The Los Angeles Clippers with Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and Darren Collison are gunning for the Pacific Division Title. The road trip will tell the story
With the Los Angeles Clippers up 5.5 games on the Golden State Warriors with ten to play, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and their legion could seal the NBA‘s Pacific Division by the end of this five-game road swing.
The Clippers (50-22) despite a close 98-96 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans at Smoothie King Center on Wednesday, have nonetheless won 13-of-15 and clinched their second-straight 50-win season on Monday against the Milwaukee Bucks.
But Wednesday night would be a night Paul would love to forget (probably never will). Paul became the first Clipper in team history to end a game going 0-12 shooting in the same building he helped bring to life during his years in Nola.
Now CP3, in terms of his offense, has been sometimes lethal and sometimes detrimental since his shoulder injury back in January that sidelined him for over a month.
It was an odd and off night for Los Angeles, who pasted New Orleans (31-40) in their three previous meetings this season and was going for the season sweep that wasn’t meant to be on Wednesday.
The rest of the road trip will only get more difficult rolling into next week. With the Dallas Mavericks (43-29) Thursday, the Houston Rockets (48-22) Saturday, the Minnesota Timberwolves (35-35) next Monday and closing the trip against the surging Phoenix Suns (43-29) next Wednesday, it is make-or-break time for the Clips if they want to seal the Division.
Three of those four are in playoff spots (both Dallas and Phoenix are tied for eighth with the Mavs having the tiebreaker). It will indeed be tough sledding for the Clips if they want to clinch the Pacific by the time they return to Staples Center on April 3.
Although the pressure is not solely on the Clippers to win-out their road games. The Warriors are having some dissension in the ranks with head coach Mark Jackson demoting assistant coach and former NBA power forward Brian Scalabrine to their NBA D-League affiliate Santa Cruz Warriors earlier this week.
It has been speculated that Scalabrine was not demoted due to having poor performance in his role as ownership has praised his efforts, but more of the fact that he has fallen on the wrong end of alleged alliances within the staff.
Jackson has had a past with having conflict within his staff while at Golden State and this could not have come at a worse time where the Warriors desperately need a comeback to catch the Clippers.
Golden State (44-27) was idle in L.A’s loss to New Orleans and is idle again tonight with L.A’s clash with the Mavericks in Dallas tonight. The Warriors will play tomorrow night in Oracle Arena in a crucial game against the Memphis Grizzlies (43-28) with both teams jousting for the sixth seed in the Western Conference.
Should the Clippers bounce back and defeat the rather underrated Mavericks tonight, they’ll gain a half game back and once-again be up six games on Golden State with only nine games left to play.
If L.A continues to flounder on the road and Golden State heats up The Oracle following Scalabrine’s reassignment, this team might be in for a wild ride to the finish line when they return to Staples Center.
Copyright 2013 SportSpeak LLC, all rights reserved. For more coverage, follow @SportSpeakLA and @SportSpeakOC on Twitter.