The Los Angeles Clippers are set to visit the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday night in a marquee matchup of top contenders from their respective conferences. The Clippers come into the game at 27-14 which has them in fourth place in the Western Conference while the Cavaliers come in at 29-11 which is good for first in the Eastern Conference.
The Clippers come into this game red hot, as they have won 11 of their last 12 games despite the fact that they have been playing without leading scorer Blake Griffin during the stretch. Chris Paul has really picked up his play with Griffin out and has unsurprisingly been the Clippers best player this season. Paul's 24.4 PER leads the team, and he is also averaging 18.2 points, 9.6 assists and 2.1 steals per game so far.
While Paul has been great lately, J.J. Redick has been otherworldly. Redick comes into the game averaging 16.6 points per game, which is third on the team, but he is making a ridiculous 50 percent of his threes which is the best in the NBA. Redick is coming off a 40-point outburst against the Houston Rockets on Monday where he nailed nine three-pointers and led the Clippers to the overtime victory.
On the injury front, Blake Griffin will not play in this game, and it will be his 12th consecutive game missed as he is dealing with a partially torn quad. Griffin traveled with the team and could be back as soon as this weekend.
The Cavaliers are the clear favorites in the East, but they faced the top two teams from the West recently and were beaten by both, including an embarrassing home loss to the Warriors. Cleveland bounced back on Wednesday by beating the Brooklyn Nets, but this feels like a big game for them to show they can compete with the top teams out West.
LeBron James has gone three consecutive games scoring less than 20 points for the first time since his rookie season and is looking to break that streak on Thursday night. Overall, though, James is having another tremendous season as his PER is 26.5, and he is averaging 25.1 points, 7.2 rebounds and 6 assists per game.
Kevin Love is a player to keep your eye on for the Cavaliers in this one as his production has slipped since Kyrie Irving has been back in the lineup. Love started off the season extremely well and is still averaging 15.6 points and 10.9 rebounds per game but those numbers have dipped over the past 14 games. Love did have 17 points and 18 rebounds against the Nets on Wednesday though, so maybe he will start to increase his production again.
The Cavaliers are a healthy team at the moment, relatively speaking, and should have everybody available for the second half of this back-to-back set.
This is the first meeting between these two teams this season but the Cavaliers swept the season series a year ago so the Clippers will be looking to exact a small amount of revenge on the road.
The game is scheduled to tip off at 8 P.M. Eastern time on TNT and to watch the live broadcast go here. For the Clippers radio broadcast go here and for the Cavaliers radio broadcast go here.
