Predicting the LA Clippers' Win-Loss Record at the End of the Regular Season
The 2019-2020 season has been anything but regular, which is typical considering this is the first year the LA Clippers are favored to win the NBA title.
Things were going great for the team before the NBA stopped play on March 11 due to the coronavirus outbreak. Following the All-Star break, the Clippers went 7-2 and owned the best net rating in the league. LA was as healthy as it had been all season, too. It looked like things were finally coming together as the team prepared to make a deep postseason run.
Fortunately, all isn't lost. Play will resume on July 31 in Orlando, Florida, and the LA Clippers are one of 22 teams that will finish out the year.
There will be a postseason, of course, but before that, the NBA has decided that each team will play eight more regular-season games to finalize playoff seeding and to shake off any rust that accumulated in the last four months.
LA's supposed schedule features matchups with the Brooklyn Nets (twice), New Orleans Pelicans, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, Indiana Pacers and Sacramento Kings.
Comparatively speaking, the Clippers have a pretty feasible schedule — if this is indeed the team's slate. The details of each game are currently unknown, but a tweet about how each team's games will be determined seems to be pretty reliable.
Collectively, the Clippers posted a 9-5 record against the teams mentioned above this season. They've yet to play the Nets and surprisingly have a losing record against the Kings, but this is a group that fans should feel comfortable about — especially since three of the teams are currently out of the playoff picture.
Let's briefly highlight each opponent before making a prediction.
Brooklyn Nets
The Nets came into the season with one of the best rosters on paper, and, when healthy, this is a championship-caliber team. The duo of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant has sky-high potential, and guys like Caris LeVert, Spencer Dinwiddie and DeAndre Jordan make this a well-rounded squad.
That said, in their current form, the Nets would have a difficult time preventing the likes of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George from thriving on both ends of the floor. The team has had difficulty scoring this season (Brooklyn ranks 23rd in offensive rating), struggles to contain elite three-point shooters, and isn't great when it comes to forcing turnovers.
As long as the Clippers return in decent shape, these are two games that they should win comfortably.
New Orleans Pelicans
The Clippers have played three games against New Orleans this season and have come away as winners of two. However, all of those games took place before Zion Williamson made his NBA debut, and the Pelicans have been a completely different team since then.
In Williamson's 20 games, the Pelicans have gone 11-9 with close losses coming from the Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers. The Pels are also averaging 120.1 points per game during that stretch — a figure that would rank first in the league.
The Clippers simply don't have an answer for Williamson — no team does — and the Pelicans will be competing hard for a playoff spot once the season starts back up. This one could go either way, but I'm leaning slightly toward a loss.
Dallas Mavericks
If the playoffs began today, LA would be facing-off with the Dallas Mavericks. At 40-27, Dallas has the seventh-best record in the Western Conference and the league's No. 1 offense. And while that might sound scary, the Mavs aren't too terrifying.
Luka Doncic is the star of the show, and it's easy to understand why he's so appealing to fans. The 21-year-old is averaging 28.7 points, 9.3 rebounds and 8.7 assists in his second NBA season and has a legitimate MVP argument.
That said, the Mavs don't offer much outside of Doncic — particularly on defense. Seth Curry and Tim Hardaway Jr. are terrific three-point shooters, but neither is capable of keeping Leonard or George from scoring at will. And while the Dallas bench ranks among the league's best in points per game, it isn't equipped to stop Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell and Reggie Jackson from wreaking havoc.
For a full breakdown of this potential playoff series, click here.
Denver Nuggets
LA's meeting with Denver will easily be the most important of the remaining regular-season contests. The Nuggets are just 1.5 games behind the Clippers in the standings, and giving up the No. 2 seed could be dangerous if LA wants to take the least-difficult path it can to the NBA Finals.
MVP candidate Nikola Jokic is a matchup nightmare, Jamal Murray is dangerous if he gets going early, and the Denver bench is arguably the deepest in the league. And yeah, the Nuggets will want the No. 2 seed too.
That said, LA throttled Denver in their most recent matchup on February 28. Led by George's 24 points in 25 minutes, the Clippers defeated the Nuggets 132-103 in one of the team's most dominant performances of the season.
There's no reason to expect a repeat of that performance in Orlando, but the Clippers' stars do tend to perform better under pressure. If LA can jump out to an early lead, this game will be winnable.
Phoenix Suns
Phoenix barely made the cut to be invited to Orlando, but the Suns are coming regardless.
After a hot start to the season — including an upset victory over the Clippers — the Suns fizzled out rather quickly. Since starting the season at 7-4, Phoenix has gone 19-35 and struggled with consistency. Sure, the Suns beat the Milwaukee Bucks, Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz in the month leading up to the suspension, but the team also lost to the Detroit Pistons and Golden State Warriors in that same span.
That said, the Suns are a fun team. Devin Booker is one of the best scorers in the league today, Deandre Ayton is a promising, young big, and Kelly Oubre has blossomed in his first full year in Phoenix.
The Suns are capable of pulling off a few upsets, but they'll have to catch the Clippers on an off-day to do it — and I just don't see LA being anything but focused once things pick back up.
Indiana Pacers
Indiana is a good team, with a few exceptions. For example, the Pacers are arguably the best two-point-shooting team in the NBA — they make more of them than any other team in the league. A lot of those shots have to come at the rim for that to work out for them, too. Weirdly enough, though, Indiana... isn't all that physical?
The Pacers attempt and make the fewest number of free throws in the NBA and are the seventh-worst rebounding team in the league — fourth-worst on the offensive glass.
Outside of Domantas Sabonis, the Pacers don't have a single player that averages more than 6.5 board per game, which explains some things.
All of that is beside the point, though. The Clippers won their lone matchup with the Pacers by 11 this season, and that was with Moe Harkless and Patrick Patterson starting and Leonard on the sidelines. The Pacers didn't have Victor Oladipo in that game, who was finally beginning to see his minutes ramp up before the suspension. Still, a healthy Leonard and George vastly outweigh a healthy Oladipo.
Sacramento Kings
The final regular-season game of the season will allow the Clippers a chance to exorcise some of this year's demons.
Sacramento defeated LA twice this season, including a 124-103 blowout on January 30. Granted, Leonard sat out of that contest, but it was a strange game all-around. The Clippers were mostly healthy for their lone win of the year over the Kings, an 18-point drubbing sans-Sweet Lou.
The result of this game may come down to the situation at hand. If the Clippers are already locked into a seed at this point, there won't be a reason to play any of the heavy-lifters. The same goes for the Kings: If they're already eliminated from playoff contention by then, there isn't a purpose to going all-out.
Let's chalk this one up a win for now and see how the Clippers will fare later this summer.
Prediction
A reasonable guess is that the Clippers will lose one of their tougher games along with one that might not have any meaning near the end of the regular season. New Orleans and Denver pose the most significant threat as the toughest teams on the schedule, while Indiana or Sacramento could pull an upset just before the postseason begins.
A 6-2 record, then, seems like the most likely outcome for LA. That would put them at 50-22 when it's all said and done, or a winning percentage of 69.4%. That should be enough to keep them locked into the No. 2 seed.
That said, it's difficult to predict exactly how any team will do once things pick back up. This is an unprecedented period in NBA history, and players have virtually gone through an entire offseason's worth of time.
Some teams could come back even better than before, while others could return as disorganized versions of the contenders they were in March.
Let's hope the Clippers show up as the former.
