Many here are talking about the Warriors and other teams, but no one is talking about how the Clippers are playing right now.
Why is that?
I mean they just won against one of the best offensive teams right now in the league Indiana Pacers, and they're currently on an 8 game winning streak. They have a record of 13-2 in their last 15 games, and right now, they are in the top 5 in terms of defense, and offense which is quite rare nowadays. Everybody is talking about Harden and his acquisition, but aside from that, there are 3 reasons that I think the Clippers are playing better right now.
1.
Westbrook's adjustment from being a starter to now a bench player. For me, this is the main reason why they're playing better now. 2 ball handlers can't be playing together at the same time, and it's a good thing that he adjusted for the betterment of the team. Now he's mentoring those young players, and he's willing to adjust if that means winning the title... or will they?
2.
Kawhi and PG are more healthy than they are. F*ck the load management. Now they're playing better already. Kawhi didn't miss any game while PG missed only 1 game. Now look where they are right now. They're better, and I just hope that either one of them will not get injured when the playoff comes.
3.
Harden is back to his old self. I believe Harden is starting to come back to his old self already. Not the Harden when he's in the Rockets where he's a scorer, but the Harden we used to see when he was at Brooklyn, and Philly. The passer-type Harden and this is a good thing for the Clippers.
The chemistry is starting to build up already, and we've seen it in their past games. The only question right now is will they sustain this type of performance until the end of the season? If they will play like this all throughout the whole season, I believe they will be at the top 4 at least.
On the NBA betting thread, I highlighted this LA Clippers team because I had been winning in most of my bets for them.
I thought Ty Lue's rotation was not good at first but he may have a secret strategy behind all of it. He paired Westbrook with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George with James Harden and as much as possible they will only play with each other the whole game. Little did we know, he was trying to build chemistry for those pairs because Kawhi had never played with WB and Harden with PG13.
History base, Harden already played with WB at OKC Thunder and Rockets, PG13 with WB on the same team. So Coach Lue didn't have a problem with WB so he put him on restricted minutes and then as a bench player and WB happily accepted that which also made their team stronger because he was ready to step back.
Now WB is playing below 20 minutes and yet they are successfully winning in a streak. Every time he comes in, he won't waste any minute both defensively and offensively and his stats definitely show that. The better part of it is the turnovers got lesser with Harden handling the ball.
I think Coach Lue made a successful experiment with his star players.
