The Los Angeles Clippers have a new home at the Intuit Dome, featuring a double-sided 4K scoreboard and modern restrooms. However, they still haven’t won a game there.
The Clippers are currently 0-3 at home as they prepare to face the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday in Inglewood, California.
The Thunder come into this game with a strong 5-0 record, their best start since the 2011-12 season, when they reached the NBA Finals with Kevin Durant on the team.
Oklahoma City stayed unbeaten after a convincing 137-114 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night.
They have a quick turnaround before playing the Clippers, who had a lead of 21 points in the third quarter but ended up losing 125-119 to the Phoenix Suns on Thursday.
James Harden was the standout player for Los Angeles, scoring 25 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, and making 13 assists for his 78th career triple-double. After the loss, the Clippers’ record stands at 2-3, having allowed Phoenix to shoot 60.5 percent in the second half, including 52.2 percent from beyond the arc.
Clippers coach Tyronn Lue shared his thoughts, saying, “I mean, we’ve just got to learn from it. We’ve got to continue to keep getting better. We’ve got to close games better and just something to keep learning from. All five of our games have been close, come down to the wire. We’ve been fortunate to win two of them, but in any of those games, we could be 0-5. We could be 5-0.
“So, just staying the course, understanding that our margin for error is very slim. So, we can’t turn the basketball over. We can’t have defensive breakdowns, we can’t allow offensive rebounds, and then we’ve got to take good shots and be good offensively.”
Norman Powell is leading the Los Angeles Clippers with an average of 25.4 points per game. The Clippers have lost their last two games by a total of seven points, and all three losses this season are by just 10 points combined.
“I think it’s going to be a lot of close games and we’ve just got to find ways to execute and win ’em,” Harden said. “The last two were tough, but we’ll get there sooner than later.”
Harden played his first three seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder, who put on another strong performance on Friday. The Thunder dominated the Portland Trail Blazers in the second half, outscoring them 69-46.
“It wasn’t just the poise,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. “We had great intentionality coming out of halftime. We made a decision that our defense really needed to get tightened up and for us to course correct that quickly was very encouraging.”
With centers Jaylin Williams (right hamstring strain) and Isaiah Hartenstein (left hand fracture) both unavailable, Daigneault brought 6-foot-9 Ousmane Dieng into the rotation.
The third-year forward scored 11 points, grabbed three rebounds, made two assists, and blocked one shot in 19 minutes off the bench on Friday.
“He’s always had a great feel, but the physicality that he’s bringing to the game is just a huge jump,” Daigneault said. “Developmentally, he’s worked really hard for that. He had a great, great summer.”
The Thunder were able to rest their starters for most of the fourth quarter on Friday as they prepared for the next game. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 30 points on 12-of-18 shooting in 28 minutes during the win.
