Clippers surprising everyone

LA Clippers This season, the Western Conference is a den of wolves fighting for every playoff spot. Teams that were fighting to for playoffs last season now are running the conference, while teams that were among the best last year now are left fighting for a playoff spot. This has caught so many analysts by surprise as they didn’t expect teams like Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Utah Jazz and Portland Trailblazers trying to fight for the 8th spot. San Antonio are ranked 14th in the conference, while that may look bad, it’s not that tragic, since they are only 5.5 games away from the 1st seeded LA Clippers and Denver Nuggets. So, you may have noticed that I wrote, the 1st seeded LA Clippers, that’s not a typo, they have been playing out of this world this season. You expect a team that has traded, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and has in their team players like, Danilo Gallinari, Lou Williams, Tobias Harris, to be at least fighting for playoffs and not leading the Western Conference.
It’s not that they have had an easy schedule so far, they’ve beaten the Rockets twice, Warriors and Nuggets once and a plethora of other teams. The thing is that they are just too damn good so far. Who knew that Doc Rivers would be playing better with a team that has no stars, than with a trio of Paul-Jordan-Griffin. Maybe it was the fact that as a team they weren’t playing with much pressure that was building up years ago due to the hype created in the regular season and then when playoffs came they would always fail spectacularly.
It also may be the fact that Tobias Harris has become the star that Clippers need out of necessity. He averages 35 minutes per game while scoring 21.6 points per game, he has the highest PPG average in the squad. He is also averaging 8.4 rebounds per game, again the highest average on the team. However, while he is playing great this year, he’s not the only player to do so. You have teams like Charlotte, where Kemba Walker is playing out of his mind, but he’s alone in that squad and you can see the results aren’t that pleasing. Danilo Gallinari has been doing what he does best and that is scoring. He’s averaging 19.2 points per game, while also adding 6 rebounds per game. However, the most important stat coming from him is that he has been shooting lights out from the 3-point line. He has been attempting 5.3 three-pointers per game, while hitting 2.5 of them, which gives him an average of 46% from three. That is some serious damage.
Lou Williams has been playing great as usual, with an average of 17.8 points per game and 4.4 assists per game.

Lou-Williams

The next player on this list is a player that in my opinion has a great chance of winning the most improved player of the year award. I’m talking about Montrezl Harrell, this man has managed to almost double his stats in just a year. Last year he was averaging 11 points per game, while this season that number has increased to 16.5 points per game, while shooting a team-high 65% from the floor. He was getting 4 rebounds per game last year, this season that number has gone up to 7.2 rebounds per game. He is also leading the team with 1.7 blocks per game and 1 steal per game. The best part about this, is that he is doing all of this incredible work in just 25.8 minutes per game. Doc Rivers has found a gem on his team of average players.
They are achieving so much by playing as a team and not relying on just one player. They are not over-reliant on just a couple of players. When they had Chris Paul on the team, everything had to go through him, while now everyone is a danger, you don’t know who is their most important player. Playing as a team has been their most important thing during this season. It’s hard to predict what they may do in the playoffs, after all these are the same Clippers that have impressed for quite some years now during the regular season, and once the playoffs came, they would disappoint everyone. Doc Rivers is definitely a happy man at the moment, seeing his team being 1st in the Conference. When you add the fact that the Western Conference has never been this competitive. Teams 1 to 14 have a chance of getting into playoffs, will be a thrill to watch. One thing is for sure, every team that will play against the Clippers now know that it is not an easy task to defeat them. They are hoping to continue with these performances and maybe even surprise teams in the playoffs.

Published by

Mr Sports Geek

I'm a geek for sports. I live, eat and drink sports.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *