Paul George, James Harden lead Clippers past Grizzlies
LOS ANGELES — Once again, the Clippers find themselves in a wait-and-see mode with Kawhi Leonard, a position they all too know well.
Leonard, who played in the team’s first 25 games, has now missed four in a row because of a bruised hip suffered nine days ago. He sat out Friday’s game, watching from the bench as the Clippers defeated the Memphis Grizzlies, 117-106, at Crypto.com Arena.
Leonard aggravated a sore right hip when Dallas Mavericks forward Grant Williams hip-checked him in a game Dec. 20. Lue said he originally suffered the injury 12 days earlier against the Utah Jazz.
“Well, it was the same hip, I think he fell on it, can’t remember the game it was — Utah, yeah — he aggravated it then and played through it and then the Dallas game just kind of took it over the top,” Lue said.
Lue said Leonard, who appeared in just 50 games last season, is getting better “but he’s not cleared to play right now.”
Leonard is the team’s leading scorer at 24.4 points a game and led the team to a nine-game winning streak. Without him, the Clippers lost two in a row and then needed a late 19-2 run to hold off the Charlotte Hornets on Tuesday.
The Clippers (19-12) got by again Friday without the two-time Finals MVP, but again, it was a challenge in the early going. The Clippers used a strong effort in the second half to put away Memphis for their second consecutive victory.
“This wasn’t the prettiest game, but we’ll take it,” James Harden said.
Filling in for Leonard was a collective effort as six Clippers players scored in double figures, led by Paul George, who scored 19 of his 23 points in the second half.
“Just playing through adversity,” George said.
George didn’t clarify what he meant, whether it was having to play without Leonard for an undermined length of time or his slow start.
“We know it’s gonna take some time for Kawhi to get back into the lineup,” Goerge said. “It’s not something that’s surprising going into the game or going into shootaround. We gotta hold it down for when he comes back.”
The Grizzlies were in a similar situation playing without their star player, Ja Morant, who returned to the team last week after serving a 25-game suspension by the league for his antics with guns on social media.
Without Morant, the Grizzlies (11-20) dropped quickly into the lower reaches of the Western Conference.
With him, they won four in a row. Memphis lost to the Denver Nuggets on Thursday, but Morant didn’t play because of illness.
Against the Grizzlies, Lue said he had hoped to avoid a repeat of Tuesday’s game when the Hornets scored 62 points in the paint, 42 in the first half. But with Morant’s quickness and ability to attack the basket, he knew it would be a big ask.
But not an altogether impossible task.
With Terance Mann shadowing him and the rest of the team helping, Morant finished below his 28.8-point average but still contributed a team-high 19 points, six rebounds and 10 assists.
“He’s a great player, he’s a dog,” said Mann. “He likes to do certain things that I’ll try to take away, but he’s a great player.”
Marcus Smart and Jaren Jackson Jr. each had 22 points for the Grizzlies.
The Clippers turned a close 59-54 halftime lead into a 20-point advantage by the end of the third quarter as George got moving, scoring nine points in the quarter, including a corner shot at the buzzer for a 95-75 lead.
George overcame a sluggish start to finish with a team-high 23 points, seven rebounds and six assists, while Harden had 16 points and 13 assists. He surpassed Lenny Wilkens for sole possession of 16th place on the NBA’s all-time list with 7,221 assists.
Ivica Zubac scored 15 points and had his second game with at least 20 rebounds. Amir Coffey (13), Russell Westbrook (14 points, six rebounds, six assists), Norman Powell (13) and Mann (11) all scored in double figures as the Clippers closed out the month with an 11-2 record.
“It’s good, especially beating a really good Memphis team who’s been playing great with Ja,” Lue said. “I know he’s under the weather a little bit tonight but just to beat a good team that’s been playing really well was huge for us, especially without Kawhi.
“To close the month out was really good, knowing we got a tough month ahead of us in January. A lot of good teams, a lot of travel, so this is a good way to kind of end our home-stand after playing on the first, but just this month, just ending the homestead and going out on the road.”
The Clippers play Miami on Jan. 1 before hitting the road for three games.
The Grizzlies made a push early in the final period with a 12-1 run that trimmed the Clippers’ lead, 96-87 with 8:16 left to play. Santi Aldama’s short jumper off an assist from Morant, further cut into the lead, 98-90 with 7:15 left.
But that’s as close as the Grizzlies could get down the stretch as the Clippers started a new winning streak.
The Clippers led by as many as 15 in the first half and held a 49-38 lead with 7:06 left in the half before the Grizzlies, who were playing the second game of a back-to-back, went on an 11-0 run, capped by a 3-pointer by Smart, to tie the game at 49. The Clippers, fueled by two big dunks by Zubac, regained the lead and led 59-54 at the half.