Clippers respond to post-trade challenge to keep chasing playoff berth

LOS ANGELES — When the Clippers traded leading scorer Tobias Harris (and Boban Marjanovic and Mike Scott) to the Philadelphia 76ers on Feb. 6, the working theory outside the organization was that the team would go on to miss the playoffs and thereby retain the lottery-protected first-round draft pick that otherwise is due to be sent to the Boston Celtics.

Coach Doc Rivers, like the members of the team’s front office, denied that, contending that it was still very much their intention to make the playoffs.

A month later, the Clippers remain in the postseason picture, entering Monday’s game against the 10th-place Lakers in seventh place in the Western Conference.

So, no, they really aren’t tanking.

“I don’t know that word,” Rivers said before Monday’s matchup. “That was never gonna happen. We may have lost, but we weren’t gonna tank.

“We didn’t need to, either,” Rivers continued, adding that even if the Clippers miss the playoffs and keep the draft pick after this season, they’d lose it the following year if they make the playoffs next season.

“The whole message on that draft pick thing was we’re gonna lose it one year or the next year, so it’s going one way or the other.”

If anything, Rivers said, all the speculation helped fuel the Clippers’ fire.

“I think people didn’t believe we could do it (make the playoffs), either, if we wanted to,” he said. “And I thought that talk helped us because that was a challenge, and this is a group, they take pretty well to challenges.”

The return they got in the trade has helped them stay the course, including rookie guard Landry Shamet, who entered the game against the Lakers shooting 46.6 percent from 3-point range and averaging 12.4 points in his nine games with the Clippers.

Mike Muscala also was part of the deal and was then shipped to the Lakers for center Ivica Zubac, who came in Monday averaging 8.6 points and 7.7 rebounds as a Clipper.

“It’s an interesting group,” Rivers said. “We took a hit when we made that trade, it was a tough day for our team. And to get them back up, to get them to believe, ‘No, we’re gonna win still and we’re trying to win still,’ and for them to start doing it just tells you how resilient they are.”

THE ROOSTER CROWS

Danilo Gallinari – aka “Il Gallo,” which translates to “the Rooster” – made his 1,000th career 3-pointer with 5:23 left in the second quarter.

The 6-foot-10 Italian forward – a career 37.4 percent 3-point shooter – is shooting 42.6 percent from the arc this season, the second-best rate of his nine-year NBA tenure, oft-interrupted by injury.

“The best part about Gal is his confidence,” Rivers said

(To his point, Gallinari last week mused about Luca Doncic’s assertion that it was harder to score in Europe than in the NBA by reasoning: “To me, it’s easy to score all over the world.”)

“He’ll tell you, ‘People forgot how good I was’ ” Rivers said. “And I always correct: ‘I don’t like the was. Am.’ That’s what I tell him. Because he is, he’s a heck of a basketball player.”

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