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Clippers vs Jazz Preview: Breaking the Slide
The Clippers have a golden opportunity to end their three-game losing streak against a truly terrible Jazz team.
Game Information
Where: Intuit Dome, Inglewood, California
When: 7:30 PM PT
How to Watch: FanDuel Sports Network, AM 570
Projected Starting Lineups
Jazz: Keyonte George – Collin Sexton – Lauri Markkanen – John Collins – Walker Kessler
Clippers: James Harden – Norman Powell – Kris Dunn – Nic Batum – Ivica Zubac
Injuries
Jazz: Taylor Hendricks Out (Leg), Svi Mykhailiuk Questionable (Groin)
Clippers: Kawhi Leonard Out (Knee), Terance Mann Out (Finger), Derrick Jones Jr. Out (Hamstring), Kobe Brown Out (Back), PJ Tucker Out (Away from team), Cam Christie Out (G-League), Trentyn Flowers Out (G-League)
The Big Picture
The Clippers have lost three games in a row for the second time this season. This stretch could be read as glass half full or glass half empty. The glass half full is that these recent losses have come with a much more banged up Clippers’ roster than the first three-game losing streak, and that the team’s play isn’t slipping so much as they’re short-handed and on fumes. The glass half empty is that several of the injuries are long-ish term, which means if the Clippers are bad without Derrick Jones Jr. and Terance Mann, they might be a rough watch for a few weeks. The complicating factor is the pending return of Kawhi Leonard, who is clearly revving back up, but for whom it is impossible to have any real expectations at this point. If Kawhi can come back soon and look even remotely like last year’s Kawhi, the absences of Mann and DJJ should lessen significantly. But will either of those things happen? Who knows!
The Antagonist
The Jazz are very, very bad. In fact, in both record (5-19) and Net Rating (28th) they place as the third-worst team in the NBA. Their offense is regular bad (22nd) while their defense is unbelievably awful (30th, below even the woeful Wizards). The most worrying part is that the Jazz are this bad even with several competent (or better) veterans on their roster. Lauri Markkanen is having a down year, but John Collins is having a bounce back campaign and Collin Sexton is a very effective offensive player. It hasn’t mattered, because the Jazz’s young guys have been that putrid. Isaiah Collier and Cody Williams are young rookies, but they have been worrying bad to start their careers (36.3 and 34.3 True Shooting’s respectively). Keyontae George has taken only a small step forward in his second year. Taylor Hendricks is out for the season. The list goes on. When the Jazz do (probably) trade Collins and Sexton, the Jazz will go from merely awful to downright unwatchable. But that has not happened yet. They are still a must-win for any reasonably competent opponent – like the Clippers should be.
Notes
John Collins, Still not a Clipper: It seems like there have been John Collins to the Clippers trade rumors since he came into the league. That’s not quite true, but I know they date back to at least the 2022 season (when Kawhi was out the entire year and the team needed a starting-level Power Forward with some juice) and continued through last season. Well, Collins is having quite the season after two down years, putting together very rare 50/40/90 splits (45.3% from three and 90.1% from FT both being significant career highs) in conjunction with good production at 18.1 points per game in just 29.1 minutes. Collins has, in fact, been the best player on the Jazz, and has been good enough to probably buy some positive trade value with 26.6M on the books for this year and a player option at that rate for next year. The Clippers probably won’t be the team to trade for him, but hey, maybe some contender will.
Bones Getting Bizzy: Bones Hyland has received real minutes the past couple games, and has done fairly well in them. The issues are the issues: he’s slight on defense, which means he’ll get targeted on switches, he’s turnover prone, and he’s not good at scoring inside the arc. However, the positives are that he’s a truly deadly shooter on a hot streak right now, launching 4.3 threes per game in just 11.4 minutes and cashing them at a 44.7% rate. That shooting opens up the offense for everyone else, despite Bones’ flaws as a finisher and decision-maker. With Kawhi, Terance, DJJ, and Kobe all still out, Bones will probably continue to receive minutes in the interim, and if he continues to shoot like this, might work his way into more of a role with the Clippers – or convince another team to finally liberate him from the Clips.