Lopez Turns Back the Clock as Clippers Survive Zubac Injury

The Los Angeles Clippers appeared to be staring at a prolonged slide when center Ivica Zubac went down with a Grade 2 left ankle sprain, an injury projected to sideline him for several weeks and rob the team of its primary interior presence.

Instead of unraveling, the Clippers have responded with resilience. They have won three straight games since Zubac’s injury, leaning on depth, spacing and an unlikely surge from one of the league’s oldest rotation players.

At the center of the turnaround is 37-year-old Brook Lopez, who had spent much of the early season fighting the perception that his best days were behind him. Los Angeles needed him to stabilize the frontcourt. He has delivered far more than that.

Friday’s 119–103 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers offered the clearest sign yet that the Clippers may have found a short-term formula to weather Zubac’s absence.

1. Veteran’s Historic Night

Lopez authored one of the most surprising performances of the season, drilling nine of his 14 attempts from beyond the arc and finishing with 31 points, the highest-scoring night of his Clippers tenure. The nine made three-pointers marked a personal best and placed Lopez in rare historical company. Only Stephen Curry and LeBron James — both Hall of Fame locks — have hit at least nine triples in a single game at age 37 or older. For a player who had struggled to find consistency in the first two months of the season, the eruption felt almost jarring. Lopez had been shooting unevenly and, at times, appeared to be a step slow defensively. Yet for one night, those concerns evaporated. Each make seemed to stretch Portland’s defense further, creating driving lanes for the Clippers and shifting momentum permanently in their favor.

2. How the Clippers Adjusted

The Clippers’ coaching staff made a subtle but meaningful adjustment in the wake of Zubac’s injury, reorienting their offense toward perimeter spacing and high pick-and-pop actions. Lopez, who once built his reputation as a low-post bruiser, has reinvented himself as a floor-spacing big man in recent seasons. Against Portland, that evolution was fully weaponized. Four of Lopez’s three-pointers came in the third quarter alone, a stretch in which Los Angeles flipped a tight game into a double-digit cushion. The Trail Blazers had no workable answer for his ability to drift beyond the arc after setting screens. The approach also allowed the Clippers’ guards to play downhill, turning Lopez into a gravity source rather than a stationary interior piece.

3. Looking Ahead Without Zubac

With their three-game winning streak, the Clippers have steadied what could have been a season-altering setback. The victories have come against respectable competition, suggesting this is more than a fleeting burst of good fortune. Still, the schedule will not allow much room for complacency. Los Angeles hosts the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night, a game that will test whether their new offensive identity can carry over against a different defensive look. The Clippers know Lopez will not hit nine threes every night, but the confidence boost — for both the veteran and the roster around him — may prove invaluable over the coming weeks. If nothing else, they have bought themselves time, and in the Western Conference, that can mean everything.