Clippers get crushed by short-handed Jazz

The Utah Jazz’s concern before tipoff against the Clippers on Friday was how they would handle the absences of Donovan Mitchell (25.7 points per game) and Bojan Bogdanovic (18.1), both sidelined with calf strains.

“There’s a lot of unfamiliar territory there,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said, via Zoom, noting that his available players would “need to communicate with each other and figure it out.”

One would have expected that the Clippers to have figured how to operate successfully without their top scorers: After all, they’ve been playing all season without Kawhi Leonard (ACL), all but 26 games without fellow All-star Paul George (elbow) and now 16 games without Norman Powell since his toe was broken three games after arriving in a trade.

But the short-handed Jazz proved to be just fine.

It was the Clippers who appeared overwhelmed and out of sorts as they got pummeled, 121-92, before a sellout crowd of 18,306 at Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City.

“They polished us,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. “It’s one of those games, we just didn’t have it. Didn’t have a lot of pop. Them being down their two top scorers, we let our guard down.”

Center Ivica Zubac was more blunt: “We gotta be better. We can’t come out like that. It’s just embarrassing.”

The loss — the Clippers’ third in a row and sixth in their past eight games — dropped them to 36-37, below .500 for the first time since Feb. 17, when a win against the Houston Rockets pulled them to 30-31. It was also the Clippers eighth consecutive regular-season loss in Salt Lake City, a streak dating back to Feb. 13, 2017.

This season, the Clippers have nine regular-season games remaining before the play-in tournament begins April 12.

On Friday, there were bad omens early for the Clippers, who had to call a timeout fewer than two minutes into the game, the Jazz (44-26 – and 26-11 at home) having hit all four of their shots to take a 10-2 lead. Also, Marcus Morris Sr. missed a free throw, snapping his streak of 43 consecutive makes from the stripe.

After that, the Clipper struggled to slow the Jazz, who drove and kicked at will, speeding away with a 41-14 second quarter — despite the fact that they also were missing Hassan Whiteside (NON-COVID illness), Udoka Azubuike (right ankle sprain), Trent Forrest (right wrist sprain) and Danuel House (left knee bone bruise).

And the Clippers struggled just as mightily to score themselves, shooting just 36% (31 for 86).

The Clippers were just 29.7% (19 for 64) through three quarters, when the Jazz’s 37-point halftime lead remained intact entering the final 12 minutes of action.

Sure, coach Tyronn Lue’s team has four 20-plus point comebacks this season — including one from 35 points down, one shy of the NBA record established by Utah in 1996.

But this time, there would be no monumental rally. The Clippers didn’t even have a player in score double figures until the 10:35 mark of the fourth quarter, when Robert Covington connected on a pullup jumper to bring his tally to 11 points – with the Clippers trailing 98-60.

Covington finished with 18 points, Terance Mann had 14, Luke Kennard 13 and Semi Ojeleye 13 – all off the bench. On his 25th birthday, Zubac gave his team nine points and six rebounds in 21 minutes.

“We all pretty much know what went wrong and what we gotta do,” said Zubac, the longest-tenured Clipper and sixth-year pro who said there was consensus in the locker room after the game. “That was embarrassing from us and we know what we gotta do better.”

Utah’s lead grew to as large as 41 points in the fourth quarter, but in the end, the Clippers narrowed the large margin to 29, outscoring their hosts 34-26 in the final frame.