The Los Angeles Clippers were missing one of their best players on Sunday night, but it didn’t matter one bit as they went into Phoenix and dominated the Suns 117-93 in a game that was never really close.<\/p>\n
It was exactly the type of bounce-back performance the team needed after losing to the Denver Nuggets on Friday, and it showed just how deep this roster has become during their incredible midseason turnaround.<\/p>\n
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Leonard Leads the Way<\/p>\n
Kawhi Leonard was the best player on the floor once again, finishing with 25 points and eight rebounds while shooting efficiently from the field.<\/p>\n
The two-time Finals MVP has been on an absolute tear lately, and Sunday marked his 27th straight game scoring 20 or more points as he continues to remind everyone why he’s still one of the best players in the game.<\/p>\n
Leonard, who was left off the Western Conference All-Star reserves earlier in the day, seemed to use the snub as motivation and took his frustrations out on a Suns team that had won three straight coming into the matchup.<\/p>\n
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With James Harden out for personal reasons, the Clippers needed someone else to step into the void, and Jordan Miller answered the call in a big way by scoring 20 points off the bench on 7-of-12 shooting.<\/p>\n
Miller has been one of the feel-good stories of the Clippers’ recent surge, as the third-year guard continues to prove he belongs in the rotation with strong performances like this one.<\/p>\n
Dominant Inside<\/p>\n
The Clippers absolutely owned the paint against Phoenix, outscoring the Suns 64-18 in that area while also winning the rebounding battle by a staggering 63-35 margin.<\/p>\n
Ivica Zubac was a monster on the glass with 20 rebounds, and John Collins added 16 points as the frontcourt duo took advantage of a Suns team that simply couldn’t match their physicality.<\/p>\n
Kobe Sanders started in place of Harden and chipped in 12 points, giving the Clippers even more reason to feel confident about their young core heading into the stretch run.<\/p>\n
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The Suns were playing without Devin Booker, who remained sidelined with an ankle injury, and it showed throughout the game as Phoenix struggled to find any offensive rhythm.<\/p>\n
After going into this season with high expectations following the acquisition of Jalen Green, the Suns now sit at 30-20 after the loss while the Clippers improved to 23-25.<\/p>\n
Looking Ahead<\/p>\n
What makes this win even more impressive is the context of where the Clippers were just a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n
After starting the season with a brutal 6-21 record, they have now won 17 of their last 21 games and are just two games under .500 as they continue to climb the Western Conference standings.<\/p>\n
The Clippers return home on Monday to host the Philadelphia 76ers at Intuit Dome as they look to keep this momentum rolling into the final stretch before the trade deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Clippers were missing one of their best players on Sunday night, but it didn’t matter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,187,2292,532,861,560,6971,6483,529,3445,4034,192,4032,77995,251,135,4033,4031,6,207,2065,472,6445],"class_list":{"0":"post-576937","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-clippers","10":"tag-denver-nuggets","11":"tag-devin-booker","12":"tag-ivica-zubac","13":"tag-jalen-green","14":"tag-james-harden","15":"tag-john-collins","16":"tag-jordan-miller","17":"tag-kawhi-leonard","18":"tag-kobe-sanders","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-la-clippers","21":"tag-laclippers","22":"tag-leonard-leads","23":"tag-los-angeles","24":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","25":"tag-losangeles","26":"tag-losangelesclippers","27":"tag-nba","28":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","29":"tag-phoenix","30":"tag-phoenix-suns","31":"tag-the-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116000167618819160","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576937","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=576937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}