INGLEWOOD — The Milwaukee Bucks came into Intuit Dome on Monday night missing their best player, all but out of playoff contention and limping into the final stretch of the season.
They were exactly the kind of opponent that strikes fear in Clippers coach Tyronn Lue. The kind of game that on the surface appears to be a gimme, an easy victory, but one that can also trip up a team.
So even though the Clippers held a commanding halftime lead, Lue felt it necessary to remind them not to let up. Keep playing. Keep defending.
“Those kinds of teams are the most dangerous because you’re not prepared for it, so I just told them at halftime, let’s just be professional, take care of business,” Lue said.
The Clippers took Lue seriously and made short work of the short-handed Bucks, 129-96, behind another solid night from Kawhi Leonard.
Leonard overcame a sluggish start in which he missed six of his first seven shots and all four 3-point attempts to finish with 28 points on 8-of-18 shooting, extending his franchise record by scoring at least 20 points in his 48th consecutive game.
“I’m not going to make my first shots every night. I’m not going to make my last shots every night or in the middle of the game,” Leonard said. “So, it’s just playing basketball and enjoying it like I’ve been saying and just hoping the tide turns.”
Leonard, who sat out the fourth quarter, also made all nine of his free throws and contributed five rebounds, three assists and three steals in just 25 minutes.
Brook Lopez added 19 points, three rebounds and three assists, while Kobe Sanders also had 19 points. Darius Garland finished with 15 points and six assists and Jordan Miller had 10 points and four assists, as the Clippers got back to a .500 record at 36-36.
They remain in eighth place in the Western Conference with 10 games left in the regular season, trying to secure the best possible seed for next month’s four-team Play-In Tournament (seeds 7-10). The Clippers are four games behind seventh-place Phoenix (40-32), a half-game ahead of Portland (36-37) and two games ahead of 10th-place Golden State (34-38).
“I think we did a good job,” Leonard said. “They’re down some starters tonight and this is what you want to do – to be able to play hard the whole game, try to limit our turnovers and just come out with a win without fighting to the end.”
While Leonard sat after playing the first eight minutes, the rest of the Clippers kept them afloat in the first half. Garland picked up the slack with Sanders chipping in 11 first-half points.
Leonard returned to the game at the 8:53 mark of the second quarter and went to work, racking up 22 points on 6-of-14 shooting before halftime. After making two free throws, he scored the Clippers’ next 11 points for a 57-39 lead, well on their way to a 71-47 cushion by halftime.
Lue said it was important that his team continued to play the right way.
“Don’t get cute,” he said. “And so that was our message at halftime, but they started off the game pretty good and then were able to tighten up defensively. We were able to score the basketball, and so it was a good night for us all around.”
Leonard and Garland, who were both on the court to start the third, continued to dismantle the Bucks and stretch the Clippers’ lead to 37 points. Lopez buried his fourth 3-pointer to make it 87-50 with 7:41 left in the quarter.
Lopez added a fifth 3-pointer to give the Clippers their biggest lead through two-plus quarters (96-52) at the 4:30 mark. He shot 7 for 9 from the field and 5 for 6 from 3-point range.
The Clippers shot 17 for 38 (43.6%) from 3-point range and 47 for 81 (58%) from the field. They also made all 18 of their free throws.
The Clippers don’t often attempt 38 shots from behind the arc. That’s not their style, but they have been on a roll.
Behind Garland’s dynamic high-arcing shots from outside, they are quickly becoming a solid long-range shooting team. In their last game, they made 21 of 42 from deep in an overtime win against the Dallas Mavericks and followed that with another impressive performance on Monday.
“It’s just been different,” Lue said. “I mean, some games we might get up 38 and some games we get 22. It’s been different. I think it’s all predicated on how teams guard us.”
Namely, Leonard.
“If teams are going to double-team Kawhi, then we should get open 3’s or if teams going to double-team Brook. … We know how we should play. Things like that. It’s got to be more out of how we play than the style of play. I don’t think we can just come down to just jack 3’s. I don’t think we’re that type of team. Not right now.”
Milwaukee (29-42) was looking for a last-gasp effort to reach the postseason with three weeks remaining in the regular season, but the Bucks’ slim odds got even longer with a lopsided loss that left them eight games out of the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference.
Gary Trent Jr. paced the Bucks with 20 points off the bench. Ryan Rollins led their starters with 13, and Milwaukee had five players score in double figures. The Bucks have lost 10 of their past 14 games, including three of four since sitting two-time league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo because of a hyperextended left knee.
Former Clippers forward Kevin Porter Jr. (knee) and forward Kyle Kuzma (Achilles) also were out, leaving the Bucks with just 11 available players.
Before the game, Milwaukee waived guard Cam Thomas, less than two months after signing him.
