{"id":10092,"date":"2025-05-05T08:02:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T08:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/10092\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T08:02:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T08:02:14","slug":"clippers-notes-batum-dunn-harden-zubac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/10092\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers Notes: Batum, Dunn, Harden, Zubac"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyronn Lue made a timely lineup change Thursday night to help the Clippers survive in their first-round series with Denver, writes Ramona Shelburne of ESPN<\/a>. To start the second half, Lue decided to replace defensive specialist Kris Dunn<\/a> with veteran forward Nicolas Batum<\/a>. Shelburne observes that Dunn has become a liability for L.A.\u2019s offense, as the Nuggets were daring him to shoot and frequently leaving him to send a second defender at James Harden<\/a>. Batum provides more of a scoring threat, and he\u2019s versatile enough to guard anyone from Jamal Murray<\/a> to Nikola Jokic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we went small with that shooting lineup, we were able to break the game open a little bit,\u201d Lue said. \u201cThat gave James and Kawhi (Leonard)<\/a>\u00a0more spacing and they were able to attack more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move invigorated the Clippers, who scored 32 points in the third quarter on their way to extending the series to a seventh game. Shelburne notes that they made all six shots they attempted off Batum\u2019s passes in the second half.<\/p>\n

After the game, Lue gave recognition to Dunn and Ben Simmons<\/a>, neither of whom played after halftime, for being good teammates and understanding the strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about being a team and whatever it takes to win and those guys totally understood,\u201d Lue said. \u201cEven though they\u2019ve been great for us all year long. So I just wanted to say thank you to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more on the Clippers:<\/p>\n

Harden barely came off the court Thursday night as he logged 47 minutes in the victory. He yawned twice during his post-game press conference, Shelburne adds, but he recognizes the need for such a heavy workload and he\u2019s willing to do it again in Game 7. \u201cI\u2019m tired,\u201d Harden admitted. \u201cGot to. Have to. Whatever the team needs. If it\u2019s 47, 48, overtime, whatever. I\u2019m going to do it.\u201d
\nHarden has a chance to alter his negative playoff reputation by leading the Clippers to a win on Saturday, states Dylan Hernandez of The Los Angeles Times<\/a>. Harden has a long history of postseason disappointments, but he delivered 28 points, six rebounds and eight assists in Thursday\u2019s elimination game. Leonard expressed confidence in his teammate, telling reporters, \u201cHe\u2019s been here before. Guys have games where they don\u2019t play well during the season. It\u2019s just another game, so I knew he was gonna be able to come back, or he was going to be aggressive and try to get to his spots.\u201d
\nIvica Zubac<\/a> and Batum teamed up to give Jokic his most frustrating night of the series, per Janis Carr of The Orange County Register<\/a>. The Nuggets star didn\u2019t score during an 11-minute stretch in the third quarter, and he shot 2-of-9 from the field in the second half. \u201cZu was a monster on the defensive end tonight, getting closer to Joker, not giving as much space,\u201d Lue said. \u201cMan, with Joker, it\u2019s just hard. If you double-team him, he\u2019s going to pick your apart with his passing. If you stay at home, he\u2019s going to score.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tyronn Lue made a timely lineup change Thursday night to help the Clippers survive in their first-round series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,2643,559,532,560,528,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,1522],"class_list":{"0":"post-10092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ben-simmons","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-ivica-zubac","12":"tag-james-harden","13":"tag-kris-dunn","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-clippers","16":"tag-laclippers","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-losangelesclippers","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-nicolas-batum"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114454183576127416","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}