{"id":128827,"date":"2025-03-15T20:07:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T00:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=128827"},"modified":"2025-03-15T20:07:39","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T00:07:39","slug":"la-clippers-on-ropes-with-month-remaining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/15\/la-clippers-on-ropes-with-month-remaining\/","title":{"rendered":"LA Clippers On the Ropes with a Month Remaining in Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The LA Clippers struggled as they came back from the All-Star break. As the season comes to an exciting finish, work still needs to be done. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It wasn\u2019t a smooth transition following the All-Star break, but the Clippers are beginning to look better as March goes on with 15 games remaining on their schedule. Los Angeles has had its inconsistencies throughout the season. There have been periods in the season where the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/22\/la-clippers-road-trip\/\" target=\"_self\">Clippers look lost<\/a> and suffer defeats that shouldn\u2019t have happened. Losses to key opponents in the West, such as the Phoenix Suns and twice to crosstown rival Los Angeles Lakers, have put a damper on the team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>LA Clippers On the Ropes with a Month Remaining in Season<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since the All-Star break, the Clippers have a 6-7 record, which now brings the Clippers\u2019 position to <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/standings\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eighth in the West<\/a>. They now are in a Play-In Tournament position, where they would go on the road to face the seventh-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves. Los Angeles lost to Minnesota in 2022 in the Play-In Tournament. The Clippers cannot afford to lose any ground as the playoffs are on the horizon. The separation from the eight and nine seed is 3.5 games, where the Sacramento Kings currently stand behind LA.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How things currently stand in the Western Conference, the Clippers are 1.5 games behind the Timberwolves and Golden State Warriors. The Clippers fell back to the eighth spot after a long period of occupying a top-six spot in the West. After struggling to gain their momentum back and the Lakers getting hot, the Clippers have fallen a few spots. If the playoffs were to begin today, and they stay in the eighth seed after the Play-In Tournament, their first matchup would be against former Clipper <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gilgesh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> and the Oklahoma City Thunder, arguably the best team in the league. Over the past week, however, things have been looking good in terms of form for coach <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/coaches\/luety01c.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyronn Lue<\/a>\u2019s Clippers squad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Western Conference playoff matchups if everything stands:<\/p>\n<p>Thunder (1) vs. Clippers (8)<br \/>Nuggets (2) vs. Wolves (7)<br \/>Rockets (3) vs. Warriors (6)<br \/>Grizzlies (4) vs. Lakers (5) <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VHwozK9vFg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/VHwozK9vFg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Bradeaux (@BradeauxNBA) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BradeauxNBA\/status\/1900893276867068291?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Clippers Battle the West with Momentum on Their Side<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Clippers have won five of the last six games, with all five wins against teams in the playoff hunt. Both <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/leonaka01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kawhi Leonard<\/a> and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hardeja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Harden<\/a> have played very well on the offensive end, leading the team in scoring on most nights. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/14\/clippers-james-harden-in-play-for-playoffs\/\" target=\"_self\">Harden has been an all-around presence<\/a> on both sides of the ball, as well as Leonard, who is beginning to show signs of himself again. Defensively, LA is clicking from their defensive efforts. Averaging 9.6 steals and a defensive rating of 109.6, the Clippers <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/teams\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rank third and fourth<\/a> in those categories respectively. While it is a confidence booster heading into the last month, the Clippers must capitalize on their home games and Western Conference opponents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the final month of the regular season, Los Angeles will have their hands full coming up. LA has home games against the fourth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies and the best in the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Out of the last 15 games for the Clippers, nine of them are at home in the Intuit Dome. They will host a four-game and five-game homestand, with the first beginning Sunday evening against the Charlotte Hornets. The matchup against the Hornets will be a makeup game from January due to the wildfires in the LA area.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: \u00a9 Dale Zanine-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The LA Clippers struggled as they came back from the All-Star break. As the season comes to an exciting finish, work still needs to be done. It wasn\u2019t a smooth transition following the All-Star break, but the Clippers are beginning to look better as March goes on with 15 games remaining on their schedule. Los [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5365,"featured_media":128859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,27,62],"tags":[444,168,612],"class_list":["post-128827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-clippers","category-nba","tag-james-harden","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-tyronn-lue"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128827"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128860,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128827\/revisions\/128860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}