The LA Clippers have finally won on the second night of a back-to-back for the first time this season. The team is officially 1-6 on their second night of a back-to-back.
Unfortunately, Deandre Jordan went down with an injury during the team’s win against the Sacramento Kings. The Clippers lost Deandre during the second quarter, when he sprained his ankle during a put-back dunk. On the positive side, Blake Griffin and Milos Teodosic returned to the lineup.
The Clippers led by as many as 16, but allowed Sacramento to claw back into this game multiple times. LA was up 14 points with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, and then quickly found themselves down 1 point with 4:14 left. The last four minutes ended up being a tightly contested game, that came down to rookie Tyrone Wallace making a clutching steal to seal the game with 10 seconds left.
Lou Williams led the way for the Clippers again, finishing the game with 30 points and 6 assists.
📊 30pts/6ast/1blk/2stl | @TeamLou23 has three consecutive 30+ point games for the first time in his career. #NBAVote
📸: https://t.co/dSaaF3h7Pj
🎥: https://t.co/AfXS2KlhIm #ItTakesEverything pic.twitter.com/B50dUeJooj— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) January 12, 2018
Montrezl Harrell was the hero off the bench. Harrell put up 25 points, 6 rebounds, on 11/12 shooting. The team had moments of lazy play, but they did well enough offensively to make up for it.
Bogdan Bogdanovic and George Hill put up 22 and 21 points respectively for the Kings, but Sacramento couldn’t stop the Clippers’ offense.
https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/951684959554555904
LA ended up shooting 51% from the field, and 42% from three. Although the Clippers shot well from the field, their ball movement was the reason why they won this game.
Ball Movement
The Clippers are typically a bad team at moving the ball, averaging only 21 assists a game. This inability to move the ball, was largely the reason why they went on a 9 game losing streak. Last night they had 28 assists. To put that into perspective, New Orleans is the 2nd best team at moving the ball, averaging 26.4 assists a game.
FINISH HIM!!
Retweet 🔁 to Vote @MONSTATREZZ | #NBAVote
📲: https://t.co/bmUfLlRVjD
📺 #PrimeTicket pic.twitter.com/psyCfC6HEE— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) January 12, 2018
The team has transitioned from 28th in ball movement, to 24th. This improvement has also helped with their overall offensive game; LA is now the 11th best offensive team. There were many moments of unforced turnovers last night, which is why the Kings were able to get back into this game. However, we haven’t seen many games of Blake Griffin and Milos playing together. You could see moments of them figuring it out, and that’s why you should be excited about this potential.
The Final Clip: The Clippers played a terrific offensive first-half of basketball. The team played minimal defense, and nearly allowed Sacramento to win the game. Despite that, they managed to pull through, and mature together as a team.
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