LOS ANGELES – Talk about meaningful NBA minutes.
Sunday’s game between the Clippers and Pelicans wasn’t “win-or-go-home or end-all, be-all,” Tyronn Lue acknowledged, but golly, was it important.
At stake for Lue’s Clippers: clinching the eighth play-in spot and an opportunity to win one play-in game and move on to the playoffs proper — and also a bit of breathing room, because the loser of the 7 vs. 8 play-in will get a second shot against the winner of 9 vs. 10.
For visiting New Orleans? Securing a place in the play-in, a relatively remarkable feat for coach Willie Green’s squad, which started the season losing 11 of its first 12 games.
And, well, if the Pelicans are going to clinch, they’ll have to do it another night.
The Clippers (39-40) rolled over New Orleans, 119-100, showing out before a crowd of 16,840 on Sunday at Crypto.com Arena. They won in a rout for the second time in as many games and beat the Pelicans (34-44) for the first time in four meetings this season.
“I think what it will take is the mindset and I think just us coming in, knowing the game plan, and I thought we did that really well tonight,” Clippers star Paul George said. “I challenged the team my first game back to start shaping into more of a playoff team and I think we’re doing that.
“Overall, we’re starting to — as a unit — shape up as a playoff team. So, that’s just what you want to see late in the year.”
Tyronn Lue’s squad separated itself from its guests with a 29-13 second quarter and went into halftime ahead 66-44. After that, they never looked back, building leads as large as 26 to park themselves in eighth place in the Western Conference with three regular-season games remaining, against Phoenix, Sacramento and Oklahoma City.
The Minnesota Timberwolves (45-34) are in seventh place, with three games left as well and having lost four fewer times.
The Clippers — who brought back George, one of their injured All-Stars last week — could add another reinforcement in the near future, if Norman Powell’s on-court pregame workout serves as any sort of foreshadowing.
Said George: “It’s gonna be that much better with Norm out there.”
Powell appeared in just three games for the Clippers before the talented guard suffered a suffered a fractured medial sesamoid bone in his left foot in a loss at Dallas on Feb. 10. He’s been sidelined since.
“It’ll be great for Norm if he could get back out there in the next game or two, just to get a good feel back,” Marcus Morris Sr. said, noting that the Clippers otherwise have enough familiarity with one another to incorporate a new guy without much issue.
With Powell and Kawhi Leonard seated beside him on the Clippers’ bench Sunday, the Clippers executed a defensive clinic.
They held a Pelicans team that had been surging, winning seven of its last 10 games, and averaging 116.5 points per game while shooting 48.5% in that span to just 40.2% shooting from the floor on 35-of-87 shooting.
Offensively, the Clippers were clicking collectively, shooting 47.4% from the field and 47.7% from 3-point range — making 21 of their 44 attempts (and making it the first time in franchise history that the Clippers had consecutive games with 20 or more 3s.)
Six Clippers scored in double figures, led by Morris, whose team-high 22 points put him in the 20-point range for the second consecutive game.
“Marcus was great, he really carried us,” Lue said. “Especially in that first half, just calming things down when we overdribbled, or we didn’t make the right play, we were able to post marcus and he was able to deliver all night for us and that was huge.”
In his third game back, George was 5 for 7 from 3-point range and 5 for 15 overall for 15 points.
Ivica Zubac had an active, aggressive 15 points and 14 rebounds. Off the bench, Terance Mann chipped in with 15 points and Luke Kennard added 14.
And on Reggie Jackson bobblehead giveaway night, the Clippers’ joyful guard danced to a double-double with 11 points and a game-high 10 assists.
The Clippers finished with 33 assists on 45 baskets – a few of them snazzy setups, such as Batum’s backhanded bounce pass in the lane to a driving Jackson or Jackson’s no-look over-the-shoulder dump-off to Mann for a jam.
“Just focus on playing the right way, getting into the paint, moving the ball, making the right pass — we did that all night tonight,” Lue said. “We had another 33-assist game. Just continue to keep building good habits.”
CJ McCollum led the Pelicans with 19 points.
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