DALLAS — As the song goes: Inglewood, always up to no good.
And now the Clippers live there.
Their next home game will be their first at the new Intuit Dome. You can put a period on the 2023-24 season: Friday night’s 114-101 Game 6 loss to the fifth-seeded Dallas Mavericks meant the Clippers won’t ever host another game at Crypto.com Arena.
Their opening-round loss in the Western Conference playoffs eliminated Coach Tyronn Lue’s team on his 47th birthday, the fourth-seeded Clippers bowing out in a first-round series against a Luka Doncic-led Mavs team for the first time in three meetings.
With Clippers star Kawhi Leonard sidelined with knee inflammation, Doncic (28 points and 13 assists) and Kyrie Irving (28 of his 30 points after halftime) proved a considerably more potent one-two punch than Paul George (18) and James Harden (16).
It all went in accordance with the NBA’s current trend: A young star – Doncic is 25 – with much to prove leading his team past an aging, content contingent past proving much.
But who knows? Maybe a young building will spark the Clippers? Maybe the franchise that still, after 54 years, has yet to win a championship will have better aura in its new arena?
More likely it won’t matter: You can take the team out of downtown L.A., but I doubt even a new arena can take the downtrodden out of these Clippers, certainly not as they’re currently constructed.
The 213 Era – aka the What-if-Kawhi-Leonard-Was-Healthy? Era – has been a study in what might have been, and might never be, Leonard’s right knee refusing to play ball for a third consecutive postseason.
Paul George said Kawhi Leonard — sidelined with knee inflammation — “wanted to be out there, wanted to be with us… it was more staff keeping him back.” pic.twitter.com/AqeUxlkevE
— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) May 4, 2024
Since Leonard and George linked up in L.A., the Clippers exited in the second round in 2020, in the conference finals in 2021,…
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