The show began Wednesday night with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer standing with fans on the east side of his palace called the Intuit Dome in an area known as “The Wall.” Ballmer did a phonetic dance with those fans inside his $2 billion venue before he took the microphone.
“Welcome home, Clippers Nation,” Ballmer bellowed.
Indeed, this is the new home of Clippers after spending 25 years at Staples Center/Crypto.com Arena, sharing it with the Lakers and Kings.
It was the Clippers’ first regular-season game in Inglewood and unfortunately it came without their biggest star, Kawhi Leonard, who missed the game due to recurring inflammation in his right knee. They also missed their second-best player in Paul George, who bolted to the Philadelphia 76ers over the summer.
So, it was left to Clippers coach Tyronn Lue, star James Harden and a defense they boasted all preseason to be the performance that mattered most.
The curtain came down on the Clippers for good after they were unable to deliver in the clutch, dropping a 116-113 game in overtime to the Suns.
Harden had 29 points, but he was just 10-for-28 from the field, finished the game missing an important free throw and had eight turnovers.
Harden missed the second of two free throws with 4.8 seconds left, leaving the Clippers down by one point in the extra five minutes of play.
After Jusuf Nurkic made two free throws for a three-point Suns lead, Harden couldn’t handle an inbounds pass from Amir Coffey, causing another turnover and the end of the game.
The game against the Suns in their own building was called “a huge day for Clippers basketball” by Lue.
“I’m very happy for our fans, happy for our players, happy for the organization,” Lue said. “And you see the arena speaks for itself. There is no better one in the world.”
When Lue was asked for an update on Leonard, he said it was the same as last week, when the Clippers said the All-Star forward would be out indefinitely but “progressed.”
“He’s doing pretty well, getting better,” Lue said. “Just got to check all the boxes, but he’s making progress and he’s doing pretty well.”
Leonard was a force for the Clippers last season, playing in 68 games, the most during his five years with the Clippers. He averaged a team-high 23.7 points per game, 6.1 rebounds. He shot 52.5 percent from the floor, 41.7 percent from three-point range.
This is what the Clippers lack.
“With Kawhi out, you lose the top defender, you lose the scoring ability. 25, 26 points a night,” Lue said. “You lose a guy that requires a double team most nights. So, we’ve just got to figure out how to play fast, play free, get into space but not overflow — I mean dribble happy. So, we’re going to miss a lot of his skills on the floor, but we just have to make up for it collectively.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
