The early bird gets to help its playoff standing, at least this weekend, when the Los Angeles Clippers play the first of consecutive home games Saturday against the Chicago Bulls.
The Clippers not only have to set the alarm clock in advance of Saturday’s afternoon game against the Bulls, but also take on the Milwaukee Bucks in an early game on Sunday.
Los Angeles has delivered spotty results of late in its quest to move atop the Western Conference standings. In fourth place in the West at the start of play Friday, the Clippers are a mere 6-6 since Feb. 7 after they finally had ascended to the top spot.
But Los Angeles has won three of its past four games, with the only defeat in that run at Milwaukee on Monday when the Clippers blew a 15-point third-quarter lead.
The Clippers rebounded with a 122-116 road victory over the Houston Rockets on Wednesday when Kawhi Leonard scored 28 points and Paul George added 21.
Ivica Zubac did not play in the second half because of the effects of a recent illness, with Mason Plumlee coming off the bench to deliver eight points and 11 rebounds, all after halftime. The Clippers outscored the Rockets 78-59 over the final two quarters.
“As much as we would like to adjust to the game from the beginning of the game, it took us a little bit,” Leonard said. “In that second half, we adjusted. (The Rockets) were playing faster, playing more aggressive than us. … We talked about it (for the) second half and we were a lot better.”
The Clippers’ more aggressive attitude could come in handy against the Bulls, who are on a three-game winning streak, all on a Western Conference road trip that ends Saturday. Chicago followed a 119-117 victory over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday with a 125-122 win Thursday against the Golden State Warriors.
The Bulls’ DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic each scored 33 points against the Warriors, while Vucevic added 11 rebounds to eight for DeRozan. Chicago shot 52.9 percent from the floor and 44.4 percent from 3-point range, while holding sharp-shooting Golden State to 26.2 percent from distance.
The Bulls currently are in a play-in spot for the Eastern Conference playoffs and are starting to toggle between the task at hand that still remains in the regular season with the start of the postseason in mid-April.
“One of the things I’ve talked to those guys about is if you want to get to a point … that you’re playing in meaningful (playoff) games — not to say the regular season isn’t meaningful — but everybody is playing for that moment,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “There are things that are going to happen in those games, the physicality of the games, calls are not going to go your way, the ability to rebound the basketball and physically put your body in plays, the loose balls, all of those things.”
The win-at-all-costs ethos was present in the victory over the Warriors, a playoff-tested team led by a two-time MVP in Steph Curry, who was held to 15 points on Thursday while making just 3 of 12 attempts from 3-point range.
Chicago won despite getting outrebounded 48-40 and committing 14 turnovers that Golden State turned into 22 points.
–Field Level Media
