In need of victories and yearning to test just how good they have become in recent weeks, the Los Angeles Clippers will get a chance to accomplish both when they play host to the NBA-best Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday.
The Clippers appear revived while winning six of their last seven games. That form will be tested against the Cavaliers, who just saw a 16-game winning streak come to an end with a 108-103 home loss to the Orlando Magic on Sunday.
Kawhi Leonard appears to be hitting his stride for the Clippers after missing the first three months of the season due to knee discomfort. But Los Angeles knows there is more in the tank overall with leading-scorer Norman Powell now trying to get back up to speed.
Powell missed 12 of the last 13 games because of knee and hamstring injuries before he returned Sunday and played 23 minutes in a convincing 123-88 home victory over the Charlotte Hornets. He scored just seven points while going 3 of 13 from the floor but being able to exert himself for nearly half of the 48 minutes was the key.
James Harden scored 31 points with 10 rebounds in the victory, while Leonard had 23 and was needed for just 27 minutes after playing as many as 40 on two occasions this season.
Like Leonard did, when he returned in January, Powell will now have to slip into the fold after he has averaged 23.4 points this season. In addition, new arrivals Bogdan Bogdanovic and Ben Simmons are being thrown into the mix.
“No matter who’s in the lineup, who’s playing, we come out and compete with our team every single night and I give a lot of credit to our coaching staff,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue said. “They’ve done a great job preparing our guys.”
Lue will go up against his former team, who he won an NBA championship with as a head coach in 2016. He spent parts of four seasons as the head coach in Cleveland and guided the team to the NBA Finals three times.
The Cavaliers’ winning streak came to an end Sunday when they shot 41.7 percent from the floor and watched the Magic go 27 of 34 from the free-throw line, while going 13 of 20 from the line themselves. Cleveland also gave up 26 points on 14 turnovers.
Donovan Mitchell scored 16 of his team-best 23 points in the second half but went just 3 of 14 from 3-point range in the game. Jarrett Allen had 20 points with 12 rebounds and Darius Garland had 19 points.
“A lot went wrong, but I mean, I feel like we did everything that we could,” Allen said. “We missed a lot of shots. We missed a lot of wide-open stuff. But before that, screening, getting open, offensive rebounding, we did every single thing we could to put ourselves in a position to win.”
Cleveland is embarking on a five-game West Coast road trip, with just four more road games remaining once they return home.
The Cavaliers and Clippers will meet again March 30 at Cleveland.
