in,” John Wall said. “A lot of people look at it like these teams are trying to tank, can’t look at it like that.”
Since that time, the Utah Jazz have improved to 4-1 and climbed into a tie for first place in the Western Conference. The OKC Thunder, who were 0-3 heading into Tuesday's matchup, earned their first win of the year by defeating the Clippers.
“Look at Utah,” Wall pointed out. “People think they were trying to tank and are 3-0 right now. Even though it's early, that’s how the NBA goes. There’s no just walking into an arena thinking you’re gonna beat this team. You gotta go out there and compete every night.”
The Clippers started the season 2-0 with wins over the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings, but there were some glaring issues in those wins. For one, 3-point shooting hasn't been where the Clippers have expected it to be this early season. Second, the team has been struggling to communicate, especially defensively since the preseason. The result has been lot of backdoor cuts and open corner 3-pointers.
“I think we got some good looks, I think sometimes we just try to make the extra pass when we got a better shot, but it’s trying to make the right play. We have a lot of talented guys, a lot of guys that can score the ball, and we’re just trying to make adjustments.
“[We've got to] get off to better starts for us as group. Continue to figure out what it is offensively, moving the ball, getting to the second side. Trusting each other more, I think that’s what we mostly gotta do. On the defensive end, we just gotta communicate. I think we’re not communicating well, we gave up a lot of backdoors, a lot of open 3s.”
The Clippers may have dropped their second game of the year to the Thunder, but to their credit, they were without Leonard, George, and Marcus Morris in Tuesday's matchup. They'll continue to be without at least two of those three, as Leonard was sent back to Los Angeles to tend to his sore knee and Morris is out due to personal reasons.
In the team's loss on Tuesday, the Thunder grabbed 21 offensive rebounds, eight of which came in the third quarter. The rebounds helped OKC run off 21 straight points in the quarter, essentially blowing the game open.
“We just gotta do a better job of taking care of the basketball,” head coach Tyronn Lue said after the loss. “But we also gotta do a better job of hitting bodies to rebound the ball, especially when the guys play small with the second unit. We gotta do a better job of hitting bodies because there wasn’t a lot of mismatches, it wasn’t like a center on a guard, it was like size on size and kinda just fell asleep a few times and then a couple of times, they were just bigger than us. We gotta do a better job in that regard.
“Offensively, we’re struggling to score right now, but I thought we tried to do the right thing, it just didn’t work out.”
Norman Powell and Reggie Jackson continued to start, but continued to struggle despite getting decent looks at the basket.
Tyronn Lue isn't worried about either of his two starting guards, but admits that Jackson is likely still feeing the effects of the groin injury he dealt with last week.
“Reggie wants to play. He always loves to play. I didn’t fault his effort, how he’s trying to play. We’re trying to move the basketball and try to make the right play and make play for your teammate, which he tried to do. He struggled shooting the basketball, but overall, I thought he tried to do the right thing as well as the rest of the guys on our team, so he’s definitely struggling a little bit, but he’s continuing to keep playing.”
Through four games, Powell is shooting just 10-of-37 from the field, including 1-of-12 from 3-point range. Jackson is shooting 11-of-26 from the field, including a modest 5-of-14 on 3-pointers.
The Clippers will usually win if one of those two has it going, but the simultaneous struggles for the starting backcourt has put the team behind the eight-ball over their last few matchups.
“I thought tonight Norm did a good job of trying to let the game come to him,” Lue added. “He didn’t force the issue. We talked about getting into the paint, getting downhill. He’s one of the guys that can do that for us. I thought he did a good job. Missed a few shots, but I thought he played the right way, trying to get in the paint, create for others or himself. He’s not gonna make every shot, and we understand that, but he has to understand that and not get down on himself. It’s part of the game because he works too hard, puts too much work in, not to be able to come out of shooting slumps. He’ll be okay.”
The Clippers will play the second game of their OKC trip on Thursday night. Paul George has been upgraded from out to questionable, so there is a legitimate shot that he plays in the game. John Wall will continue to be a major factor off the Clippers' bench and will be much-needed with Kawhi Leonard already out.