The first regular season game at the Los Angeles Clippers new arena in Inglewood, CA had fans excited as the ESPN nationally televised game at the ‘Intuit Dome’ went into overtime with the Clippers coming up short, in a 116-113 loss to Phoenix.
It was a back-and-forth game all night with LA ultimately in prime position late, up nine (99-90) with just under four minutes left in the 4th, but allowed Phoenix to go on a 13-4 run to help send the game into OT.
Heading into this season, not many outside of Clippers fans and/or the organization picked this team to do much come late April or May with their superstar Kawhi Leonard being out with no timetable for return, and former all-star Paul George departing for Philadelphia in the off-season.
So the onus to get this season started right, is on the 35-year-old James Harden, and even though they took the ‘L’ on Wednesday night he demonstrated what he is still capable of doing.
Los Angeles Clippers Will Go As Far As James Harden Takes Them
After a huge night for Harden, who had game-highs with 29 points and 12 rebounds, said after the loss, “I still gotta play better.”
It might be hard to say that when you’re going up against a Phoenix team that is fully healthy with their three stars.
“There’s a lot of positives out of this game,” Harden said about his team’s performance after this game. We played extremely hard and that’s going to be our calling every single game.”
He got help from his teammates offensively. Ivica Zubac who is going into his 7th season with LA, scored 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds, and Norman Powell added 17.
Head coach Ty Lue said after the game that he thought his team “played hard and competed.”
It’s only one game, but LA now hits the road for what looks like a very difficult back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday with the first against Golden State and then against Denver.
“I’ve seen a lot of really good things from our group, I think everybody played well and the great thing about it is we can still improve,” Harden said about this team’s performance.
This team is going to go as far as James Harden can carry them.