Clippers hit 19 3-pointers, crush Bucks for 6th win in a row

LOS ANGELES — Deep thoughts with the Clippers.

Say you start the week taking on two-time reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and his Milwaukee Bucks. Say you have to do it without four key contributors. Say this for these Clippers, then: They spread the love, and from a distance.

The Clippers might have had, as Nicolas Batum put it, “four big, key guys out” but they were not short on options on Monday night, when contributions came from everywhere and in so many ways, including, yes, from deep: They made 19 3-pointers in their runaway 129-105 victory over the Bucks (29-17), who dropped their third consecutive game after having won eight in a row.

The Clippers (32-16), meanwhile, ran their winning streak to six games, a span in which they’ve not been fully healthy once but have been winning by an average of 19 points. It was the Clippers’ NBA-leading 11th game winning by a margin of 20 points or more.

They pressed their advantage Monday with a barrage of 3-pointers, finishing with one fewer than their season-high. After they went just 5 for 16 from long range in the first half, the Clippers made 14 in the second half, including eight in the fourth quarter, when they extended a 13-point lead to 24.

Without his fellow All-Star Paul George on the court, an engaged and active Kawhi Leonard led the charge with 23 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.

Four other Clippers scored in double figures, three of them also tallying 20 points or more, including Marcus Morris, who kept it going as a starter with a team-high 25, shooting 4 for 7 from 3-point range.

Reggie Jackson – in his trademark mismatched sneakers, Monday’s a red-and-black pairing – got the Clippers over the hump with a huge third quarter when he drained all three of his 3-point attempts en route to scoring 15 of the Clippers’ 39 points.

And Luke Kennard – who got the last-second start – took the baton in the fourth quarter, helping bring home the victory with 12 of his season-high 21 points, as he finished 8 for 11 from the field and drained four of his five 3-pointers in the final frame, firing from farther and farther behind the arc.

Terance Mann continued to attack with a full head of steam and contributed 14 points off the bench, along with six rebounds and six assists.

Ivica Zubac grabbed nine of the Clippers’ 46 rebounds (which was 14 more than Milwaukee) and played stout defense on Antetokounmpo, who had to work for his 32 points after making 10 of his 21 shots and 10 of 12 free throws. The Bucks were outscored by 31 points in his 34 minutes of action.

Batum looked spry with a chase-down block on Donte DiVincenzo moments before he came flying in for a put-back jam off Leonard’s missed 3-pointer in the fourth quarter. And in his 700th career NBA game, forward Patrick Patterson came off the bench for the short-handed Clippers and made all three of his shots, all from long range, for nine points.

“All around, just had a great way,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. “Like I told the guys after the game … a lot of guys being out, just had a lot of lineups that we haven’t been used to playing, so we just had to take advantage of the mismatches and attack from them. I thought the guys did a great job of just continuing to play the game and make plays for one another.”

Surmised Batum: “That was a good team win, and now we got to keep playing like that. We got guys not playing but still got so many weapons to be a good team, so I can’t wait until everybody gets back so we can start building something and be a better team.”

George was a late scratch because of soreness in his right foot, the same foot in which he suffered a swollen toe bone that kept him out for seven consecutive games in February. Lue said he didn’t have an update as to whether George will be available Tuesday when the Clippers face the Orlando Magic.

His absence brought to four the number of Clippers who missed Monday’s showdown with the Bucks before of injury; Patrick Beverley is dealing with right knee soreness, Serge Ibaka has lower back tightness and newly acquired point guard Rajon Rondo is out with of right adductor soreness.

The Clippers led 57-55 after a teeter-totter, run-trading opening half in which the Bucks sprinted used a 15-3 surge to build a 12-point lead that lasted about eight minutes before the Clippers had reeled off a 20-6 run of their own to pull ahead, 46-44.

With 5:27 to go in the third quarter, Lue called a timeout after Jrue Holiday sauntered to the 3-point line after stealing the ball and buried a shot that cut what had been a nine-point Clippers’ advantage to 76-73. Milwaukee would get no closer.

Fifty people got to witness the victory in person, in socially distanced in groups of no more than four, a sign that the coronavirus pandemic’s grip on sports in L.A. county thawing some. The Clippers said in a statement that, like the Lakers last week, they received permission from the L.A. County Health Department to host an audience of no more than 50 people per home game.

“We will continue working with the county and the NBA towards our goal of having Clipper games open to fans at Staples Center,” the team said in the statement.

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