Kawhi Leonard lifts Clippers over 76ers in Doc Rivers’ return

For 80 seconds, the Clippers craned their necks upward, watching the tribute for former coach Doc Rivers on the videoboard suspended above Staples Center’s court. Team owner Steve Ballmer didn’t look away. Assistant coaches and forward Nicolas Batum watched too.

And for 80 seconds, Rivers sat amid a tight huddle on the opposite baseline, looking down. Holding a grease board, and the attention of the Philadelphia 76ers, Rivers diagrammed ways to beat five starters he’d spoken with in similar fashion during his last huddle as the Clippers’ coach in September.

When the video finished with Rivers walking off the court, pumping a fist, Ballmer clapped and Rivers walked back into his huddle to continue a homecoming he predicted before tipoff would feel “weird.” It began to feel that way hours before tipoff of the Clippers’ 122-112 win, during the 76ers’ morning shootaround. That’s when Rivers realized much of what the Clippers likely would run under coach Tyronn Lue, a close friend who worked under Rivers as an assistant and considers him an influential mentor, mirrored the 76ers’ playbook.

During Rivers’ seven-year run with the Clippers, his influence was felt beyond the record book, where he stands as the franchise’s winningest coach, Rivers was also its face during the turmoil of former owner Donald Sterling’s 2014 ouster by the NBA, and its voice last summer as protests over racial injustice roiled the country.

But when the team never reached the Western Conference finals in his seven seasons, capped by last season’s second-round collapse, Ballmer decided after conversations held with Rivers in the weeks after the postseason to change direction. The Clippers under Rivers, Ballmer believed, had not fulfilled their basketball potential.

“When I took the job, I had several goals,” Rivers said on a videoconference before the game. “One is when you hear the Clipper name, you look at it as a classy organization, an organization that can win. And a championship organization. I think we did that as far as everything except for the championship part. You got to win that to become that obviously.

“Last year we had a shot. This year they have a shot. And I feel like I played a part in that. I was very successful in that way. Never as successful as I wanted to be as far as taking this team all the way to the Finals and winning it.”

With Philadelphia, which hired him days after the Clippers cut ties — a decision Rivers was surprised by at the time — Rivers has a chance to accomplish what eluded him in Los Angeles. The 76ers entered Saturday with the top record in the Eastern Conference and, along with Brooklyn, sit atop the conference’s contender class for a Finals berth.

This first matchup between the teams — which Lue also described as “weird” facing Rivers, a coach who knows his tendencies so well — could be the first of several if the teams advance to the Finals. Those hopes, for Philadelphia, hinge on the health of center and most-valuable-player candidate Joel Embiid, who has missed the last two weeks because of an injured knee, and the play of guard Ben Simmons, who fouled out Saturday four minutes into the fourth quarter with the Clippers leading by 17.

The Clippers pulled away for their fifth consecutive victory by holding the 76ers to fewer than 10 three-pointers through three quarters and exasperating Dwight Howard enough for Embiid’s replacement to be ejected for his second consecutive game at Staples Center, after also being tossed in a victory Thursday over the Lakers.

This wasn’t a fully realized display of dominance by the Clippers. New point guard Rajon Rondo sat on the sideline in street clothes, waiting to make his debut since being traded from Atlanta on Thursday. Guard Patrick Beverley and center Serge Ibaka also remain injured, nearly two weeks into their recovery.

But when Rivers has watched the Clippers, he has seen a crisper version of the team he coached, he said.