Clippers’ egalitarian effort nets big win over Nuggets
LOS ANGELES — The Clippers put a 132-103 smackdown on the Denver Nuggets on Friday night. But little good that did you if your fantasy basketball team was depending on members Doc Rivers’ team to significantly stuff the stat sheet.
Unless your rotisserie team needed 3-pointers (Paul George had six) or blocks (Montrezl Harrell came up with three), the NBA’s nightly leaderboard was devoid of Clippers – despite their rollicking, high-scoring triumph against the Western Conference’s current No. 2 seed.
The Clippers (40-19) shared the load Friday, with seven players in double figures, led by George with 24 points. They collected a season-high-tying 35 assists, and had five players finish with four or more, paced by seven apiece from Lou Williams and Reggie Jackson off the bench.
To hear Clippers players tell it, it was the type of box score that served as a sign that things are going right for the group of singularly focused veterans (who are taking their cues from a maniacally focused competitor).
“We’re all at a point where we just want to win,” said Jackson, the 29-year-old point guard who said he’s welcomed the shift from catalyst to contributor that came with his Detroit buyout and subsequent Clippers signing.
“I think we’re at that core group age,” said Jackson of his new squad, of which six of 14 members have between seven and nine years of NBA experience. “Most of the guys have done at least seven years-plus, and we have a great leader in Lou, who’s been around for a long time (14 years), and so I don’t think anyone cares who gets it done, it’s just getting it done. That’s one of the best things since I’ve been here.”
That includes George, the Clippers’ star forward, who said he’s feeling less pressure to put up big numbers in this environment.
“Everybody has kind of been established with our main guys,” said George, whose season averages of 21.1 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists are off his previous season bests – a trend that doesn’t bother him in the slightest, he said.
“For me, I just want to impact winning,” George said. “I’ve been a high scorer in this league; that’s not what motivates me. I think everybody has one agenda at this point in their career and that’s to win. And you see it. Everybody is out there trying to affect winning.”
Nobody does that quite like Patrick Beverley, who didn’t score Friday, took only one shot, and yet set the tone and finished plus-13 in the box score.
“You would have thought Pat had 40 tonight the way he was grinning and smiling and just having fun with the game,” George said. “That’s what it’s about. I tip my hat to Pat. It’s contagious when you’ve got a guy who plays to win and doesn’t care what his stats look like.
“It changed me. I just wanna go out there and hoop. I don’t care what happens, if I make shots, if I miss, as long as I’m impacting winning, and we come out with a win, that’s all that matters.”
Friday’s winning gave the Clippers their third consecutive victory and their seventh in seven games this season with a fully healthy roster. It also moved them into a tie for the second seed with Denver.
They’ll try to keep it going – to “keep growing, keep pushing,” as Rivers put it – with a matinee Sunday against the Philadelphia 76ers (12:30 p.m., ABC). The Sixers will rely on former Clipper Tobias Harris and Al Horford to lead them with Ben Simmons (back) and Joel Embiid (shoulder) injured and unavailable.
"Every young player should look at Patrick Beverley tonight…"
@DocRivers on what @patbev21 brings every night. pic.twitter.com/qUnmiTGSD6
— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) February 29, 2020