How Los Angeles Clippers Are Surviving Without Jamal Crawford

The Los Angeles Clippers may be winning, but they're jonesing for Jamal Crawford. Fortunately, they could capitalize on that fixation soon.

Crawford has missed the Clippers' previous 14 games with a calf injury, but as Arash Markazi of ESPN Los Angeles reported Tuesday, he's nearing a return.

Crawford will travel with the team this week during their two-game road trip to Portland and Denver but is not expected to play, sources told ESPN.com. If Crawford continues to progress the plan is for Crawford to return next week when the Clippers play the Los Angeles Lakers on April 7, sources said.

April 7. That's less than a week. And with the Clippers coming off a loss to the Golden State Warriors in which the bench combined for only 12 points, Crawford's return is coming right when they are starting to miss their best reserve.

You'd think that the reigning Sixth Man of the Year falling out of the lineup would force the rest of the second unit to make up for his lost production, but the bench has actually been about the same without its best player. In reality, it's been the starters who have picked up the scoring in Crawford's absence.

That's both a good thing and bad thing.

When rotations shorten in the postseason, it's nice to have your first unit playing upper-echelon basketball. That's what the Clippers have right now.

Chris Paul, J.J. Redick and DeAndre Jordan are performing as well as they have all season. Blake Griffin looked like his usual self Monday evening, dropping 40 in a loss to the Warriors. Matt Barnes, meanwhile, is continuing the best shooting season of his career, draining 38 percent of his three-pointers.

The starters are climbing, but the bench is declining. 

When Crawford went down, the Clippers lost the 16.4 points per game he provides. Now, the reserve unit is averaging almost six fewer points per game in a mostly Crawford-less March, per HoopsStats.com. 

It's all about the starters. 

Redick has averaged 21.4 points per game since Crawford went down March 2. Paul is up to 21.9 points over that same stretch and is taking an out-of-character 16.1 shots a night in the process. Of course, Griffin's absence for much of this time affected the team's scoring numbers, too. Jordan's scoring has gone up, as well.

Doc Rivers has shaken up his rotations of late, too. Redick is playing almost five more minutes per game since the Crawford injury occurred. Barnes is playing two-and-a-half more.

In contrast, the Clippers' bench produced exactly two men who scored points Monday against the Warriors. Two. Hedo Tukoglu had a loud five, and Austin Rivers exploded for seven. Everyone else: zilch. 

Glen Davis played 10 scoreless minutes. Spencer Hawes—who is under contract for three more years after this one, by the by—played a mere four. That was it.

To a degree, coaching has something to do with this, too. The five bench players who got in the game against Golden State played a total of 39 minutes between them. 

Jordan Hamilton compiled splinters for a second straight Golden State game, even though he is the most athletic wing on the roster. Doc has a propensity to play vets, but Hamilton isn't that young. Heck, he's older than Austin Rivers. 

So, an already underwhelming bench continues to underperform. And yet, the Clippers keep winning.

It doesn't hurt that they've had one of the easiest stretches of the season. Los Angeles is 9-5 with Crawford out of the lineup, but those wins aren't coming against high-quality opponents.

The win in Oklahoma City was an impressive one, but after that, there's a serious drop-off. Victories over the struggling Washington Wizards and ho-hum New Orleans Pelicans aren't particularly notable. And after that, it's all poor teams. 

Actually, the nine teams the Clippers have defeated without Crawford have combined for an appalling .392 winning percentage on the season. All of them except for the three previously mentioned ones are below .500.

Clearly, the return of Crawford won't help the defense, which has been better of late, but it can assist more than just scoring punch. Players can actually return to their usual minute totals. We won't need to see "must-win-games" where every Clippers starter plays at least 39 minutes, like what happened against Golden State.

If rest is imperative during the playoffs, Crawford can give guys like Barnes and Redick a little more of it, necessary for two men on the wrong side of 30. 

So, how have the Clippers maintained without any semblance of a bench? It's pretty simple, actually. They've timed hot streaks from three of their best players to occur right when the schedule gets cushy. With a little more punch and their best bench player back in the lineup, they'll be able to make noise come mid-April into May.

Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.

Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of April 1 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.