The injury list grew yet again for the Clippers, leaving it up to Kawhi Leonard and the rest of the healthy group to push forward through this turbulent season, taking on the young, talented and also shorthanded Houston Rockets.
Leonard did his part, as did Terance Mann and a stingy fourth-quarter defense, to help the Clippers pull away for a 121-100 win over the Rockets on Sunday afternoon at Crypo.com Arena.
Leonard finished with 30 points, six rebounds and four assists in 32 minutes.
Mann, in his fourth consecutive start at point guard, had 31 points, his career high for a regular-season game. He also had six rebounds and four assists.
Norman Powell had 18 points off the bench, recording a plus/minus rating of plus-27 in 27½ minutes of play.
And the Clippers were outstanding on defense in the fourth quarter, showing why they had entered the game ranked third in the NBA in points allowed (110.1). They held the Rockets to 10 points in the final 12 minutes.
It was a game in which the Clippers were not only missing Paul George (hamstring) for the fifth consecutive game, Luke Kennard (calf) for the fourth in a row and Moussa Diabate (non-COVID illness), but Marcus Morris Sr. (left knee contusion) has been listed as day to day, and John Wall (abdominal strain) will be evaluated in two weeks for his injury.
Clippers coach Tyronn Lue expects his team to stay the course through all of this.
“Our principles can stay the same, no matter who’s on the floor,” Lue said before the game. “I think having a defensive mindset, moving the basketball, getting to our second and third actions, I think attacking the paint like we talk about every single day and just playing the right way, that’s gotta be our main focus no matter who’s playing. And it’s about the style of basketball we play and we know when guys are out, it’s gonna be tough to win games. But we still can have our core principles on both sides of the basketball, and that’s the most important.”
For Wall, his injury happened against the Denver Nuggets, and he wasn’t even sure how it happened.
“After I dunked you could kind of see me, I was going like this,” Wall said, grabbing his abdomen. “I didn’t know what it was. And then I went through practice yesterday and I went through everything they went through but didn’t run or nothing. And then we got an MRI and then they called me at 6 o’clock and told me what it was.”
The Rockets didn’t have Jalen Green, their leading scorer (21.5), and Jae’Sean Tate, who both were serving a one-game suspension for leaving the bench during an on-court altercation in a game at Sacramento. The Rockets also didn’t have Kevin Porter, their second-leading scorer (19.2), because of a left foot injury.