Trading for James Harden represented the Clippers’ acknowledgement they did not believe they had enough talent to contend for a championship, and their hope that four future Hall of Famers would be.
Constructed with the intent to overwhelm with stars, they instead showed Saturday they can still win without leaning on them.
As Harden and Kawhi Leonard struggled to make shots for a second consecutive night, the Clippers were rarely tested by the Dallas Mavericks in a 107-88 win by substituting star power for productivity throughout the rest of their roster.
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Paul George scored a team-high 25 points and Russell Westbrook, who finished with 14 points on judicious shot selection, with eight rebounds and seven assists in 25 minutes off the bench, looked like a different player than the one who struggled through a season-low 14 minutes only 24 hours earlier. However, the Clippers would not have run away from the Mavericks for one of their season’s most convincing victories without Terance Mann, Ivica Zubac and Norman Powell.
Mann scored a season-high 17 points, his first four baskets all in the paint as the Clippers (7-8) opened the game with an immediate focus on fast-break points.
Powell continued the best statistical start of his career by scoring 15 points off the bench on a perfect shooting night, making all four of his shots, including all three of his three-pointers, and all four free throws.
When the Clippers’ lead was trimmed to 13 midway through the fourth quarter, Powell pushed the ball upcourt and Mann cut backdoor for a dunk. One possession later, Mann collected an offensive rebound off of Leonard’s fifth missed three-pointer of the game and tipped it back for a 16-point lead.
The Clippers led by as many as 24 points — and they did so with Leonard scoring just eight points on two-of-12 shooting, and Harden scoring eight points, making two of his eight shots. Leonard missed his first nine shots before making his first basket with 2:53 to play in the third quarter, 24 minutes into his night.
In their last two games, Leonard has shot 10 for 29, and Harden four for 16.
Pushing the ball upcourt continuously after Mavericks misses, by halftime the Clippers held a 13-point edge in transition points, and outscored Dallas by 16 in the paint, with assists on 14 of their 20 field goals.
Meanwhile, Dallas pushed its already heliocentric offense to almost absurd lengths after needing more than a quarter and a half — 19 minutes of game play, to be exact — for any player not named either Kyrie Irving or Luka Doncic to score a basket.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
