Paul George was on a minutes restriction during Clippers win against Magic
No one in the media knew Paul George was on a minutes restriction as he faced the Orlando Magic, but it didn't matter - the Clippers still defeated the Magic by 26 points. This team is really clicking.
The biggest clue to figuring out George's restriction came in the second quarter, when the Clippers ran a full bench lineup. Lue had avoided running a full bench lineup that included Lou Williams and Luke Kennard for the last couple of weeks and suddenly came back to it against the Magic. When I asked Lue why he didn't stagger, this is what he said:
"With PG coming back, he was tired and he had a little minute restriction so we wasn’t able to do the full stagger in that first half," Lue said. "So that was on me as far as the lineups we had out there."
George was on a minor minutes restriction because of the fact that he missed the last two games due to health and safety protocols. Prior to that though, he was already experiencing hamstring tightness that took him out of the closing minutes of the Thunder game.
Running a full bench lineup hurt the Clippers immediately, as their 14 point lead dwindled to a three-point lead in about two minutes. From that moment on, Lue learned his mistake and made sure to stagger George and Kawhi for the rest of the game.
"I thought they were scoring too easy and they went on a hell of a run so in that second half coming out in that third quarter," Lue said. "I just decided to get PG out a lot earlier so that way we could get him back and that kind of helped us get our rotations back in order so that first half was on me with PG being on a minutes restriction. Had to do a better job in that second half of just cutting down on some other guys’ minutes."
The Clippers face the Knicks next on Sunday at 10:00 AM PST, one of the earliest games of the season. It's the last game they have before their superstar matchup against the Nets on Tuesday.
