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":3,"featured_media":331163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[7197,164325,164323,18169,164326,164321,3370,22805,164324,3142,1260,62,164322,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-331162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-clippers","9":"tag-clippers-nba","10":"tag-clippers-unclipped","11":"tag-james-harden","12":"tag-james-harden-beard","13":"tag-kasey-kazliner","14":"tag-kawhi-leonard","15":"tag-la-clippers","16":"tag-lac","17":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-unclipped","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}