3 Key areas of focus when San Antonio Spurs face LA Clippers

The San Antonio Spurs need to right the ship against the LA Clippers

It’s still very early in the regular season and you don’t want to make too much of one loss but the defeat the Utah Jazz handed the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday is going to sting for a bit. This team needs to bounce back soon.

We knew that the month of January was going to be crucial to the Spurs’ playoff hopes but boy does it start out tough. Facing off against two of the best teams in the conference is a heck of a way to break in the new year but that’s what the Spurs have in store this week. They’ll face the LA Clippers tonight and take on their roommates, the Lakers, on Thursday.

The Clippers gave the Spurs problems last year. San Antonio went 1-3 against last year’s group, many of whom are no longer in with the team. But while the complementary players might have changed a bit, the core pieces of this team stayed the same.

Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are the driving forces of this Clipper group once again. But with skilled role players like Luke Kennard and Nicolas Batum, the Spurs can’t afford to focus all their energy on PG and Kawhi.

They’re going to have to lock in on defense if they want to avoid another blowout. Let’s get into exactly what they need to do on that and a few other key areas of focus in tonight’s game.

Keldon Johnson is in for one of the biggest defensive tests of his career

I’m actually not too worried about how Keldon Johnson performs on the offensive end of the floor. Leonard and George are impressive defenders but Keldon’s been getting his all season. He hasn’t been going up against slouches and he’s still finding ways to have historic outings.

Johnson has faced some talented players but few quite as talented as the Kawhi-PG tandem. The only comparison would be AD and LeBron and those matchups didn’t quite go the way the Spurs had hoped.

Johnson played with energy and did his best but he wasn’t able to stop AD and LeBron from running through the Spurs. We’re all thrilled for the gains Keldon made over the summer but on some players, LeBron just bodied through him like he wasn’t even there.

Given Kawhi’s recent injury and George’s prolific outside shooting as of late, I don’t think they’ll be quite as physical with Johnson as LeBron was. But that doesn’t make this matchup any less intimidating.

Johnson’s going to have to do a great job of staying in front of these two, not biting on pump fakes, and trying to contest three-point shots without fouling. No one’s expecting him to totally shut the two down, few defenders in the league can do that. But if he brings that typical Mustang energy he should be just fine.

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