Thursday NBA Roundup: Clippers Erasing Any Doubt They Are Among League’s Best

The Los Angeles Clippers are true contenders for the NBA title. 

Truthfully, we should’ve known as much before Thursday night’s 113-94 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers, but the three-game skid leading up to the second-half beatdown of the defending champions cast some doubt. The league’s best teams don’t typically drop three consecutive contests, much less lose to the shorthanded Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers and Brooklyn Nets. 

There’s no longer any doubt. 

This performance should sweep away any concerns. It by no means guarantees a title—the Clippers still shouldn’t even be favored to advance out of the Western Conference—but it affirms their status as a dangerous outfit. 

“The true Clippers are much closer to the juggernaut that started the season 14-2 than the tired patsy of the past week,” ESPN.com’s Zach Lowe wrote before this latest showing. “They’ve already played 19 games, second-most in the league, and they rested Griffin during their bizarro loss in Brooklyn on Tuesday.”

Numbers tell a similar story. 

Even after the losing streak, the Clippers trailed only Golden State in simple rating system (Basketball-Reference.com’s metric that grades teams based solely on strength of schedule and margin of victory). They entered Thursday ranked No. 5 in offensive rating and No. 2 in defensive rating—the only team to place in the top five for both.

NBA Math’s Team Rating also shows them falling behind only the Warriors: 

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That No. 2 finish is even more significant than you might initially imagine. If you click over in the above infographic, you’ll see that only a dozen teams in NBA history have finished with a higher score. In fact, the Clippers’ closest comparisons are the 2008-09 Cavaliers and 2012-13 Oklahoma City Thunder, both of whom won at least 60 games.

These marks aren’t earned with one-way ability. Offense or defense alone can’t carry you to this lofty level, and that’s not what’s happening for Los Angeles. 

The Clippers showed off their wealth of offensive options against Cleveland while posting an impressive 113 points.

Blake Griffin had 8️⃣ assists in the 1st half…most of his career in a half.Here’s his 9th.