Brian Shaw couldn’t say an hour and a half before tipoff Saturday who would comprise his starting lineup, same story as in Toronto the evening before.
It wasn’t gamesmanship by the Clippers’ acting head coach, or him trying to be coy. It was a matter of Shaw trying to figure it out.
He said, via Zoom, that the team got news shortly before the team left for Barclays Center on Saturday that guard Luke Kennard – a starter for the short-handed Clippers for 10 of the previous 11 games – had tested into the league’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols, joining head coach Tyronn Lue and teammates Ivica Zubac, Brandon Boston Jr. and Jay Scrubb with that designation.
Their absence brought to nine the number of Clippers who were unavailable to take on the star-studded Brooklyn Nets, who were whole except for Joe Harris (ankle) and Kyrie Irving (unavailable for games in New York), but who still boasted a formidable roster that includes superstars Kevin Durant and James Harden.
In addition to the Clippers’ four players in protocols, five are injured, including their stars Kawhi Leonard (ACL) and Paul George (elbow), as well as Nicolas Batum (ankle), Isaiah Hartenstein (ankle) and Jaston Preston (foot).
With more than half of the 17-player roster (two-way contracts included) that the Clippers started the season with unavailable, Shaw planned to play the team’s three hardship signees – guards Xavier Moon, James Ennis III and forward Wenyen Gabriel. The latter two of whom were on 10-day contracts with the Nets when they beat the Clippers 124-108 on Monday in L.A.
That was the Clippers’ second of five games in a seven-game span, including the back-to-back set that had play on New Year’s Eve in Canada – where Lue remained Saturday as the team said it was working on the safest way to get him home – and then in Brooklyn on New Year’s Day, a scheduling novelty in Shaw’s 34-year experience playing and coaching in the NBA.
“The league didn’t really deal us a good hand in terms of the schedule over … last night’s game and today being New Year’s and traveling and all of that,” Shaw said. “But it is what it is and we’ll figure it out.”
The starting lineup that the Clippers settled on – Terance Mann, Amir Coffey, Serge Ibaka, Eric Bledsoe and Reggie Jackson – did not include veteran forward Marcus Morris.
He has been the Clippers’ most dependable offensive weapon of late, scoring 20 or more points in his past five outings and eight of his past 10 games – a span interrupted by the week he spent in protocols.
But it’s worth noting that Morris – who said Wednesday that his breathing felt “a little funny” – also has logged heavy minutes in the three games since returning, averaging 34.2, including 38 in the Clippers’ 116-108 loss in Toronto.
Kennard has averaged 14.5 points per game over the past 11 contests, when he’s also shot 46.8% from 3-point range. On Friday night, he had 13 points and a season-high six assists.
“Obviously, the personnel changes and guys have different abilities, but from my standpoint, just trying to keep everything as simple as possible, because we have three players, basically, that (are) new players that haven’t played very much and practiced a lot with our guys,” Shaw said of the Clippers’ prudent approach to Saturday’s contest.
“A couple of guys like (rookie guard) Keon (Johnson) that haven’t played a lot with us this season on top of that. So just trying to simplify everything and just get them to play hard and compete regardless of what the lineups look like, because those guys are playing for their lives.”