The Clippers opened the season down five rotation players, and Darius Garland made sure it didn't matter. The two-time All-Star scored 30 points on 11-of-19 shooting in a wire-to-wire 121-96 win over Sacramento on Wednesday night, and the way he got them says a lot about what this offense will look like until Bradley Beal, Brandon Ingram and Max Strus are back.
The first-quarter burst
Garland didn't ease in. He scored 16 points in the first quarter on 5-of-6 shooting, including 3-for-3 from three, and the Clippers led 41-29 after 12 minutes. He opened the game with a 25-foot three off a Derrick Jones Jr. feed at 11:31, then added a 12-foot running pull-up, two more threes from 29 feet, and a 4-footer off a Kris Dunn assist, all before the 7:47 mark.
That stretch set the tone for a night when the Clippers never trailed, led by as many as 28, and held the lead for 98% of the game, per ESPN's box score.
After the threes stopped falling, he went downhill
Here's the part worth watching going forward. After that first quarter, Garland went 0-for-5 from three. Instead of forcing it, he lived inside the arc: 8 of his 11 made field goals came from 13 feet and in, including a 13-foot driving floater, a 7-foot driving floater, an 11-foot pull-up and two layups. He finished 3-of-8 from deep and 5-of-8 at the line.
That matters for a short-handed roster. When the outside shot isn't there, a lead guard who can still collect points in the floater and short-midrange area keeps the offense from stalling.
Setting up the bigs
Garland finished with four assists against three turnovers, and three of those four assists were lobs or drives finished at the rim by bigs: an Isaiah Jackson driving dunk, an Isaiah Jackson alley-oop, and a Baba Miller driving dunk. The fourth was a 22-foot Keaton Wagler jumper in the fourth quarter. Jackson finished 6-of-8 for 13 points as the starting center.
The assist total is modest for a player who averaged 6.7 assists over seven seasons in Cleveland, per the Clippers' trade announcement. Some of that is the night he had as a scorer, and some is that the Clippers' bench (Brook Lopez with 17 and 11, Wagler with 15, Gradey Dick with 12) carried a lot of the creation load in a 53-34 bench scoring edge.
The on-court number
Garland was +15 in 32 minutes. The Clippers won by 25, so they were also +10 in the 16 minutes he sat, a good sign for the second unit, but the starting group with Garland built the early cushion.
What it means tonight
The Clippers visit the Lakers tonight at 7 PM PT. Garland will be matched against a Lakers backcourt run by Luka Dončić, and the Clippers are still without Beal, Ingram, Strus, Jordan Miller and Yanic Konan Niederhauser. If Garland can again get to his floater game when the three isn't falling, the Clippers have a path to staying in it. If he's forced to settle for pull-up threes, the offense will lean even harder on a bench that might not get 53 points twice in a row.
One game is one game. But the shape of his night, early threes followed by a steady diet of short, high-percentage looks, is the version of Garland the Clippers traded James Harden for in February.
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