The surging Los Angeles Clippers will complete a short visit at home between East Coast road trips when they face the Washington Wizards on Wednesday in Inglewood, Calif.
Travel fatigue or not, the Clippers continue to roll, having improved to 10-2 since Dec. 20. They held off the Charlotte Hornets 117-109 on Monday behind 35 points from Kawhi Leonard and 32 points with 10 assists from James Harden.
Leonard has taken over as the main focus of Los Angeles’ offense with an average of 32.7 points per game over the last 12 contests. But Harden pulled back some of the attention Monday by moving into ninth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list (28,614), passing Shaquille O’Neal (28,596).
Harden, a Los Angeles-area native, was making a name for himself while growing up in Southern California when O’Neal was busy winning championships with the Lakers.
“Shaq, as I’ve said before, is someone that I watched, being a hometown kid in LA, watching Kobe Bryant and the Lakers do some special things here for the city,” Harden said. “So that’s definitely special.”
The victory over the Hornets came after a one-day rest from an East Coast trip during which the Clippers played three games in four days.
“This is a huge win for us to gut this one out,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said after a 15-1 run in the fourth quarter sealed the victory.
After Tuesday’s game, the Clippers will head out on another three-game road trip to the East Coast that will include a rematch with the Wizards on Monday.
Washington continues to be short-handed since making a high-profile trade with the Atlanta Hawks on Friday. The Wizards acquired four-time All-Star guard Trae Young in the deal, but he has remained out with a hamstring injury. The deal cost the team both CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, who already made their Hawks debuts.
Washington’s opener of a four-game road trip Sunday at Phoenix ended in a 112-93 loss. It was the Wizards’ second-lowest scoring game of the season.
Alex Sarr scored 19 points with 15 rebounds, while rookie Tre Johnson also had 19 points in the defeat. But the Wizards committed 23 turnovers that led to 20 Phoenix points. Washington also gave up 15 offensive rebounds and 25 second-chance points.
“It wasn’t just straight rebounding. I would say there were 10 points lost when we had the ball and quickly gave it back, or there was a loose ball that they got,” Wizards coach Brian Keefe said.
He added: “It was 50-50 battles that we lost. It’s something we’re going to look at. We had been a little better with that lately.”
Johnson, the No. 6 overall selection in the most recent NBA draft, has started each of the past nine games and has made the most of it with an average of 14.9 points in the stretch, including three games of at least 19 points.
With McCollum now in Atlanta, Sarr leads Washington with 17.3 points while continuing to lead in rebounds with 7.8. Kyshawn George, who was held to five points on 2-of-10 shooting Sunday, is scoring 14.7 points with a team-best 4.9 assists.
As rookies last season, Sarr averaged 13.0 points with 6.5 rebounds, while George had 8.7 points with 2.5 assists.
