INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The unquestioned star of NBA opening week in Southern California was the Clippers’ new home, the Intuit Dome.
From the massive halo screen above the court — something coach Tyronn Lue admitted looking up at for multi-camera angle replays to decide if he should challenge a call — to the USB chargers and heaters at every seat, it feels like the arena has everything for the fans. Seriously, everything. There are controllers built into those seats, allowing fans to answer questions and play games on the halo screen for prizes during timeouts, and the entire venue is cashless/app-driven with grab-and-go food. It feels like the future of arenas (still, there were more than a few empty seats on opening night, even if the tickets were sold).
And then there’s “The Wall” — a steep section of special seats only for Clippers fans (if you’re wearing another team’s gear you’re requested to move). At the wall’s core is a loud, college student-style cheering section that is never quiet.
” Incredible. I loved it. I absolutely love the wall that they got. It’s insane…” Kevin Durant said. “I was staring at [the wall] the whole time, you’re not used to that.”
Can the Clippers live up to their building?
“The environment was great,” Tyronn Lue said. “Our fans was great, wish we could have capped it off with a win, but it was a great environment.”
That sentiment could be a running theme for the Clippers this season.
The arena lived up to the hype. The team that calls it home looked mid for much of opening night — a 116-113 overtime loss to Phoenix in a game Los Angeles led by 10 with six minutes to go in the fourth quarter.
There were stretches when the Clippers looked worthy of their new crib, specifically when James Harden reverted to Houston Harden in the third when he scored 16 of his 29 points on the night. But that’s a lot to ask from the 35-year-old, and for the night Harden had as many turnovers as assists (eight of each), looked tired down the stretch and, while he had clutch buckets, he also had clutch errors.
“My play has to be a lot better,” Harden said. “So I’ve seen a lot of really good things out of our group. I think everybody played well, and the great thing about it is we can improve. So that’s definitely some positive right there.”
The Clippers focused on the positives, talked about playing hard, rebounding and more, but the reality is this will be the James Harden show for the opening weeks of the season, until the team’s other star can take the court (reportedly weeks away).
“We need him to be special until Kawhi gets back,” Lue said of Harden.
Without Leonard — and maybe even with him — the Clippers feel like a team closer to pivoting into a rebuild in a year or two than challenging Oklahoma City, Dallas and Denver at the top of the West this season. (Except, the Clippers don’t control their own first-round pick until 2030, so a traditional rebuild is off the table.)
This season’s Clippers are a team with no margin for error — in a West that will be crowded with teams pushing for a postseason spot — and it can’t turn the ball over on 19.5% of their possessions (almost one in four trips down the court) or shoot 8-of-29 (27.6%) from 3.
If the fans in The Wall and around Clippers nation want to be glass half full, there’s a case to make: They will get Leonard back, they will shoot better from 3, Ivica Zubac is underrated (21 points and nine rebounds), Norman Powell looked good (17 points), and this was an overtime loss to a talented Suns team that could be top four in the West this season. It was opening night when teams are generally a little sloppy — both the Clippers and Suns were for stretches of the game — and things can turn around.
However, on opening night, it felt like the Intuit Dome was good enough, but the Clippers were not — and that’s the trend that will continue all season long.
