Player Ratings: Game 53 | Los Angeles Clippers
Wolves demolish their Western Conference foes on the road.
There are wins and there are wins. Every win matters. Every win is important. Of course they do and of course they are. Not every win is a win, though. Those extra italicized, underlined and emboldened wins don’t come around very often and when they do they need to be savored. The ones that rubber-stamp a team’s legitimacy, whip a fan base into a frenzy, and inject a river of confidence into the winning team.
The game ends 121-100. That was a win. Much like the Minnesota Timberwolves (especially after this beatdown), it’s hard to poke holes in the Los Angeles Clippers’ validity. There were some rocky moments early on as their quartet of hall-of-famers coalesced, but they’ve been a juggernaut since then. They scarcely lose any game, but bullying them into the fetal position on their home floor is akin to a snowflake hovering through the depths of hell.
That’s why this is a win. Not just because the scoreboard shined favorably on the Wolves when the final whistle screeched, but because this was a statement. A statement of intent and a statement of identity. The Wolves are what they are they’re going to beat you being who they are.
They could have easily shrunk into their shell and accepted that a loss on the road against one of the league’s best teams is nothing to be ashamed of. When the Clippers erased Minnesota’s 10-point second-quarter lead and flurried their way into a four-point halftime lead, it certainly felt like the Wolves could be wilting toward the sort of moral victory we all could have convinced ourselves of.
But this was a win.
The Wolves bounced out of the long break with a snarl in their hearts and a pounce in their step. They massacred the Clippers in the third; clogging up everything they had offensively, sharing it around crisply on the other side of the ball, and then throttling Los Angeles’ small-ball lineup adjustment. Then, instead of their usual rickety fourth frame, they did it again. There were no hold-your-breath moments. No head-scratching. No graying hair. Just flat-out dominance.
That’s a win.
Mike Conley: 8/10
Worked his ass off.
That’s the thing that slips under the radar when Mike Conley comes to mind. He’s the embodiment of shrewd and it’s well-known how he can pull the strings and turn any night into his own little marionette, but his terrier mentality is often forgotten. He scampers around with a big brain and a bigger will to win. He loves the dirty shit that wins basketball games.
It was hard to underrate it in this one. It was nigh on impossible not to notice it. So, while he didn’t pop off the screen with his shooting punch and he wasn’t consistently throwing the guillotine pass, he was hounding and harassing and oh so helpful.
Sometimes that mentality manifests itself quietly; he might just shut down a roving shooter’s look before it even swings to him or get through a ball screen to stop one of Los Angeles’ gaggle of jumbo-sized handlers from slaloming to the rim. Other times, it’s more obvious; a poke-away on a drive, a razor-sharp double-team to force a mistake, or a passing lane pilfer.
This isn’t a good theoretical matchup for him — the Clippers are huge at all of the guard spots — but he won the day with a snarling mindset and a thirst for blood.
Finished with 5 points (50% TS), 4 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals in 24 minutes — +20.1 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 9/10
A masterclass in stick-to-itiveness. A workshop on how to negate a flawed evening with supplementary brilliance. We’ve seen him succumb to bad shooting nights, letting the absence of a soft touch on his jumpers derail his extraterrestrial majesty, but he let the missed shots wash over him as if they were nothing and set about systematically pulling apart the Clippers in every other way.
The three wasn’t dropping. Outside of his trolling banked shot — the most sadistic trademark shot in the league, by the way — it wasn’t a night where the jumper was ever going to work, so it was all about creating other ways to win.
It was slicing his way through the defense and finishing in a plethora of phantasmic ways at the rim. It was manipulating a vaunted defense to pinpoint his teammates in better spots. And it was taking on the task of shackling Kawhi Leonard, Paul George or James Harden. He did it all with graceful aplomb.
Superstar shit and it’s hard to deny he resides in that pantheon.
Finished with 23 points (55.7% TS), 7 rebounds and 8 assists in 36 minutes — +26.2 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 9/10
There isn’t a player on the planet who worms his way into the psyche of scorers in the way he does. Imagine a 7-foot spider crawling its way under the skin of the world’s best bucket-getters and laying eggs in their brains. Imagine a dragon with wings that cast a shadow over entire basketball courts and breathing fire into the league’s best defense.
Imagine Jaden McDaniels. Imagine it. Do it now. He’s fucking insane.
He’s not a chaotic gust of defensive playmaking wind in the way some lockdown defenders are. Sure, he can creep up on Kawhi Leonard and smash his shit into the front row and he can steal Terrence Mann’s lunch money at halfcourt and cock back the ensuing transition dunk. However, what he does best is just stick a wrench into the circadian rhythm of his assailant.
He had a little go on all of them in this one and he traipsed to the finish line first every time. That robotic bastard couldn’t score on him. Paul George’s silky game turned to sandpaper when McDaniels opposed him. James Harden looked as if he’d seen a closed sign on a strip club door whenever our gangly shadow demon checked him.
You’d like to see him add in at least one rebound to go along with his handy helping of points off the catch, but this was another spectacular defensive performance on a night that demanded nothing less.
Finished with 11 points (68.8% TS) and 2 turnovers in 25 minutes — +12.2 net rating.
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