No one in the media knew that Paul George had a minute limit while against Orlando Magic, but it didn’t matter – the Clippers still beat the Magic by 26 points. This team is very clickable.
The biggest news of confirming George’s restriction came in the second quarter, when the Clippers ran a full mountain line. Lue had been avoiding a full-bench run that included Lou Williams and Luke Kennard for the past few weeks and suddenly came back against the Magic. When I asked Lue why he didn’t stop, he said:
“With PG coming back, he was tired and had a small minute limit so we couldn’t make the full stop in that first half,” Lue said. “So I had that as far as the lineups we had out there.”
George had a small minute limit due to missing the last two games due to health and safety protocols. Before that though, he was already experiencing a tense tension that took him out of the final minutes of the Thunder game.
Running a full mountain line hurt the Clippers immediately, as their lead reduced 14 points to a three-point lead in about two minutes. From that moment on, Lue learned his mistake and made sure to stop George and Kawhi for the rest of the game.
“I thought they were scoring too easily and they went on a hell of a run so in that second half came out in that third quarter,” Lue said. “I decided to get PG out a lot earlier so we could get it back and that kind of helped us get our rotations back so my first half with PG would be limited at minutes. We had to do a better job in that second half of just cutting down on some other guys minutes. “
The Clippers will face the Knicks next Sunday at 10:00 am PST, one of the earliest games of the season. This is the last game they have before their superstar matchup against the Nets on Tuesday.