Inglewood – The missing faces were obvious to Tip -off. With the seed n ° 2 locked, the Houston Rockets were seated four of their normal starters, leaving power striker Jalen Green as the only player recognizable in the alignment.
Clippers coach, Tyronn Lue, was not concerned about players that his team would see on the field in the last home game of the regular season. The Clippers had a job to do, and it doesn’t matter who or not their way.
“We must be professional, no matter who is in the game. They had a good team, have obtained a young nucleus which is really good,” said Lue before the match. “(Coach Rockets) IME (Udoka) did a hell of a job. He is an excellent coach and you cannot underestimate any team that you play in this league.
“We had to be ready to go from jump, to have a defensive state of mind to start the game and nail it.”
It took a while, but the Clippers finally brought the young body of the Rockets for a 134-117 victory in the second match of a consecutive set on Wednesday evening, a victory that helped them get closer to their goal of a top six series.
At 48-32, the Clippers are tied with the Denver Nuggets for the fourth place of the Western Conference with two games to play in regular season, but they dropped a place in the fifth seeds because the tie equality was replaced the equality break with four teams that favored the clippers one night earlier.
Memphis (47-32), which was inactive, is alone in sixth for the moment after Golden State (47-33) lost against San Antonio and fell in the seventh. Minnesota (46-33) is eighth and plays Memphis on Thursday evening.
James Harden scored a summit of 35 points, made his 10 attempts at free throws and collected 10 assists to punctuate the Clippers, who won six games in a row and 16 of their last 19 games. Kawhi Leonard contributed 22 points and 10 rebounds and four assists, while the Ivica Zubac center posted its first triple-double in career with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 10 career assists.
“Having these two guys has led us is good for us,” said Lue about Harden and Leonard veterans. “As I said, the main thing is that these two guys must remain healthy and it will be an exciting race, so we will see what will happen.”
Lue had planned to remove Zubac from the game late, but changed his mind and ordered the 7 feet on the ground to see if they could mileston him, to the pleasure of the crowd of the intuity dome.
“I generally don’t like doing this because of the bad karma, but as I said, he was lucky to ride here,” said Lue.
It turned out to be a good decision. Zubac found that Bogdan Bogdanovic moving towards the perimeter, nourished the ball and buried a 25 feet to obtain the Croatian center from his highest point.
“I told Bogie that I’m going to do it to you.” Bogie is a large shooting manufacturer. I told him that he never paid for dinner again, but I’m glad he did this one. “
After an too close first quarter, the reserve striker Nicolas Batum opened the second by scoring 12 consecutive points to advance the clippers from 48-42 to 8:34. Later, he left the game because of the pain of the right groin.
The young bodies of the Rockets, however, would not back down and stayed close for the next three minutes.
Then the Clippers increased the volume, eager to put the distance from each other and their opponent, and took an advance of 71-58 at halftime behind the game of their star trio.
Harden, Leonard and Zubac have each marked two-digit at halftime.
The clippers led by up to 19 in the third quarter (90-71), but they still could not easily rest. The Rockets carried out a sequence of 8-0 to start the fourth and further reduced the advance to figures to a figure (117-109) on a 3 points by Jeff Green with 6:19 on the left, but it was as close as in the section.
The clippers extended their victories sequence despite the game without the Norman Powell goalkeeper, who sat down because of a painful right shoulder. Amir Coffey (knee) and Ben Simmons (left knee management) also sat.
The Rockets, who saw their modest sequence of three -game victories, decided to sit Dillon Brooks (REST), Alperen şengün (lower back), Jabari Smith Jr. (the left groin), Amen Thompson (REST) and Fred Vanvleet (right ankle).
Green has kept his season sequence, appearing in her 80th match but has not played much. He scored five points and collected three assists in 15 minutes.
Reed Sheppard led six two -digit rockets with 20 points.
The next
The Clippers play Sacramento on Friday at 7 p.m. before closing the regular season at Golden State Sunday afternoon (12:30 p.m.).
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
