Three Takeaways from the LA Clippers' Game 4 Win over the Dallas Mavericks
As recently as five days ago, the LA Clippers looked dead in the water.
They fell down 0-2 to the Dallas Mavericks in their first-round series, giving up both games on their home floor and allowing both Luka Doncic and his teammates everything they wanted on the offensive end of the floor. They looked confused defensively, trying multiple schemes at once and attempting to take away everything, and in the process taking away nothing. Though Performance Artist Skip Bayless loves nothing more than to engage in hyperbole, this particular tweet actually encapsulated the NBA mediasphere’s mindset for the rest of the series following the Game 2 loss:
Not everyone (media, fans, internet trolls) was declaring a sweep, but most were deeming the series over. Even after the Clippers won Game 3 by double-digits, there was still plenty of skepticism, as Dallas remained on fire from 3-point range (perhaps unsustainably so), and Doncic hung 44 points on LA despite the loss. But Game 3 was the first time one could find glimpses of a solid defensive plan, where the Clippers weren’t sagging off of 3-point shooters to help on Doncic quite as often. They also trapped Doncic less, electing to either switch or fight over the screen. In the second half, Head Coach Tyronn Lue chose to go small with Nicolas Batum starting over Ivica Zubac, which gave Doncic one less weak spot to attack.
The Clippers were consistent with these defensive shifts in Game 4. Combine this consistency with Dallas’ 3-point shooting finally falling back to Earth (they shot just 5-30 from deep in Game 4), and the result was a dominant 106-81 blowout victory to tie the series at two games a piece.
"Coming here to a hostile environment...the thing I'm most proud of is keeping our poise,” Lue said postgame. “I thought we really had the focus of coming in, taking it one game at a time and winning these two games."
Defense unlocked
LA finally avoided Dallas’ punch to the mouth in the first quarter, and they themselves struck first for the first time all series. They held Dallas to just 22 points in the first quarter, the second-fewest amount of points LA has allowed all series to that point (the fourth quarter of game 3 being the lowest). The defense was not a mirage, as LA held Dallas to 23 points in the second quarter, 15 (!!) points in the third quarter and 21 points in the fourth, much of which was garbage time. Overall, LA held the Mavericks to 81 points on 34.8% shooting and 16.7% from 3.
Were all of the Mavericks looks heavily contested? Not necessarily. Tim Hardaway Jr., who hit an absurd 15 of his first 23 3-point attempts through three games, was due for a regression to the mean sooner or later. He was just 0-4 from deep on Sunday, finishing with just four points on 1-8 shooting overall. Some of his looks were well-contested, but others he just flat-out missed. If anything, LA should be given credit for allowing just four attempts from deep for the sniper. Once an NBA player gets a 3-point shot off, it’s almost irrelevant how close a defender is to him. They’re too well-trained, their releases are too high and they’ve been hitting shots in defenders’ faces their entire careers. What’s more indicative of good perimeter defense is not allowing a shot off to begin with, and LA did just that. Maxi Kleber was reduced to a non-factor, contributing zero points on 0-3 shooting. While Kristaps Porzingis (18 points) performed well in the midrange, LA allowed him just two attempts from deep, and he missed both of them.
Laboring Luka
Lue has been reiterating it since their game 2 loss: the plan is now to make Doncic a scorer and to limit his supporting cast as much as possible—less trapping, less blitzing, less collapsing when he’s posting up. Stay home on shooters, and if he beats them by scoring 60 himself, LA will tip their hat and go home. He came somewhat close with 44 on Friday, but tonight, while clearly suffering from a neck injury he sustained in Game 3, he scored just 19 points on 9-24 shooting (1-7 from 3) despite getting a lot of the same looks he was getting in games 1-3.
"He's in pain,” Mavericks Coach Rick Carlisle said postgame of Doncic’s cervical strain. “It appeared to me that he couldn't turn left. He couldn't look to his left."
Obviously, LA would want nothing more than to overcome Doncic’s greatness when he’s at full strength. But if this injury continues to plague him, it halts Dallas’ entire offense. Doncic is their be-all and end-all, and if he can’t contribute his usual magic, LA becomes the more talented team by a wide margin.
It is also worth noting that, even beyond the neck injury, Doncic has struggled mightily from the free throw line throughout this series. He’s hit just 13 of his 32 attempts at the line; he’s actually shooting better from the field (48.6%) and from 3 (40.9%) than he is from the stripe (40.6%). If Doncic has any offensive weakness, it’s his inability to make LA pay for being too rough with him. It’ll be interesting to see if Lue exploits this weakness (Hack-a-Luka?) in any potential clutch minutes throughout the remainder of this series.
Kawhi’s greatness
Through the first three games of the series, Doncic was the best player on the floor, and rightly deserved the shine he was awarded given his team’s success. But the margin between him and Leonard was quietly not that large, and the Claw separated himself on Sunday. Leonard has always been a spectacular postseason performer, but this series has been something else. His 11-15 shooting performance in Game 4 brought his averages for the series up to (get ready): 33 points (62.7% FG, 47.6% 3PT, 87.5% FT, equating to a 74.1% true shooting figure), 8.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.3 steals and one block in 39.8 minutes of action per game. He’s also only turning the ball over twice per game despite a 28.5% usage rate. To put that in perspective, the only other player with a usage rate of 28% or more while maintaining a true shooting rate above 74% so far this postseason is Joel Embiid, a center who spends the majority of his time around the basket and whose team is on the verge of sweeping the 34-38 Washington Wizards. To have at-the-basket level efficiency with a shot chart consisting of quite a few midrange jumpers is seriously impressive.
Leonard has been unconscious, embarrassing primary defender Maxi Kleber by either blowing by him off the dribble, moving him in the post or shooting over the top of him.
Combine this offensive prowess with his usual stout defense (Leonard looked great guarding Doncic for stretches in Game 4) and Leonard has reinforced his status as one of the five greatest players in the world. In the postseason, having one of those guys—the LeBrons, the KDs, the Currys—often becomes the difference-maker in a series.
"The pace and the speed he's playing with is what we need,” Lue said postgame. “It's unbelievable."
If the Clippers are fortunate enough to make it out of this roller coaster of a series alive, with Leonard performing at this level, they’re suddenly back in the driver’s seat. But that’s a big “if.” The series has now essentially reset to a best-of-3, with two games on the Clippers’ home court (though evidently that means nothing even with fans, as the home team has lost every game of this series so far). However, Dallas is resilient, and with two and a half days off for Doncic to recover from his injury, there’s no reason why the Mavericks cannot reclaim the momentum. Lue countered Carlisle’s scheme, but the 2011 champion coach no-doubt has a counter to that counter somewhere up his sleeve. LA seems to have exorcised their playoff demons earlier rather than later (no Clipper fan would’ve felt safe had LA gone up 3-1 in this series), but there are still at least two more contests to play.
Game 5 tips off on Wednesday from Staples Center.
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