Watch This Next
The next Clippers check is simple enough to picture. Does the floor look tilted against them again in the first stretch, or does it finally look level?
Los Angeles lost 118-99 to San Antonio in Inglewood on April 2. Victor Wembanyama did not play. The Spurs still led by 26 in the first half. That is the part worth carrying forward. Not a grand verdict about the Clippers' ceiling. Not a panic spiral. Just the visual problem sitting right in front of them: the game got away before it ever found a normal shape.
That is why the next watch item is not some heroic scoring burst or a louder closing kick. It is early firmness. Can the Clippers open a game without looking like every possession is arriving half a beat late? Can Kawhi Leonard and the rest of the group make the court feel connected instead of stretched thin from the jump? When a team gets run over that quickly by a Spurs group missing its biggest star, the follow-up test is whether the next game starts with cleaner spacing, cleaner pace, and less immediate slippage.
If that opening stretch still looks loose, then the concern stays live. If it looks sturdier, then at least the picture changes from a team getting pushed backward immediately to one making an opponent earn the game.