Los Angeles-The defense for the Los Angeles Clippers will have to improve. Hopefully, that will be soon.
As we are all aware defense wins championships not offense. The Clippers aren’t exceedingly where they need to be defensively. We have witnessed gorgeous games defensively by the Clippers, but we’ve also seen a couple of repulsive ones. The Clippers are giving up 105.0 points per game.
When they played the Timberwolves a couple of weeks ago at the Staples Center they gave up 107 points. That’s a lot of points on the scoreboard; but Clippers head coach Doc Rivers was impressed.
“They scored 107 points but they shot 41 percent,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “Defensively, that’s really good.”
Another noticeable game where the defense stood out was Saturday against the Sacramento Kings. The Clippers came out full of energy and looked like they would easily take the victory. They were up by 18-points in the third quarter. The Clippers looked polished on both ends of the floor.
But all of a sudden something really scary happened in the fourth quarter. They found themselves shifting back into their old habits. You know the ones that’s easy to get into, but hard to get out of.
“I don’t think there’s been a fourth quarter that we haven’t played yet this year,” Clippers Chris Paul said. “We sort of got accustomed to that last year; every now and then we had a game where we blew it open. The bench came in, blew it out and we got to rest the fourth quarter. We’ve got to do that, especially the way our schedule is.”
After leading by double-digits they found themselves fighting for their dear life to win the game in final seconds. We saw a lot of games like that last season but different outcomes.
“With all these games, we’ve got to put away games early and not be in all these dogfights,” Paul said.
This is why you should play defense for forty-eight minutes to avoid an enormous tragedy.
“It’s hard,” Rivers said of maintaining a double-digit lead. “I always think when you get a big lead, the only way you maintain the lead is with your defense. That’s the only way you maintain the lead. I think 90 percent of players in the league think, ‘If we can just keep scoring.”
If the Clippers can figure out how to be consistent on defense, they’ll be a hard team to deal with. The offense is there but the defense is still a work in progress.
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Dennis is the editor and publisher of News4usonline. He covers the NFL, NBA, MLB, racial and social justice, civil rights, and HBCUs. Dennis earned a journalism degree from “The Mecca” aka Howard University. “I write on what I am passionate about.”