Clippers shake off slow start, pull away from Magic in 2nd half
LOS ANGELES — Maybe it was a trade hangover. Or the fact that the Clippers were short-handed after trading away four players, leaving Coach Tyronn Lue with nine available players.
Or maybe they missed the defensive pressure that Nicolas Batum and Robert Covington provided on a nightly basis. Both Batum and Covington, along with Marcus Morris Sr. and K.J. Martin, were sent to the Philadelphia 76ers in a yet-to-become-official trade that brings former league MVP James Harden and veteran forward P.J. Tucker to Los Angeles.
“We got to be locked in for 48 minutes and it all starts the first five minutes of the game,” Lue said before their game against the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena. “Just having that defensive mindset.”
Just the opposite happened.
Whatever the distraction, the Clippers struggled early to play with the kind of focus that marked their first three games, falling behind by as many as nine points in the first half before rebounding for a convincing 118-102 victory over the Magic in the first game of a back-to-back set.
How bad was the first half? Paul George didn’t score his first basket until the 4:07 mark of the second quarter. Kawhi Leonard failed to connect on any of his six shots in the first half and Russell Westbrook made just one shot and had three assists in the first 24 minutes.
With Harden and Tucker watching from an arena suite upstairs, the Clippers shot 33.3% from the field in the first half and made just 6 of 17 shots from 3-point range.
Lue said before the game that the team’s mindset was to win, not look ahead to the players who were there, the new players coming in or Wednesday’s rivalry game against the Lakers.
“We’ve got to lock in on Orlando,” Lue said. “They’re a good team. Coach Jamal (Mosley) has those guys playing great defensively and we have to make sure we get back in transition … making sure we don’t allow them to get easy baskets.”
The Clippers did a better job locking down the Magic, who lost to the Lakers the night before, in the second half. The Clippers (3-1) took their first lead at 59-58 when Bones Hyland took a pass from Westbrook and drove the lane with 7:22 left in the third quarter. Hyland finished with 17 points and three assists in his first start of the season.
George took over from there, scoring on a 19-foot jumper, a 27-footer and another shot from the corner to give the Clippers a 10-point lead at 69-59 two minutes later. By the end of the third quarter, the Clippers led by 17 as George hit his fifth 3-pointer.
He scored a game-high 27 points on 8-of-17 shooting to go along with seven rebounds and seven assists.
That 10-1 run seemed to deflate the Magic, who struggled to match their early energy despite having five players score in double figures. Paolo Banchero led Orlando with 15 points, Franz Wagner added 14 points and eight rebounds, while Moritz Wagner had 13 points and Markelle Fultz had 12.
The rest of the game belonged to the Clippers, who expect to have Harden and Tucker in uniform when the team begins a road trip at the New York Knicks on Monday.
Westbrook scored 18 points, six rebounds, seven assists and five steals, while Norman Powell finished with 17 points.
More to come on this story.