PHILADELPHIA — If a team was going to enter the late November game between the LA Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers with a 10-7 record, one would likely think that it would have been the 76ers. After all, they’re the ones with the 2023 Most Valuable Player in center Joel Embiid and the 2024 Most Improved Player in point guard Tyrese Maxey. Philadelphia was the only team this offseason that added a 2024 All-Star without giving one up, as forward Paul George left the Clippers to join the 76ers via unrestricted free agency.
Meanwhile, the Clippers entered this season with low expectations. They took criticism for not paying George and not trading George. The 2024 All-NBA selection Kawhi Leonard has had a bum knee since the beginning of April. James Harden, 35, has played more minutes in the regular season and postseason than anyone since being drafted in 2009 except for cyborg LeBron James. The Clippers have the NBA’s longest current streak of consecutive winning seasons at 13, but they haven’t won a postseason series since making the 2021 Western Conference Finals. If they were to have won only three games in five weeks, there may have been some people who felt validated by the low expectations.
The Clippers already showed in Week 3 that they are not sweating the departure of George on an individual level. The former Sixth Man of the Year candidate Norman Powell stepped up to begin the season and outplayed George in the latter’s homecoming game at Intuit Dome. Powell was out for the rematch in Philadelphia on Sunday. So were George and Embiid. Leonard is not on the road trip, and even when the Clippers get back home and get some days off, Leonard is not expected to return to practice despite the Clippers getting days off.
But the Clippers decisively beat the 76ers 125-99 to sweep the regular season series and extend what is now a season-best 5-game win streak. On the front end of a back-to-back, the Clippers were able to rest the entire starting lineup in the fourth quarter while holding out the 35-year-old former 76er Nicolas Batum for the entire second half, ensuring that no player reached 30 minutes ahead of their trip to Boston. They embarrassed the 76ers, going up by 31 points with 31 minutes before the Eagles kicked off “Sunday Night Football.”
Yeah, the Eagles game starts in 31 minutes and Philadelphia 76ers are down 31 points. pic.twitter.com/VblDbpfubu
— Law Murray 🕯️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) November 25, 2024
How is a team with depressed expectations and missing key players in the lineup outperforming a team with higher expectations and also missing key players to such a pronounced degree? Well, it helps to know going into the season that you have to play a certain way — the right style of basketball if you will.
The Clippers understood that Leonard will be out, and built their style of play around Harden and an elevated defense coordinated by assistant Jeff Van Gundy. It has allowed head coach Tyronn Lue to address the shortcomings of his team with the relative luxury of lineup consistency.
“It’s tough any time you lose your best player, we all know that,” said Lue, who had several seasons of disappointing player availability results to go with seasons where lineup consistency on a week-to-week basis was nonexistent. “But going into camp and knowing that we weren’t going to have Kawhi for a strong amount of the beginning of the season, we just knew what our team was going to be. After the first five, six games, we understood what our rotation was going to be, how we wanted to play, what guys fit well with who. And so it has been good for us — like, you know, not guys being in and out, in and out.”
The Clippers are 11-7. They have had a double-digit lead at some point in all but two games this season. The first game in which they didn’t have a double-digit lead was two Mondays ago at Oklahoma City, and Lue responded by promoting defender Kris Dunn into the starting lineup in place of small forward Terance Mann.
The third starting lineup that Lue needed was when Powell injured his hamstring this past week, allowing the Clippers to start small forward Amir Coffey and use emerging small forward Jordan Miller as a rotation piece. The only other rotation change all season from a personnel standpoint was when former 76ers center Mo Bamba was ready to return from his knee injury last weekend. Bamba took two-way contract center Kai Jones’ spot in the second string and the Clippers have won each of their first five games with Bamba in the lineup.
“I think NBA players are freaks of habit,” Bamba said before departing the visitors locker room at Wells Fargo Center Sunday night. “We like knowing what we’re going into. We’ll make it work on how we go. It’s good when you know what’s going on, you know how much you’re playing or not playing. I think it builds camaraderie within, you know, what you’re doing when you’re on the floor.”
James Harden scored a team-high 23 points in the victory against his former team. (Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
Having Harden as the leader and primary playmaker of LA’s offense was something that was valued when he came to the Clippers a year ago. But the conversation was different in November 2023, when the Clippers were 3-7 while the 76ers were 8-1. It took the Clippers some time to figure out how to play. This season, with less future Hall of Fame talent surrounding him, Harden is seeing how the Clippers are progressing and enjoying the results.
“We’re coming around, and we’re understanding who we are,” Harden said after compiling game-highs of 23 points and eight assists in his second road game in Philadelphia since last year’s trade. “Understanding that, in order for us to have a chance at anything, we know we have to do it every single night. And that’s the most exciting part. And then, one thing about this team, we’re all happy for each other. Literally, it can be anybody’s night, on any given night. Nobody’s going to be upset, everybody’s going to be happy for each other. And things aren’t always going to be perfect to win games. But even when we lose, we’re still happy for each other. Good things will happen most of the time.”
HARD3N gettin’ us started in Philly 👌 pic.twitter.com/wLV1YW7FIn
— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) November 24, 2024
The team that the Clippers built is in contrast to last season’s top-heavy team that benefited from the relative health of Leonard, George, Harden, and former backup Russell Westbrook until Leonard’s knee broke down right before the postseason. That was a reaction to the 2022-23 Clippers season that saw Lue snap repeatedly due to Leonard and George’s struggle to play together for more than a few games at a time for the first half of the season. But this Clippers team is more talented than the 2021-22 team that didn’t have Leonard for the entire season and lost George for three months due to a torn ligament in his elbow. Lue led that team to a 42-40 record with current 76ers backup point guard Reggie Jackson serving as the primary playmaker.
“If we could have any minor chance of (Leonard and George) coming back, then our whole thing was, we were trying to find a way to get into the playoffs and then we’ll find a way to go from there,” Jackson said of the 2021-22 Clippers in the 76ers locker room before Sunday’s game.
What the 76ers are dealing with now is lineup inconsistency and the challenges it puts on everyone. Head coach Nick Nurse has already started 11 players in nine different lineups, none for more than four straight games. Four 76ers have played more than Maxey, eight have played more than George and 10 have played more than Embiid. It takes a toll, especially with the added drama coming out of Philadelphia’s locker room.
“It’s certainly not ideal and not that easy to manage, but it is part of the gig, right?” Nurse said before Sunday’s loss. “Continuity doesn’t come with constant in and out and constant injuries and things like that. But we got to keep working for it.”
Embiid, Maxey and George have only played together for six of Philadelphia’s 778 minutes this season. The 76ers have had worse results trying to put good lineups on the floor with George, Embiid and Maxey missing time than Lue ever had with George and Leonard missing time.
Even now, the Clippers are exceeding expectations while not being at full strength. Monday night’s matchup winner in Boston will have the league’s longest active win streak. But Lue will appreciate when he can get Leonard back to join a team benefitting from preparing to play without a star.
“We’ve been able to lock into having one team,” Lue said. “We know who’s going to play every single night. So it’s been helpful. But, you know, we definitely need him back, for sure.”
(Top photo of Derrick Jones Jr. reacting after dunking the ball on an assist from James Harden: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
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