Warriors at Clippers
The Los Angeles Clippers still have some work to do to become a championship contender, especially at the defensive end. The Clippers will try to hold an opponent under 130 points when they host the struggling Golden State Warriors on Friday.
Los Angeles followed an embarrassing 140-114 home loss to the Memphis Grizzlies with a 135-132 home win over the lowly New York Knicks but got four full days off between games to fix the problems on the defensive end. "I know we're going to be in the game, no matter if we play good (defense) or bad offense," Clippers coach Doc Rivers told reporters before the break. "I feel like every night we have a chance to win. That's something, you know, that's a comfort, but also, I know that we have to do things better. We need to get in the gym. We're going to have that opportunity this week. We have four days off. That's longer than the All-Star breaks that I used to have as a player, so we're going to take advantage of a couple of those days." The Warriors could use a break considering the length of their injury list but are still battling and gave the NBA-best Milwaukee Bucks a fight in a 107-98 setback on Wednesday. "I really liked our energy and effort tonight," Golden State coach Steve Kerr told reporters after watching his team drop its sixth consecutive game. "We can hold our heads up high."
TIME: 10:30 p.m. ET. TV: NBCS Bay Area, FS Prime Ticket, Sportsnet One
ABOUT THE WARRIORS (9-30): Golden State was again missing guard D'Angelo Russell (shoulder) and forward Kevon Looney (abdominal) on Wednesday but got forward Draymond Green (ankle) back and watched him struggle to 1-of-7 from the floor in 34 minutes. The Warriors are finding different sources for offense on a nightly basis with Russell, Stephen Curry (hand) and Klay Thompson (knee) out, and reserve guard Alec Burks stepped up with 19 points in 26 minutes against the Bucks. Small forward Glenn Robinson III added 15 points and is averaging 15.2 over his last five games to push his season mark to 12.1.
ABOUT THE CLIPPERS (26-12): Los Angeles was missing star forward Paul George in the loss to Memphis and was without Kawhi Leonard against the Knicks, but the team was not willing to use the absences as an excuse for the poor defense. "Defensively, just got to get back to our identity, playing hard," forward JaMychal Green told ESPN. "We haven't been playing hard defensively, pick-and-rolls have been a little bad, closeouts have been a little bad. We are just not ourselves. We are just trying to get back to us." The recent absences opened some shot attempts for forward Montrezl Harrell, who responded with a combined 62 points in the last two contests.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Russell sat out the last five games but is practicing and could return Friday.
2. Clippers SG Lou Williams is 10-of-18 from 3-point range over the last three games.
3. Los Angeles breezed to a 141-121 win at Golden State on Oct. 24 while shooting 62.5 percent from the floor.