What went wrong for the Clippers against the Warriors
By Jeff Siegel
The Golden State Warriors, as they are wont to do, walked into Staples Center for a matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers and walked out deserved winners. On the surface, the Clippers got everything they wanted in a potential upset bid over the Warriors — Stephen Curry missed all eight of his 3s, Kevin Durant made less than a third of his shots and just one 3-pointer. So what went wrong for the Clippers? The two best players on the other team had an off night and they still couldn’t convert it into a win or even a close game?
The Warriors might not have had it going offensively, but they were as prepared as ever on the defensive end, cutting off everything the Clippers wanted to do and forcing the live-ball turnovers upon which they feast. Eleven of the Clippers’ 14 turnovers were of the live-ball variety and most led to run-out layups and dunks on the other end.
Particularly troubling was Blake Griffin’s passing, which has been such a key for his game and the Clippers as he’s aged past the I’ll-just-dunk-it-on-everyone stage of his career. Good Blake can handle the ball, hit a spot-up jumper, and punish switches with a herky-jerky post game that is effective enough against smaller guys. Bad Blake showed up Wednesday night, committing more turnovers than made shots and generally looking hesitant and lost offensively.
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Griffin has always had trouble against Draymond Green, dating back even before Green was the superstar defensive player he’s become over the past three years. Green’s combination of strength, quickness, long arms, and strong hands render Griffin’s post game impotent.
Chris Paul enters the ball to Griffin just outside the right block; he turns, faces up, and ends up with a fading floater near the left elbow. Usually, Griffin will either be able to power through his defender or explode past him with one hard dribble to the rim. Instead, Green is with him every step of the way and it’s just another lowlight in a night full of them for the Clippers. Griffin will always get his touches in the post, but Green stonewalled him again and again in this game, which has the added bonus of not requiring a second defender to run over and help — something that can be a death knell against the Clippers with Griffin’s improved passing out of those spots.
Griffin had an odd game in which he was perfectly happy to try to go against Green in the post, but whenever he got somebody else on him, he was settling for long jumpers. His unique brand of bullying his way to the basket would theoretically work a lot better against a smaller, skinnier defender like Durant or Andre Iguodala, but he was neither able nor willing to punish the Warriors for their switch-heavy defensive scheme in those situations.
Durant has the length and quickness to bother Griffin, but he should be able to put his head down and make his way to the basket and either finish for himself, find DeAndre Jordan on a lob, or use Durant’s length against him and get fouled. Instead, Griffin jabs once or twice and fires up a wayward jumper.
J.J. Redick has had intermittent success against the Warriors, running defenders around screens and finding his own shot or creating space for Paul and Griffin to work. This was especially effective when Curry was defending Redick, as he isn’t as skilled at getting through screens and staying attached to Redick. However, when Curry has it going defensively like he did last night, the Warriors can leave him on Paul and let Klay Thompson and the rest of the Warriors wreak havoc on Redick’s game.
Thompson’s unique defensive skills make going up against him hell for shooters like Redick — Thompson knows all the angles and doesn’t fall asleep when Redick makes subtle positional changes to find an opening. Thompson knows better than anybody how a great shooter only needs a few inches of space to make the other team pay and it shows when he’s defending against other sharpshooters. On the rare moments when Redick was able to get away from Thompson around multiple screens on the Clippers version of the San Antonio Spurs loop play, the Warriors were perfectly happy to switch two through four and put Iguodala or Durant on Redick.
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With Griffin having trouble in isolation and post-up opportunities and Redick not able to create space around screens, the Clippers’ offense was incredibly stagnant and often didn’t even get going until halfway through the shot clock. They got very little early offense and seemed to want to slow the game down as much as they could, which can be a good tactic against the Warriors, but not if it means pounding the air out of the ball for 10 seconds before running any actions. Playing against the Warriors is hard enough with 24 seconds to find a good shot, playing against them with 12 seems ill-advised.
The Warriors showed last night that they certainly can put the team in Superteam when they need to, getting offensive contributions from the whole roster on a night when their top two stars didn’t have it, and locking down on the other end. The Clippers had their perfect opportunity to take advantage of an off-kilter Warriors team, but turnovers and a sputtering offense meant yet another defeat at the hands of their chief rivals.