The Clippers enter playoffs as NBA's hottest team. The goal? ‘Stay the course'

New York Times

14-04-2025

SAN FRANCISCO — Poise. That's what the LA Clippers needed to win only their second nationally televised game of the season.
Poise and pressure tend to go together. In the 1997 movie 'The Devil's Advocate,' Al Pacino's character states, 'Some people, you squeeze them, they focus; others fold.'
'I think it's very important to stay poised,' Clippers head coach Lue said prior to his team's road game Sunday against the Golden State Warriors for the right to clinch a playoff spot outright and avoid the Play-In Tournament. 'If you're up yelling and going crazy at the refs and going crazy in the huddles, you kind of lose sight of what's at stake. I don't want to be that coach that's going crazy and doing things out of the ordinary. It's just give your team confidence, give them a calming presence in the timeouts, and that way, they can go on the floor and do the same thing. That's just always been my motto.'
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The Clippers needed that poise when they were down 12 in the second quarter to the Warriors, as Jimmy Butler ate up LA's second unit with Stephen Curry off the floor. They needed it when Norman Powell struggled through a difficult shooting game, only to find a way to make go-ahead field goals to end the second and third quarters. They needed it when Curry scored 18 of his team-high 36 points in the fourth quarter, giving the Warriors a 111-107 lead with less than two minutes remaining in regulation.
The Clippers needed poise to stop the Warriors on their final possession of regulation, when every other NBA game on Sunday was over and other teams were watching what was transpiring at Chase Center. They also needed poise to never trail in overtime and secure a 124-119 win that completed a regular-season sweep of the Warriors, capped a season-best eight-game winning streak and gave them back-to-back 50-win seasons and the fifth seed in the 2025 NBA playoffs.
'We got down 12, I just told the guys (to) stay the course,' Lue said postgame. 'Being down 12 is not a lot for us if we can just do what we're supposed to do, do what we're capable of doing. Our guys did that for the rest of the game. I think we came in, had the lead at halftime by one, and then it was just kind of a back-and-forth game.'
The Clippers enter the postseason having won 18 of their last 21 games. They're the hottest team in basketball, with the NBA's best offense and defense since March 6. But they were wary of what they would have faced had they not run through the tape Sunday.
The preparation began at the end of Friday's road game against the Sacramento Kings. A 10-point Clippers lead at the 4:57 mark evaporated to one point with 3.9 seconds left. Keegan Murray intercepted a James Harden inbounds pass to give the Kings a chance to steal the game, but the Clippers survived as DeMar DeRozan missed a prayer, preserving a 101-100 Clippers win.
With NBA Commissioner Adam Silver looking on, a glimpse at the closing moments and final possession for the Kings, who fall 101-100 to the LA Clippers tonight in Sacramento. pic.twitter.com/wFyPTsPla0
— Sean Cunningham (@SeanCunningham) April 12, 2025
Lue scoffed at the notion that he should be concerned because his team almost squandered Friday's game. He has seen his team survive endings like that before this season.
'Quit saying 'concerned' all the time,' Lue said. 'I'm never concerned. Like, it's part of the game. … It was a huge win for us, so I'm not concerned about anything.'
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That game set up Sunday's win-or-sort-of-go-home heavyweight brawl against the Warriors. Everything wasn't on the line in the Bay; Golden State head coach Steve Kerr noted that it didn't feel like a Game 7. But the winner secured a playoff spot, and the loser would have two cracks at a Play-In Tournament home game to clinch.
That's where the concerns started for Lue — and perhaps the fan base of the Clippers, as well. This team hadn't lost a game all April but had to win a nationally televised road matinee in the most hostile of territories to avoid the Play-In Tournament. When the Clippers made the Play-In Tournament in 2022, they won 42 games despite Kawhi Leonard missing the entire season with right knee ACL surgery and Paul George missing more than half of the season with a torn ligament in his shooting arm elbow.
That Clippers team had no shot at a top-six seed given the circumstances, but they had double-digit fourth-quarter leads in Minnesota during the 7-8 game and against the New Orleans Pelicans during the 8-9 game. The Clippers lost both Play-In games, the latter without George (COVID-19) against a Pelicans team that had six more losses than them during the regular season.
'If you're nine and 10 games ahead of the ninth and 10th seed, and then you fight this hard to get here, you know … and then, those teams are good,' Lue said Friday night in Sacramento, wary of potential Play-In teams like the Dallas Mavericks who have a losing record. 'Those teams are good enough to win two games. All you got to do is get hot for two games, and you're in the playoffs. So, it's tough. Kind of like to disregard the 82 games that you're playing during the regular season, and it comes down to two games. Anybody can get hot. Anything can happen. It's a tough situation.'
Perhaps the Clippers had a right to be spooked. But they could still value the 82-game season. They had a chance to complete the regular season while also controlling their own playoff destiny. The good news for them is they had a team capable of getting it done.
Leonard felt like Friday's game in Sacramento was particularly difficult in terms of not getting calls while he navigated the defense. There was a moment late in the game where he was sent tumbling to the floor with no call, left to bellow 'foul!' His face still had an open wound by Sunday.
RE: Kawhi not getting calls https://t.co/qq1eXwuOFi pic.twitter.com/NkGgRc4zHc
— Law Murray 💭🚫 (@LawMurrayTheNU) April 12, 2025
But Leonard's dealt with worse. This time last year, he wasn't at full strength following an All-NBA campaign because of his knee. He didn't debut this season until January. But on Sunday, he scored 33 points while the Clippers outscored the Warriors by a game-high plus-minus of 17 points in Leonard's 47 minutes and 25 seconds played.
'It's great,' Leonard said of getting back to the playoffs after all he's been through. 'Now, gotta stay the course and be able to feel how I'm feeling now and try to keep that moving. Like I said, I want to have a healthy offseason, and that's what I'm trying to do.'
Powell didn't have his best game, scoring only 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting from the field and missing five of six 3s. But his 3-pointer to beat the halftime buzzer ended a stretch that saw Leonard, Harden and Curry all make 3s in the final minute of the first half. Powell's sweeping hook gave the Clippers a lead going into the fourth quarter.
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The entire game, Powell felt the encouragement from his teammates.
'I was a little frustrated with how I was playing at that moment,' Powell said Sunday. '(Harden) came to me and told me none of that matters; I'm a great player, just continue to stay focused in the moment until the next play. But that's what team is. You lift each other up, you cheer each other on and figure out how to get a win.'
The primary defender on Curry was Kris Dunn, a former lottery pick who had to find his way back into the NBA after injuries slowed his progression. Dunn, drafted fifth by the Timberwolves in 2016, has only played in 33 minutes during the playoffs. He was able to stay poised defensively on a day Curry had eight turnovers.
Now, Dunn gets to contribute to a playoff team.
'These players are too great in this league, Steph and others,' Dunn said after compiling three steals in 35-plus minutes at Golden State. 'You just got to keep a fighting mentality. Keep trying to make it tough on them and, you know, make some big plays.'
While Dunn will miss out on a chance at an All-Defensive team selection because of league rules (Dunn played in 74 games, but reached 20 minutes in only 53 of them, nine short to be eligible), Ivica Zubac went up against Defensive Player of the Year candidate Draymond Green and put his final stamp on a banner year. LA's center had 22 points on 11 of 16 field goals and recorded his 29th 20-point game of the season. Zubac had only 16 20-point games in his first eight NBA seasons combined.
Additionally, for the 10th time this season, Zubac finished a game with zero personal fouls. He also outrebounded the entire Golden State starting lineup, 17-14.
But Zubac was more in awe of Harden's accomplishments. Harden, who drained five 3-pointers for the game, put the team on his back in overtime, scoring 12 of his game-high 39 points in the extra period. He gave his team the lead for good with a moonshot of a 3-pointer over Butler.
'James hitting those 3s, the second one he hit over Jimmy. I felt like it was in the air for like five seconds,' Zubac said. 'It was fun, man. Big-time players … a game like this, high stakes, I feel pretty confident.'
The Clippers now have bigger things to play for. A team that wasn't even projected by Las Vegas to win 40 games remains a top-five team in the Western Conference for the fifth time in six years. They get to face the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 of the playoffs Saturday afternoon, a team that features MVP candidate Nikola Jokic and former Clipper Russell Westbrook. But Denver also just fired championship head coach Michael Malone, who led the Nuggets to a semifinals win over the Clippers in the 2020 bubble after the Clippers had a 3-1 lead with previous head coach Doc Rivers.
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Last year's Western Conference fifth seed was the Mavericks. They went on to beat the Clippers in the quarterfinals and advance to the NBA Finals after entering the postseason as the NBA's hottest team. It's been a successful season for the Clippers, but there is no way they're content with that. Leonard has had too much time taken away from him. Harden has made the playoffs each year since being drafted in 2009, with a championship the last thing missing on his résumé. The Clippers have had 14 straight winning seasons without a finals appearance.
Poise led them into the playoffs. Why stop now?
'We want to go a little further,' Zubac said. 'Our goal was obviously to make the playoffs, but we're not happy or whatever. We're happy we got in without being in the Play-In, since everyone doubted us. It feels good to prove everyone wrong. People saying we're going to win 30 games, 35, whatever. To win 50 games … it feels good, but we got some more work to do.'
(Photo of Steph Curry and James Harden: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)