Los Angeles Clippers
The big story for the LA Clippers was the fact that Wednesday night was Kawhi Leonard‘s first load management game of the season. The NBA has rules regarding resting players for nationally broadcast and road games and this game was both for the Clippers. But my questions were answered by a conversation on The Jump. Reportedly, the Clippers had approval from the league for Leonard to sit out. That discussion led to a pretty interesting takes on load management and whether the season should be shortened.
It might seem early in the season for load management to be taking effect but overall, the Jump’s Rachel Nichols and I share the opinion that load management is ultimately good for the league and people need to just accept it as part of the modern NBA.
If Leonard’s load management agreement with the Clippers is similar to the strategy that was so successful in Toronto, don’t expect to see Leonard playing in both games in back-to-back situations. In this case, the option was for Leonard to skip the nationally televised road game against the Utah Jazz or Thursday night’s game against the San Antonio Spurs. Clearly kind of a lose-lose situation.
After the Clippers October 27th loss to the Pheonix Suns, I expected the Clippers to start this game with a little more pop; and that they did result in a 10 point lead at the end of the first quarter. The Clippers were using the full 24 seconds of the shot clock during their offensive possessions. Not in a no-one-had-a-shot-what-do-we-do kind of way. But in a lets-move-the-ball-around-and-get-the-best-possible-shot kind of way.
Unfortunately, by the time there was 5:00 left to play in the third, it was easy to see that the Clippers’ defense was a step slow without Leonard and they were down by 20 points.
For the Clippers to reach their full potential this season, they’re going to have to find a way to combine early offensive intensity and production with great sustained defense throughout the game. Right now, it seems they’ve only been able to do one or the other.