INGLEWOOD — The Clippers’ successful run isn’t talked about in the locker room or in team meetings. The fact that they have posted a league-best stretch of games is a quiet conversation, if mentioned at all.
“I mean, we understand we’re playing good basketball right now,” guard Kris Dunn said. “Right now, we just are focusing on keeping it one game at a time and everybody keeping their urgency up.”
Not even Coach Tyronn Lue talks about the past and how the Clippers have resurrected their season.
“Those 17 games are behind us. We got to continue to keep getting better and we just can’t let our foot off the gas,” he said.
It’s getting hard to ignore, however. The Clippers overwhelmed the Brooklyn Nets 126-89 to notch their 15th victory in their past 18 games on Sunday night at the Intuit Dome.
The Clippers (21-24) are now just three games under .500 after starting the season at 6-21.
“We got to continue to come out every single night, having that defensive mindset to start games,” Lue said. “We got to share the basketball and make the right plays. So that (stretch) is behind us and we got to just continue to keep building.”
Dunn called the NBA season a “roller coaster” and that every season has its ups and downs. The Clippers are riding high right now after starting the season “really down, down,” he added.
The Clippers got off to a strong start and finished equally strong behind Kawhi Leonard’s game-high 28 points, five rebounds and two assists.
James Harden added 19 points on 3-of-8 shooting from the field, 3-of-5 from 3-point range and 10 of 10 from the free throw line. He also had six rebounds and eight assists.
John Collins finished with 18 points, five rebounds and one assist, while Jordan Miller came off the bench for 16 points and seven rebounds. Ivica Zubac posted another double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Overall, the Clippers outshot the Nets, 56.4% to 33.7% from the field and 48.0% to 20.9% from long range.
Dunn watched from the bench as the Clippers closed out their 21st victory. He took a hard fall late in the second quarter and headed to the locker room with 2:25 left in the half. He returned to the bench in the third quarter but didn’t play again.
Dunn had two points, three rebounds and one steal in 13 minutes.
After dominating in the first half, the Clippers went into their usual third-quarter funk, turning the ball over three times in less than four minutes and missing three of their first five shots, some of them layups. They recovered their energy and maintained a 30-point lead by the end of the quarter, 96-66.
The Nets were coming off a double-overtime loss to the Boston Celtics on Friday, nearly knocking off the second-best team in the Eastern Conference. The tough loss, coupled with a cross-country flight, left the Nets punchless. They scored just 14 points in the first quarter and trailed 68-37 at halftime.
The Clippers didn’t take it easy on the Nets, who dropped their fifth consecutive game and 13th in their past 15. Behind Leonard’s 21 first-half points and Harden’s 14, they shot 54.5% from the field and 38.5% from 3-point range.
The Nets were missing Cam Thomas, the team’s second-leading scorer at 16.2 points a game, and Noah Clowney (back), who has been averaging 13.1 points. Michael Porter Jr., the team’s leading scorer at 25.4 points a game, finished with nine points on 3-of-11 shooting and no 3-pointers.
The Nets were led by Egor Demin (12 points) and Danny Wolfe (14 points).
Lue said the Nets normally run their offense through Porter Jr., but the forward couldn’t get going and wasn’t a factor in the game.
“We know the ball’s coming to Michael Porter and Jordie (Fernandez, Nets coach) had done a great job with just moving him around,” Lue said. “Not having him in the same spots, coming off different actions to try to free him up, but he’s being featured and he’s making the most of it.”
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