LOS ANGELES — Starting lineups are not always meant to be set in stone. Some coaches know they want to start a consistent group, but others have a core three or four players, playing the matchups to complete a nightly unit. We all find out the starting lineups a half-hour before tipoff, at the latest. We appreciate the coaches who are comfortable sharing before that cutoff time who they will begin games with.
Advertisement
LA Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue generally will stay with a set lineup, especially in the regular season. He even revealed his starting lineup before the first training camp practice: Reggie Jackson, Eric Bledsoe, Paul George, Marcus Morris Sr. and Ivica Zubac.
That five-man group never played together in the preseason due to Morris’ left knee issues, and after starting 0-2 with Morris struggling, the Clippers determined that Morris wasn’t strong enough to play and inserted Nicolas Batum in his place. The starters haven’t changed since Oct. 25, the first time the Trail Blazers came to LA: Jackson, Bledsoe, George, Batum and Zubac.
Tuesday night, the Blazers returned to LA, and Lue was asked again who his starters would be. He had to react this time — after all, this was about to be the eighth straight game with the same starting five. Even with Kawhi Leonard available, Lue wasn’t able to keep a starting lineup intact for more than six consecutive games last season.
“You want to change the starters?” Lue replied sharply to a question prior to Tuesday’s game. “Same starters. Until Kawhi gets back.”
Even a lighthearted comment such as that one was met with more intrigue than it should have been. And not just from the “Kawhi back!” branch of the rumor mill.
The biggest takeaway from LA’s 4-0 Week 3, other than the Player of the Week accolades George received as a result, is the fact that the Clippers had to win three of those games after trailing by double digits. A comeback win, something the Clippers have grown very comfortable pulling off, is probably 75 percent credit for winning and 25 percent concern for being down so much in the first place. And most of the scorn for the Clippers falling behind lay at the feet of a starting lineup that was playing charitable basketball on both ends of the floor in the first quarter of games.
A typical sequence for the Clippers to start games would be a turnover that would lead to an easy look at the other end. This was probably rock bottom:
Here’s what’s interesting, though: The Clippers’ starting lineup had been outscored by 27 points in 31 first-quarter minutes in games where they didn’t face the Blazers. But in the 14 first-quarter minutes against the Blazers prior to Tuesday night’s game, the Clippers’ starting quintet performed much better, outscoring the Blazers, 35-27.
Advertisement
Lue hasn’t been worried about the turnovers after a week that saw the Clippers give up 30 points off giveaways twice and still win. Instead, Lue was looking for his first unit to defend better to start games.
“Just come out with a defensive mindset, I think, to start the game,” Lue said, focusing more on the results of some of the turnovers rather than the offensive miscues. “Our second, third and fourth quarters have been great. But our first quarters haven’t been great as of late. We have to have a defensive mindset to start the game, and I think having a physicality at all five positions defensively and lock into that, and we’ll be fine.”
I followed up with Lue and pressed on the turnovers, and he kept it simple.
“You’re going to make some turnovers because you’re aggressive, trying to make a play,” Lue replied. “But just the careless turnovers, we got to make sure we try to take away and limit.”
The Clippers beat the Blazers, 117-109, for their fifth straight win, improving LA’s record to 6-4. The starting lineup was a mixed bag that actually cost the Clippers two points in the first quarter before the first sub was made, giving up a 13-0 run. But prior to that run, the Clippers established a 13-3 lead to get some cushion.
“The nine prior games, we’ve been having slow starts defensively,” George said. “Teams have been outplaying us in the first quarter, so it starts there. It started there, coming into tonight , that we had to play better, we had to get off to a better start first. And we did that. So it was an emphasis going into tonight’s game, to impose our will early and be the aggressive team.”
The Clippers wound up winning the first quarter overall on the strength of their 13-0 run once subs were made, but the starting five had its best stretch during a 10-0 third-quarter run that left the Blazers trailing for the rest of the game, even with George managing foul trouble throughout the second half.
After Damian Lillard made the Clippers pay for an ill-advised, half-court alley-oop attempt from Jackson to George with a 3-pointer to give the Blazers a 64-60 lead with 9:12 left in the third, the Clippers locked in. All five starters contributed over the next three minutes:
- Jackson found Batum for a corner 3.
- Jackson made a floater following a CJ McCollum pass that went out of bounds.
- Bledsoe ended consecutive Blazers possessions, stopping Jusuf Nurkic in the paint and getting credited with a steal for deflecting Robert Covington’s pass in the air.
- Jackson used a Zubac screen and re-screen to find another floater.
- George rebounded a missed 3 from Cody Zeller and drew a foul on Norman Powell while going coast-to-coast for a score, forcing a Blazers timeout.
- Zubac split a pair of free throws after being fouled by Zeller two possessions later following rebounds by Zubac and Batum on one-and-done Blazers possessions.
This run was interrupted when George picked up his fourth foul of the game trying to block a Zeller dunk with 5:53 left in the third. The Clippers’ starting lineup never saw the floor together again after that point. But that’s fine, because Lue has a second unit that is overwhelming foes.
Terance Mann and Luke Kennard were on the floor for just over 24 minutes against the Blazers, and the Clippers outscored the Blazers, 56-52, in those minutes. When only one of Mann or Kennard was on the floor, the Clippers outscored the Blazers, 22-18, in just under 10 minutes. Those minutes from Mann and Kennard represented the game’s final point differential. But the starters not getting completely outplayed again made it so that the bench units didn’t have to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Advertisement
“We just try to find ways to win, and we kind of shortened our rotation up a bit after the first five, six games,” Lue said Tuesday night. “Just wanted to see who could play with who, and once we saw the formula, we kind of stuck with it, and it’s been very good for us. I’m not saying the guys who aren’t playing now wasn’t good for us, just the chemistry of the group is a little different. So we tried the first five games, gave 10 guys a look, and now we’re down to playing eight guys, eight and a half. So it’s going to be different times for different situations. But right now, we’ve got a good rhythm going.”
There are still a lot of variables with the Clippers that go beyond whenever Leonard gets back. Morris has been on the court and in the weight room but hasn’t been playing five-on-five every day, so it is not a lock that he returns this month. Even if Morris does return during one of LA’s two six-game homestands in November, Batum is playing so well that Jackson singled him out for nearly three minutes after Tuesday’s game.
“He’s honestly the glue for our team,” Jackson said after Batum finished with his second 20-point game of the season, already matching his total 20-point games from last season.
Serge Ibaka is back, but the bigger question involves how much longer Lue plays him with Isaiah Hartenstein continuing to make an impact in the second unit. Hartenstein has a positive plus-minus in all nine games he has played after being a DNP-CD in the season opener at Golden State. Zubac, on the other hand, has turned the corner with four straight games of double-figure scoring. Zubac’s career-long streak is six games, so he can tie and break that this week. He’s entrenched as the starter.
And then there’s Bledsoe. George has consistently supported Bledsoe through his shooting woes, saying Friday night in Minnesota how much he empathizes with his 2010 NBA Draft classmate.
“We all love having Bled out there on the floor with us,” George said. “He brings so much. I don’t care about his shooting. I don’t care if he’s struggling. He does stuff that the box score doesn’t show. You know, he just plays hard. He does all the right things. And so he’s, you know … it’s a long season. He’s going to find his way, he’s going to give us shots.”
Bledsoe finally scored in double figures for the first time in eight games Tuesday, finishing with 11 points to go with five rebounds, six assists and two steals. Bledsoe didn’t have a single turnover, and he made two 3s in a game for the first time this season (including the preseason).
Advertisement
“You know, it started out a little rough,” Jackson said of his tandem with Bledsoe in the starting lineup. “We’re still figuring each other out. I think we’re doing better, trying to defend a lot better in the backcourt. Figuring out matchups, doing those type of things. And then offensively, just try to bring him along. Honestly, I think from the beginning of the season, we’re trying to bring him along, get him acclimated, understanding of our play sets. And then, even from there mostly, like even though we have sets, we’re kind of a free-flow-playing team. We like to get out in transition, we like to move, use our athleticism. So just trying to get him acclimated with that and get the game easier. You know, allow not only just Paul to have touches, but for him and myself to be able to make plays.
“We’re going to get better at it and figure out how to play off each other more and more. But we just want him to be aggressive, and we want him to play fast, play early. You know, attack, get in the lane, probing plays … and then take his shots. So I think we’re figuring it out, slowly but surely, and I think we can get better.”
With the Clippers now reaching 6-4, Lue feels like his team is headed in the right direction. And he also feels like he has the right mix of players for the foreseeable future. That includes a starting lineup that still has room for improvement since they have been outscored by five points in 98 minutes this season.
“Just resilient, finding ways to win,” Lue said of what he’s learned about his team through 10 games. “Like I said, we started off 1-4, and we didn’t want to overplay PG and Reggie and those guys, and Nico just came back from playing (in the Olympics). We just had to be smart about it. And then the guys said we feel good, we can play more minutes, you know. And talking to our guys in the medical room, they said we can move their minutes up, and then we kind of shortened our rotation. I think guys got into a good rhythm. They found a rhythm that way, and like I said, guys were playing more minutes now, too, so they’re more productive on the floor.”
(Photo of Paul George and Reggie Jackson: Adam Pantozzi / NBAE via Getty Images)