LOS ANGELES (News4usonline) – The Boston Celtics have the best record in the NBA. The Los Angeles Clippers said so what when they beat the NBA Finals runner-up in a one-sided contest played at Crypto.com Arena on Dec.12.
In the first game of their final homestand of the year, the Clippers let the Celtics know what time it was when they surprised the East Coast visitors by playing tough defense and using some timely shooting to beat Boston 113-93.

“I thought defensively we were really good,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue said. “ I thought we did a good job of just attacking the matches we wanted to attack and then later on in that second half they kind of made us kind of stagnant with all those switchable guys. Especially with that small unit, like I talked about, we got to get better offensively.
“But I thought our guys competed, I thought defensively we were really, really good. Low man was there all night and we fired at (Jayson)Tatum to get it out of his hands, our rotations were really good.”
Playing defense against Tatum and the Celtics is just about a mandate. Tatum is a certified All-Star who can dominate on both ends of the floor. Well, Lue and the rest of the Clippers know that. That’s why harassed Boston’s go-to guy all night, bombarding him with a flurry of defensive schemes to make the 36 minutes he played a miserable 36 minutes.
With flying around and getting in his grill all night long, Tatum was only able to connect on 7 of his 20 shots from the field. Jaylen Brown, Tatum’s Robin to his Batman, managed to make 9 of 15 of his field goal attempts for a quiet 21 points. Kawhi Leonard talked about making things tough for Tatum and Brown.
“Just make sure we are not just guarding them one on one,” Leonard said. “They are very skilled players, so we tried to put two guys on them at any given moment that we could, just to make it a little harder for them. That’s what helped tonight, and we also rebounded the ball and we made shots and it kind of got us going.”

With Leonard starting to resemble himself pre-injury, and Paul George doing what PG13 does, the Clippers got out front and didn’t look back. The Clippers held Boston to 43 percent shooting from the field and crushed the Celtics on the board with a 46-36 advantage.
George, the game’s highest scorer with 26 points, was happy with the way the Clippers were able to control the boards.
“Really effective,” George remarked. “They play a small lineup as well so it kind of was in our favor to match up with a team similar to us. I thought at that point it was in our favor to rebound and really just control the boards.”
Though he had a subpar game shooting the basketball, Tatum did his part rebounding. The Boston star ended his night with 11 rebounds. But after the game, Tatum talked about what he could do better when teams are switching out defenders to guard him.
“They (Clippers) showed me a lot of different looks,” Tatum said. “I think you just have to make quicker decisions any time you catch the ball. Think you have to iso, dribble on the court. [Nico] Batum was staying with me, coming up the court even if I didn’t have the ball. Making quicker decisions, attacking, not giving them a chance to load up to come double. Things I have to be better at.”

Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com
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