The surest sign that things have changed could be seen on the Clippers’ sideline Tuesday at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla.
The Prada bucket hats, designer sweatshirts, high-end scarves-turned-gaiters and flowing, one-piece items that center Serge Ibaka has donned for the last two months while sidelined were gone, traded in for NBA-issue Nike warmups.
The 7-footer was no longer doing “art” — the term he lovingly applies to his sartorial selections — because what the Clippers hope he could be doing soon, for the first time since hurting his back March 14, is basketball.
Though the 31-year-old center did not play during his team’s 115-96 rout of the Toronto Raptors, coach Tyronn Lue expressed optimism that Ibaka could return at some point during the final three games of the Clippers’ final road trip of the regular season.
“That’s our goal,” Lue said before tipoff, with games in Charlotte, Houston and Oklahoma City upcoming. “He’s progressed and he’s rehabbing right now on the road, so hopeful we can get a chance to get him a couple games before the season’s over and just try to see how he feels and how he looks on the floor.”
Ibaka’s eventual return will not dislodge Ivica Zubac from the starting center role he has largely flourished in since Ibaka’s injury, according to Lue. Zubac has averaged 10.6 points, 8.0 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.0 block and 1.4 turnovers while shooting 65% in 28 games since joining the starters after Ibaka’s injury, and last month guard Patrick Beverley attributed the Clippers’ defensive improvement since the All-Star break to the addition of Zubac.
Zubac scored 18 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against the overmatched Raptors.
Highlights from the Clippers’ 115-96 win over the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday.
“Zu will be the starter, for sure,” Lue said, “but with Serge’s experience and how he’s performed in the playoffs and winning the championship, I think it means a lot. The more guys you have with that experience and more guys that you have that rise to the occasion in the playoffs, which Serge has done over his career, it’s very important to have and very important to try and get him back. I’m glad he’s able to come on this trip.”
The Clippers (46-23) have gone 21-8 since Ibaka was injured, with the latest victory a matchup of teams headed in starkly different directions. Despite 18 turnovers, the Clippers led by double digits for all but nearly two minutes of the second half. Kawhi Leonard and Terance Mann each scored a game-high 20 points. The Clippers made all 26 of their free throws.
Mathematically eliminated from extending their run of seven consecutive playoff appearances, the Raptors (27-42) turned over their playing time to young players as a means of evaluating for the future, coach Nick Nurse said.
The visitors, meanwhile, are using their final games as a playoff tuneup. For Lue, that meant experimenting with a changed starting lineup — replacing guard Reggie Jackson with Beverley — and playing four of his five starters deep into the fourth quarter, despite a ballooning lead, to gauge the results. Beverley missed all four of his shots while adding six rebounds and an assist.
Following the Clippers’ loss Sunday to the Knicks, Leonard said he had tried to keep Ibaka engaged during his absence by asking him what he’d observed from the team’s play.
“Just trying to keep him in the loop,” Leonard said. “… Ask him what is he seeing, him giving me feedback on what he sees on the floor, and that’s all I can do, just try to keep his spirits up, still talk to him as if he’s playing.”
Lue reiterated that holding on to the Western Conference’s third seed is the team’s goal — they entered Tuesday one game ahead of fourth-place Denver — but added that another is getting the team’s veterans comfortable on the court together again.
That work has already begun in recent weeks, Lue said, as Ibaka began playing more often in practice and ramping up his understanding of how the team had changed since he last played.
“Over the last couple of weeks, he’s been really engaged on the bench talking to the guys, asking coaches questions about certain plays and defensive coverages,” Lue said. “And then we’re in practice going through our things, he’s on the floor, seeing it, trying to understand it, seeing that we might have tweaked a couple plays from early on when he played.”