The Los Angeles Clippers are having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. At 6-18, they’re underperforming with a team that many, myself included, thought would be a solid playoff squad.
Instead, they haven’t been able to get going. Kawhi Leonard started off the bad vibes with the Aspiration revelations, then did his usual Kawhi thing and has missed 10 of LA’s 24 games. Now, they’re still dealing with the Chris Paul fallout after sending the Point God home due to clashes with Ty Lue and the front office. Oh, and LA’s first round pick is headed to Oklahoma City, continuing to feed a budding dynasty that doesn’t need any help.
But the Clippers still have talent, and a few years ago it was the Houston Rockets who showed up in LA when the Clippers were struggling and handed them a win that jumpstarted (at least for a little while) the Kawhi-Paul George-James Harden triumvirate.
Houston is coming off a disappointing blowout loss to the Dallas Mavericks. Obviously, Alperen Sengun missing the game with an illness and Steven Adams being unavailable due to a back-t0-back factor in, but Houston still had the talent to be in that game. Nevertheless, the basketball gods and schedule makers have forced them to wait four days between games thanks to the NBA Cup. Now Houston will try to get the bad taste of Dallas out of their mouths against the Clippers.
Dorian Finney-Smith: OUT (ankle)
The Line (as of this post)
Looking ahead because we can
Monday night on the road against the Denver Nuggets
