{"id":637641,"date":"2026-03-03T23:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/637641\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T23:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:36:15","slug":"darius-garland-debut-a-success-with-los-angeles-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/637641\/","title":{"rendered":"Darius Garland debut a success with Los Angeles Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Tyronn Lue didn\u2019t want Darius Garland\u2019s first minutes with the Clippers<\/a> to come in the shadow of Kawhi Leonard. That meant the uniform wasn\u2019t the only thing new for the 26-year-old guard Monday night in his Los Angeles debut.<\/p>\n

Garland scored 12 points in 23 minutes in a 114-101 win against the Warriors<\/a> \u2014 off the bench.<\/p>\n

\"ADarius Garland of the LA Clippers dribbles the ball during the game against the Golden State Warriors on March 2, 2026 at Chase Center in San Francisco, California. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

It was Garland\u2019s first time taking the court since the Cavaliers sent him to LA for James Harden<\/a>, his first game at all since Jan. 14, and the first time since his sophomore season \u2014 2020-21 \u2014 that the two-time All-Star\u2019s name wasn\u2019t announced among the starting lineups.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s whatever. I wanted to fit in so I didn\u2019t want to disrupt anything or anything that we had going on because we had been on a good little run,\u201d Garland said of his reaction when Lue informed him he wouldn\u2019t start initially. \u201cIt was kind of weird at first, I told him it felt weird at first. But after I got going a little bit, it was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garland checked in for the first time with 4:48 left in the first quarter and didn\u2019t get his first bucket until shortly before halftime. The Warriors blitzed him and forced three early turnovers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve Kerr always got something up under his sleeve,\u201d Garland said. \u201cSo probably after the first trey ball I made I was like OK, all right, I think I knocked the cobwebs off a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garland\u2019s health is one reason why the Cavaliers were comfortable trading him away for another guard 10 years his elder in Harden. He hadn\u2019t played since spraining his right big toe against the 76ers six weeks ago and had surgery on his other big toe over the summer.<\/p>\n

Before tipoff, Lue said he wanted to see Garland \u201cfind his own rhythm, his own timing and just try to run everything through him\u201d without Leonard. The Clippers were at their best in the moments both were on the floor.<\/p>\n

\"GoldenGolden State Warriors guard Moses Moody, left, reaches for the ball while falling over Los Angeles Clippers guard Darius Garland during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Monday, March 2, 2026. AP<\/p>\n

In their first possession together, Garland drove to the rim, drew contact, and got to the foul line. Not long after, Golden State crashed the paint, and Garland kicked it out to Leonard for an open 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom penetration, they pulled in, and then he was able to make the right play,\u201d Lue said. \u201cIt\u2019s gonna take some time to get our rotations, who plays well with who, but tonight was a good start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard, who led LA with 23 points, said the Clippers newcomer \u201clooks very promising out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is very active defensively when guarding some of their centers in the post. I enjoyed his whole performance tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Garland got going, so did the Clippers. They erased a 17-point deficit before halftime to claim a convincing win over the team directly ahead of them in the Western Conference standings. The win closed the gap between LA and Golden State to 1.5 games.<\/p>\n

While the Warriors continue to battle attrition, Lue has a new toy to play with in LA.
\u201cA guy can push the pace, can run pick-and-roll, can get to where he wants to get to on the floor, can run a lot of different options where he can come off pin-downs, he can come off pick-the-picker actions,\u201d Lue said. \u201cWe can just use him a lot of different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Tyronn Lue didn\u2019t want Darius Garland\u2019s first minutes with the Clippers to come in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,160,559,791,164,529,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-637641","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-california","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-darius-garland","12":"tag-golden-state-warriors","13":"tag-kawhi-leonard","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-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116167874137561885","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637641","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=637641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}