LOS ANGELES — This game was supposed to be a breather between upending the league’s best and seeing Chris Paul and the Phoenix Suns.
Yet, the Clippers, who routed Boston on Monday, didn’t look much better than the Minnesota Timberwolves, who rest comfortably in the bottom half of the Western Conference standings.
The Clippers overcame a sluggish start and woeful shooting to post a 99-88 victory against the Timberwolves on Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
The Clippers (17-13) – who won their third game in a row – are projected to have one of the toughest schedules in the NBA going forward after having the fourth-easiest schedule for the first 28 games. An easy victory could have given them a bit of calm before squaring off with the Suns on Thursday night.
And they are going to have to play without Kawhi Leonard, who will sit out the second game of the back-to-back set because of load management. Guard John Wall, however, will be available after sitting out Wednesday’s game.
The Clippers could have used an extra pair of hands against the Timberwolves, who refused to back down for the first 24 minutes and held a 43-28 lead at halftime.
Clippers coach Ty Lue went small at the start of the second half, inserting Nicolas Batum for Ivica Zubac, who struggled to get free against three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert. Batum scored five of his 13 points in 41 seconds to give the Clippers their first lead, 45-43.
Zubac eventually left the game because of left knee discomfort.
“I know defensively we’ve been pretty good at being able to switch a lot of things, being able to rebound the basketball,” Lue said, “but now we’ve got to get better offensively, knowing what we’re looking for and what we want to run.”
It’s something, he said, they worked on at the morning shootaround. Their offense, however, stalled often against the Timberwolves. They missed 13 of their first 15 shots and shot just 38.6% (34 for 88) from the field, despite Paul George’s fifth career triple-double.
“We’ve got to continue to keep getting better offensively and it’ll come,” Lue said.
George finished with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists – the 47th triple-double in franchise history and the first since Leonard posted one on Jan. 24, 2020 against Miami.
Leonard finished with 19 points and eight rebounds and Luke Kennard had a season-high 16 points.
While the Timberwolves got 19 points from Anthony Edwards, Jaylen Nowell had 13 and Gobert 11, they, too, struggled to get their shots up. Minnesota, which shot 41.9% (37 for 74), has been without Karl-Anthony Towns (right calf strain) for several weeks and D’Angelo Russell (left knee contusion) is day-to-day.
There were slight signs of improvement as the game wore on. The Clippers continued to push the pace to take a 58-54 lead on an 8-0 run with 4:07 left in the third, capped by a 3-pointer by Marcus Morris Sr. and led by two at the end of the quarter.
The teams were tied twice early in the fourth, the last time at 71-71, but the Clippers outscored the Wolves 25-9 from there to take control before both teams brought in their benches for the final two minutes.
The Clippers ran off eight straight points and Kennard hit two 3-pointers while Nicolas Batum had another. George scored four in a row – on a pair of free throws and a layup off of a Batum steal to push the lead to 91-78.
More to come on this story.