There were times during the Los Angeles Clippers incredible final month of 2012 when both Blake Griffin and Chris Paul struggled to find the bottom of the bucket. When you checked the box score, both of their superstars appeared to struggle and barely managed to play 30 minutes on the night. That left a lot of room for Los Angeles’ ample bench to step in during their stars’ off-nights. That’s also the primary reason the Clippers rattled off a franchise-best 17 straight wins, and all of their games in December.
Even though they lost their first game of 2013, they’re Stephen A. Smith‘s pick to win the title. While that’s a little premature at the not-quite midseason mark, it’s not as crazy as some of Smith’s other pronouncements. When a team goes against the Clippers, they don’t really know who is going to beat them, and that’s been the key to the Clippers’ early season success.
The Clippers all-around skill starts with their offseason acquisitions of Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes. Lamar Odom came into camp out of shape, and Grant Hill has been kept off the court about as much as he was when he was in Orlando (proving, once again, Phoenix’s training staff is still the best in the league). Chauncey Billups has settled in as Vinny Del Negro‘s de facto assistant coach and he’s not the championship starter at guard he used to be. Eric Bledsoe has to play behind the best point guard in the game, so that leaves Crawford and Barnes, two players that do different things for the Clippers, but also at very high levels.
Crawford is sometimes the best offensive option even when he’s playing with Paul and Griffin. He can create an open shot whenever he wants and isn’t afraid to chuck it from every spot inside 26 feet. But Crawford’s production isn’t an anomaly; he’s been shooting without conscience for his entire now 13-year NBA career. More than part of Crawford’s value to the Clippers is the context: The Clippers have Chris Paul and Eric Bledsoe, two above-average point guards, but they don’t really have guys that can light it up both off the pass and the dribble, and that’s Crawford’s forte. It also helps he plays a lot of effective minutes with Paul in the backcourt, and not just with the second team (like a less hairy James Harden when he was in OKC).
Barnes is the ultimate intangibles guy, able to defend long wings, like Kobe, and also limit his turnovers while draining the occasional outside shot, particularly from the corner. But while Crawford helps the Clippers offensively, he’s someone you try and hide on the defensive end – the team is holding opponents to 94.9 points per 100 possessions with Barnes on the court, and 105.8 when he’s off (per 82games.com). The average with Barnes on the floor would make the Clippers the stingiest defense in the league, and would have them trailing everyone but New Orleans, Sacramento and Charlotte for the worst defense in the league when he was on the bench. He’s a “tough as nails” defender and that translates to the rest of the team. So, just by using a simple plus/minus ratio with Barnes on the court, he transforms the Clippers into the league’s best defense when he’s on the court, and they fall to the bottom five when he sits. Maybe that’s why he’s averaging 25.1 minutes a game this season, his highest since his 2009-10 campaign in Orlando.
But it’s not just Barnes and Crawford who have helped the Clippers transform into legitimate title contenders in the West, and the league’s hottest team going into the new year. Chris Paul has continued to play as the smartest, most efficient point guard in the league. He’s the only starter above Barnes and Crawford in 82games.com’s simple plus/minus rating for the Clippers. He only trails LeBron, Kobe and Durant in Adjusted PER, which counts actual assisted and unassisted field goals. He’s also shooting over 47 percent from the floor, using his typically deadly elbow jumper in conjunction with his fourth quarter drives in the paint for easy buckets at the rim. But the scariest thing for opponents should be how little Paul is actually playing while Los Angeles remains so dangerous offensively. He’s only averaging around 33 minutes a night, which is three minutes under how much he averaged last year, and almost half a quarter less than the Thunder’s Kevin Durant. He’s actually going to be rested come playoff time, which can’t make anyone in the West happy.
Part of the reason Vinny Del Negro can take his time and give Paul more than a quarter off every night, is the continued maturation of his backup, Eric Bledsoe. Bledsoe is in his third year in the league after coming out of Kentucky in 2010, and even in limited action this season, a little over 17 minutes a game, he’s averaging a career-high 17.4 points per 36 minutes (via Basketball-reference). His shooting has reached career apogees, too. He’s shooting over 47 percent from the floor, and he’s actually shooting better from three than Paul (34.5 percent vs. 33.0 for Paul). That’s some highly efficient guard play in an extremely narrow window of action. But Bledsoe isn’t the only Clipper playing well in short bursts.
DeAndre Jordan, Los Angeles’ lumbering center and a staple of rim rattling highlight dunks, has been excellent from the low post. He’s shooting over 60 percent from the floor, and after stretching his production out to 36 minutes, he’s averaging a double-double: 13.6 points and 10.2 rebounds per game. Yes, Jordan still struggles from the line – he’s at 43 percent on the year, which makes playing him down the stretch of close games dangerous – but he’s found a way to help his team despite his free throw woes. He’s also the center for the best 5-man unit that Del Negro has increasingly used, which is a pastiche of starters and second team players, and features Paul and Crawford in the backcourt, Griffin and Barnes at the forward spots, and Jordan down low. Jordan doesn’t inspire any confidence at the line, but he’s still playing close enough to the potential of the four- year $43 million deal he signed in December of 2011 to prove effective as their starting center. And you just know the Clippers like having him when they face their hometown rival Lakers with Dwight Howard.
The real cornerstone of the Clippers, though, is Blake Griffin, their high-flying power forward. Griffin is averaging close to 20 and 10 per 36 minutes (19.8 and 9.9 per NBA.com), and he’s shooting over 53 percent from the floor even with a few tough shooting games under his belt from earlier in the year. Like Paul, Griffin has only been logging 32 minutes a night as he continues to rest his knees, but when he is on the court, he’s been just as beneficial. The Clippers are averaging 113.7 points per 100 possessions with Blake on the court (via 82games.com), even though they’re also averaging in the top five for the league at 107.7 points per 100 possessions with him sitting (coincidentally, that’s also their season average for points per 100 possessions). The Clippers score in such a variety of ways, the Paul-to-Griffin pick-n-roll that was a staple of last season’s somewhat telegraphed offense isn’t the only way the Clippers can get buckets… which brings us back to Jamal Crawford and the Clippers’ depth.
As stated earlier, Crawford’s relevance is part and parcel of the team he’s on – the context of Crawford’s scoring is as important as the scoring itself. The Trail Blazers squad he suited up for last season had too many holes for a one dimensional player like Crawford to fill. The Clippers needed a wing player that could get their own shot, and Crawford is exactly that (if little else). They also needed someone to do all the little things with the second team, and Matt Barnes fills that role nicely. Sure, they could probably deal Bledsoe to shore up a frontline that still struggles from the line, but they also like that Bledsoe can play so effectively and gives Paul more rest for this spring (when the whole game becomes his fourth quarter). And Blake Griffin is shooting over 62 percent from the line, so tossing the ball to him on the block late in the fourth quarter isn’t nearly as wince-inducing as it once was.
The Clippers looked tired and ready for bed against the Nuggets last night, and their January schedule will be a lot harder than their perfect December, but that was as much about the thin air of Denver and their fast pace as it was about any drop off in production from this Clippers team. They were going to lose eventually, so it might as well be Denver [insert cannabis joke here]. There are so many useful pieces on the Clippers’ roster, and that’s forgetting about Chauncey Billups, Lamar Odom and Grant Hill, who have all struggled, whether from weight or injury, but who could still be useful enough during the NBA’s inexorable regular season (where we’re only about 40 percent along) that you have to like L.A.’s chances to continue their high level of play even if a couple guys get banged up.
Blake Griffin and Chris Paul haven’t been needed as much as last year, and that just means they’ll be more spritely once the postseason rolls around (people forget how banged up BG was when the Spurs swept them in last season’s Western Conference Semifinals). The Clippers are legit, and it starts with their supply of bodies from the bench. If they can stay healthy and continue to see Odom, Hill and Billups improve their conditioning, there’s no telling how dangerous they can be in late March and April. It’s a bit early to say they’re the favorites in the West, especially with how Oklahoma City has played in the season’s opening third of the regular season, but they’re not the middling second-tier pretenders to the Western Conference throne we all thought heading into the season. The Clippers are for real. Now let’s just see if they can keep it up over the long haul.
Will all of this depth matter in the playoffs?
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