INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 Allowing a first-quarter 12-0 run at the hands of the Phoenix Suns didn\u2019t hinder the Los Angeles Clippers\u2019 confidence on Friday night.<\/p>\n
The Clippers put the slow start behind them, riding behind James Harden\u2019s 30 points and Kawhi Leonard\u2019s 27 to take down Phoenix 129-102 in LA\u2019s home-opener.<\/p>\n
Defense and transitioning were key for the Clips in the drubbing. LA notched 24 points off 18 forced turnovers, plus 27 fast-break points. Depth was key for head coach Tyronn Lue, who relied on reserve Kris Dunn for 21 minutes. Dunn dropped 14 points on 5-8 shooting to support the Clippers\u2019 starting five.<\/p>\n
Lue emphasized Dunn\u2019s energy and defense as a vital reason for the momentum swing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we did a really good job of just picking up our energy,\u201d Lue said. \u201cJames [Harden] made shots, which was huge for us as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dillon Brooks led the Suns with 21 points, including five 3-point makes, but his effort wasn\u2019t enough. Phoenix appeared sloppy and disorganized after its quick start, including allowing Harden to hit three consecutive 3-pointers, turning the tide.<\/p>\n
Chris Paul played in front of a Clippers home crowd for the first time as a member of the team since 2017, leading LA with eight assists. Bradley Beal, facing his former team, scored 6 points. <\/p>\n
After falling to the Utah Jazz on opening night, a convincing win was all the Clippers needed. Talk of Troy reporter Kasey Kazliner digested all the action from Intuit Dome and broke down LA\u2019s win on Unclipped, TOT\u2019s Clippers podcast.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 Allowing a first-quarter 12-0 run at the hands of the Phoenix Suns didn\u2019t hinder the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[7630,136458,136457,6418,136459,136455,11653,38268,86506,11952,355,99,136456],"class_list":["post-250362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-clippers","tag-clippers-nba","tag-clippers-unclipped","tag-james-harden","tag-james-harden-beard","tag-kasey-kazliner","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-la-clippers","tag-lac","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-unclipped"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}