For the eighth time in his 935 games as a full-time starter in the NBA in 2012, James Harden recorded just one assist in a basketball game. Tuesday night's loss against the Golden State Warriors was an encapsulation of a horrid shooting night in which the Clippers shot just 18.2 percent from three and didn't, “trust the pass,” according to head coach Tyronn Lue.
The Clippers dropped their first game of the season against the division rival Warriors, 98-79, despite having a rest advantage over Golden State. Stephen Curry and the Warriors defeated the Memphis Grizzlies Monday night and followed that up with another win Tuesday, their fourth in their first five games to start the season.
It was another slow start for the Clippers, who found themselves trailing by 15 points seven minutes into the opening period. They were able to bounce back thanks to a 20-point first-half by James Harden and take a 49-46 lead at halftime, but the Warriors responded with a 32-14 third quarter that essentially put the game away.
“I think early on the in the game, we got really good shots that we didn't make, and then we stopped trusting,” Tyronn Lue said. “One pass, shot. One pass, shot. I thought we stopped trusting. But I give our guys credit, we got down 14 or 15, came back and took the lead at halftime. Then they came out in that 3rd quarter and they outscored us 32-14 in that 3rd quarter and we could never get it back.”
The third quarter saw Kawhi Leonard and James Harden both off the floor, a rare occurrence for a team that staggers their stars with their second unit.
“Kawhi and James in that third quarter got tired at the same time, so they both came out and it kind of snowballed from there,” Lue added. “But [the Warriors] played well defensively. I thought they played us pretty well. We didn't attack the way we wanted to attack, and it made us a little stagnant.”
The Clippers shot just 36.6 percent from the field and 18.2 percent from three, knocking down just six of their 33 three-point attempts on the night. James Harden and Kawhi Leonard finished with one assist each, and the team recorded 10 assists for the game.
Harden finished the night with 20 points, four rebounds, and one assist on 6-of-15 shooting while Leonard put in 18 points, six rebounds, and one assist on 7-of-17 shooting.
It's the first time since the 2017-18 season that a team scored fewer than 80 points and had 10 or fewer assists in a game.
Bradley Beal missed his second consecutive game with a sore lower back and Bogdan Bogdanovic filled in as the starter in both. Unfortunately, the team has gotten next to nothing from either of those guys to start the year, and it's impacted the Clippers' offensive versatility.
Without Beal and with Bogdanovic clearly trying to work his way back from his preseason/offseason injuries, the Clippers are lacking another creator, a role that Norman Powell excelled at last season.
“I think teams are trying to pressure us more, but we are missing a key component which is Bradley Beal who gives us a shooter, a guy who can playmake, a guy who can handle the basketball as well. And so, when you add that to the mix, it does make us better. But we just can't have the offensive lulls throughout the course of the game like we've been having. I like our second unit, staggering James and Kawhi, but that didn't happen once both of those guys got tired at the same time, so it put us in a tough bind.”
Beal did not travel to San Francisco for the one-game trip, with the team electing to keep him home to rehab in preparation of Friday's game against the New Orleans Pelicans.
In the early portions of this 2025-26 season, the Clippers are 2-0 at home with wins against the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers while going 0-2 on the road with blowout losses against the Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors.
