LOS ANGELES — It was an inauspicious start to a foreboding week. The Clippers trailed the Chicago Bulls by as many as 11 points less than four minutes into Saturday’s matinee game.
It was not the kind of start the Clippers envisioned against a middle-of-the-road team. It was not the start they could afford with the Milwaukee Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves waiting to visit Crypto.com Arena over the next three days.
But that was the scenario the Clippers were in as they headed to the locker room. Once there, the team came together. So did a game plan.
“We had a talk, and we came out and we delivered on what we talked about,” forward Paul George said.
What they came up with was a need to cut down on turnovers, find the basket and slow the Bulls’ three key players. The plan worked and the Clippers came away with a come-from-behind 112-102 victory over Chicago.
“We’re a vet team, we know what we’re doing,” guard James Harden said. “We started the game off slow, but we missed shots. We had some really good looks; we just didn’t make ’em.
“And then we had a couple opportunities, but we turned the basketball over whether it was illegal screens or we gave them a couple, we call ’em touchdown layups, you know what I mean – to where they’re just getting out and nobody’s contesting it.
“So, we just cleaned that up in the first half. Second half, we were a lot better, and it was a different ball game.”
George, who with Kawhi Leonard and Harden, was listed as questionable leading into the game, finished with a team-high 22 points. Leonard had 19 points, nine rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots, and Harden posted his second triple-double of the season with 14 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.
The victory turned out to be a tough task against a team fighting for a playoff spot – and it’s about to get tougher.
The Clippers (41-21) are in the middle of early back-to-back games and a stretch of five games in seven nights that ends next week in New Orleans. Among those opponents are the Western Conference-leading Timberwolves and Bucks, who are second in the Eastern Conference. There are no games the Clippers can afford to lose.
“The players and coaches are putting on our hard hats and picking up our lunch pails,” said associate head coach Dan Craig, who handled media duties for an ailing Tyronn Lue.
Lue, wearing a black mask, was on the bench for the game.
“In general, we have 17 games just this month alone, so we know it’s going to be a tough stretch of games, and everyone is doing their due diligence to make sure we are ready and prepared,” Craig said.
At times, it was difficult to determine whether the Clippers were ready for the Bulls (31-33).
They turned the ball over 10 times in the first half, which led to nine Bulls points. They struggled to find the basket and gave the Bulls wide-open looks that led to an 11-point halftime lead.
“It’s 48 minutes. Teams are going to make runs, and you are going to have sluggish moments,” Leonard said. “So, I mean, it’s the NBA. We play a lot of games.”
The Clippers, however, stepped up their defense in the latter half and cleaned up their mistakes to pull within 69-67 before center Ivica Zubac tied the game on a dunk at 5:19 of the third quarter.
Moments later, the Clippers took their first lead, 72-71, on a 3-pointer by Harden and extended it to five before the Bulls got back into the game with a 14-7 run. From there, it was a back-and-forth affair cheered on by Russell Westbrook, the Clippers point guard who is expected to be out at least a month after having surgery this week on his fractured left hand.
The Clippers took their largest lead, 94-85, on a 3-pointer by Norman Powell, but couldn’t hang as the Bulls battled for an 85-83 advantage at the end of the third quarter.
The final quarter belonged to the Clippers, led by Norman Powell and Zubac, which enabled them to hold off the Bulls in the final five minutes for their second consecutive victory.
Zubac scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half. He also pulled down nine rebounds. Powell also scored 14 of his 18 points in the second half to help turn the game around.
“That’s what we’re going to need every night, going to be somebody different tonight,” Harden said. “I think it was everybody’s contribution.”
The Clippers fell behind early and were forced to play catch-up the rest of the way, an effort wasted in turnovers and spotty defense. This time, it wasn’t their transition defense that did them in; the Bulls scored 36 of their points in the paint despite the return of Zubac.
The Clippers center missed two games because of an unspecified illness that seemingly affected his play in the first half of the team’s last game against Houston. Lue sat him the entire second half, saying Zubac wasn’t himself.
On Saturday, Zubac put up a battle, finishing with 16 points and nine rebounds, but wasn’t much of a deterrent for DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vučević, who repeatedly attacked the paint en route to the 11-point halftime lead. DeRozan finished with 24 points and 10 assists, while Vučević added 22 points and 11 rebounds.
The Bulls, who currently occupy a play-in spot for the Eastern Conference, had six players listed on their injury report, including Zach LaVine, the team’s third-leading scorer at 19.7 points per game, who opted to have season-ending foot surgery last month.
