Today’s Hottest Take: The Clippers Can Make The Playoffs

For almost all of the season the Clippers have looked like a subpar, below-average team. They had neither a good offense or defense and were racked with injuries. When they played good offense they were losing games because they couldn’t defend anyone and if they played good defense it was overshadowed by their lackluster offense. Now the Clippers are locked in on their playoff goals and are set on making it. Over their last 15 games they have the fifth-best net rating, the third-best offensive rating, and the ninth-best defensive rating. Despite these promising stats the Clippers are still 11th in the Western Conference, half a game behind the Grizzlies.

The Clippers have dug themselves into a serious hole that they must get out of to reach their goals. It would be preferable to be able to get the sixth seed to completely avoid the Play-In Tournament, but with nine games separating them and the Rockets, that is unlikely to happen. The Clippers should aim at the seventh or eighth seed, meaning that they will have chances to get out of the Play-In and into the playoffs. They have seven games separating them from the Warriors and they are only three games away from the ninth seed.

What You Need To Know: Harden and Kawhi Basketball Works

Over these last 15 games the Clippers have had two true superstars in James Harden and Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi is averaging 31 points on 50/40/90 shooting splits while having seven rebounds, four assists and 2.5 steals. Harden is averaging 24 points, four rebounds, and eight assists on league-average efficiency. These two are truly empowering the Clippers offense and defence and elevating the team to a different level. Role players like Derrick Jones Jr., John Collins, and Kobe Sanders are having great games during this stretch because of them. They are second-to-last in pace of playing but they are second in effective field goal percentage and first in true shooting. They are eighth in the league in combined steals and blocks and ninth in points off turnovers.

The Clippers might be one of the most complete teams in the league with almost all of their bases covered. They have two stars, an elite center in Ivica Zubac and plenty of great role players. They have defense in Kris Dunn, Yanic Konan Niederhäuser and Jordan Miller, three-point-shooting in Brook Lopez and Bogdan Bogdanović and both in John Collins, Derrick Jones Jr., and Nicolas Batum. Passing comes from everyone on the team and same with rebounding. It is clear that everyone on the roster is fully bought in and will do whatever it takes to win.

There have been fewer errant fouls and careless turnovers in the recent games. The team is making sure they take care of the little things like securing rebounds better or making a defensive rotation faster. Most importantly everyone on the team feels like they have a clearly defined role, something that they didn’t really have early in the year. The rotation is secure and the veterans are playing with passion while the younger players are making fewer mistakes. While they aren’t blowing out teams in a dominant fashion, they are playing real winning basketball.

Before You Go: The Clippers Have Zero Margin For Error

While the Clippers are playing great right now, they can not mess up even slightly. One injury or bad loss can slip them back into a losing streak. From now until the end of the season the Clippers must treat every game like a win-or-go-home playoff game. Games that they are the favorite in they must keep the starters playing until a win is guaranteed and when they are underdogs they must play like their lives are on the line.

They need to turn these close wins into something more. They need to blow a team out to help them improve chemistry. They should be spending a lot of their free time either in the gym grinding, or team bonding. If they manage to execute in the late game better and cover up their lapses this team can turn their slow crawl into the playoffs into something real.