Jeff Van Gundy is the Clippers' secret weapon: 'He's changed the identity of our team'

All season long, Los Angeles Clippers players have heard the same refrain from Jeff Van Gundy, the team’s lead assistant coach and defensive coordinator. “His whole thing is we have to be aggressive and anticipate everything,” Clippers forward Nic Batum recently said.

During games, Van Gundy exemplifies this mindset from the sideline. He shouts. He points. He waves his arms. He often pops out of his seat, sending his glasses sliding down his nose. “He’s always either cussing us out or cussing at the other team,” Clippers point guard Kris Dunn said. “He’s really intense.”

But during the team’s playoff opener Saturday against the Denver Nuggets, Van Gundy was presented with an opportunity almost never afforded to coaches: a chance to practice what he preaches. With 34 seconds left in the fourth quarter and the Clippers clinging to a one-point lead, the ball — after being poked out of Kawhi Leonard’s hands — landed in his lap.

The referees ruled that it had last touched Leonard, but it was a close call. While the Clippers’ coaching staff mulled whether to challenge, Nuggets star Nikola Jokić darted toward their bench. Van Gundy quickly diagnosed the situation. He knew Jokić’s goal was to get the ball in and out of the referees’ hands before the Clippers could make a decision. He also knew the game was on the line and that, in that moment, what the Clippers needed most was more time. And so, as the nearly 7-foot, 280-pound-plus Jokić barreled toward him, Van Gundy, just 5-9, clutched the ball with both hands. Even as Jokić reached out, Van Gundy held on tight, refusing to let go, all while staring Jokić down.

The extra few seconds bought Clippers head coach Ty Lue enough time to challenge the play. The call was upheld, and L.A. lost in overtime, but the moment encapsulated everything Van Gundy has brought to the Clippers in his first season with the team. He not only knew what his opponent wanted to do, but he also knew how to disrupt it.

Coming into the 2024-25 season, expectations for the Clippers were low. Nine-time All-Star Paul George had left in free agency. Leonard was slated to miss the season’s first few months with a knee injury. The only players added to the roster were journeymen like Derrick Jones Jr., Batum and Dunn. And yet the Clippers won 50 games — just one shy of last season’s total — and, following Monday’s 105–102 Game 2 win in Denver, are now just three victories away from their first playoff series win since 2021.

How have they done it? Leonard has returned to his MVP-level form. And James Harden’s blend of offensive pop and durability has kept the Clippers’ offense afloat. But the biggest difference this season is the Clippers, despite losing George, a four-time All-Defensive selection, have transformed into one of the league’s top defensive teams.

Ivica Zubac becoming one of the league’s premier defensive anchors has helped. So have the additions of Dunn, Batum and Jones, all of whom are defensive-minded players. But ask anyone on or around the Clippers who’s most responsible for the team’s leap from 16th in defensive rating last season to third this season, and they all give the same answer: A bespectacled 63-year-old former broadcaster who, before this season, hadn’t coached an NBA game since 2007.

“He’s changed the identity of our team,” Clippers wing Norm Powell said of Van Gundy.

“His addition,” added Batum, “might have been the best of our offseason.”

Van Gundy, who began his career coaching high school ball in Rochester, New York, (and who declined to be interviewed for this story) is a coach’s coach, a basketball lifer whom other coaches have long revered. “I remember talking to [Gregg Popovich] around 2015 about who should lead our qualifying group,” Sean Ford, the director of Team USA’s men’s national team, recalled. Ford tossed out a few names before mentioning Van Gundy, a longtime friend. Nearly a decade had passed since Van Gundy had last coached in the NBA. Ford wasn’t even sure if he was interested in the job. “But as soon as I mentioned Jeff,” Ford said, “Pop goes, ‘Oh my God, he’s the guy.’”

Popovich wasn’t the only Van Gundy admirer around the NBA. Lue, who briefly played for Van Gundy in Houston and then later worked alongside him while with Team USA, had been trying to hire Van Gundy for years. “But he wasn’t ready to get back into it,” Lue said. That changed after ESPN laid off Van Gundy in the summer of 2023, bringing an end to his 16 years at the network. Van Gundy consulted for the Boston Celtics during the 2023-24 season before finally agreeing to join Lue’s staff in June.

It was the perfect time for him to do so. The Clippers, aware they were on the verge of losing George, were looking for ways to revamp their roster. One option was to try replacing George’s scoring. But Lue and Lawrence Frank, the team’s president of basketball operations, had a different plan in mind. The Clippers already had two elite offensive players in Leonard and Harden. They were also just a few months removed from Lue describing his own group as “soft.” So why not, Frank and Lue thought, instead surround their All-Stars with eager defenders and change the team’s identity?

“His addition might have been the best of our offseason.”Nic Batum on Jeff Van Gundy

And Van Gundy, both believed, was the perfect coach to help them do so.

In August, the Clippers decamped for Hawaii, where their training camp was held. There, Van Gundy addressed the group. “He told us we’re going to be turning into a defensive-minded team and that it starts with coming into work and being willing to do the work,” Dunn said. Van Gundy had two primary goals for the season. One was to fix the Clippers’ rebounding issues; only six teams had been worse on the defensive glass the previous season. The other was to up their defensive pressure; only nine teams forced a fewer percentage of turnovers. 

Soon after, Van Gundy began implementing the team’s defensive schemes. “I got there late because I was competing [with France] in the Olympics,” Batum said. “And when I arrived, guys told me that with [Van Gundy] here things were different now.” Still, Batum wasn’t able to comprehend what that meant until he saw a Van Gundy practice for himself. “He’ll be like, ‘Don’t stand here, stand here,’ and then he’ll literally move you one inch,” Batum said. 

Van Gundy has maintained this attention to detail throughout the season. Dunn described Van Gundy’s game plans as “the best I’ve ever seen.” Multiple Clippers players have raved about his gameday walkthroughs to their agents.

“A lot of coaches just tell you, but he breaks it all the way down to the nearest, nearest detail,” Harden said.

Harden and Van Gundy have grown particularly close. The two speak frequently, in person but also over the phone. Sometimes they’ll discuss the defensive strategy for the following night. Sometimes Harden, a basketball nerd, will just listen as Van Gundy tells old war stories from all his years around the NBA. The relationship, people close to Harden say, is one reason why Harden’s been more engaged on the defensive end this season. The 3.5 deflections he’s averaging per 48 minutes are his most since 2020.

“He helps me a lot, and I know he helps our team a lot,” Harden said. “He understands players.”

Like his teammates, Harden knows Van Gundy isn’t asking for more effort than he’s giving himself. “It doesn’t matter when we show up to the facility,” Powell said. “Morning, night time — he’s always there.” When home in L.A., Van Gundy is usually on the road by 5 a.m. He starts his days calling his brother, Stan, the longtime NBA head coach and TNT analyst, who lives on the East Coast. They’ll break down the previous night’s game, pausing only for Jeff to pick up his usual McDonald’s breakfast of oatmeal and a Diet Coke.

“And if something didn’t go well in the game, it’s always ‘I need to do a better job of teaching,’ or ‘I need to have a better scheme,’” Stan said. “He’s not blaming others.”

It’s one reason why the players love him. Another? He helps them win games. The Clippers finished the season as the league’s top defensive rebounding team, and only seven teams forced turnovers at a higher rate. Last season’s weaknesses became this season’s strengths, with their newfound aggression helping them steal early-season wins — even without Leonard and against more talented opponents. One example: a 114-110 late-December victory over a fully loaded and then-scorching Grizzlies team. It was one of 17 games this season in which the Clippers tallied at least 12 steals — just two fewer games than their total from the previous three years combined.

“That stuff kept us afloat those first 50 games while Kawhi was getting back to himself,” Lue said. And now that Kawhi is back, the Clippers appear to have their best title shot in years.

The blueprint envisioned last summer by the team’s brain trust was on full display down the stretch of Game 2. With just under 55 seconds left, Leonard buried a contested midrange jumper, giving the Clippers a three-point lead and him 39 points for the night. As the Nuggets dribbled the ball up the court, Van Gundy leaped out of his seat to bark out defensive directions. Soon after being swarmed by Harden in the paint, Jokić lofted a lazy pass back toward the 3-point, where Leonard picked it off, the team's 13th steal of the game and Jokić’s seventh turnover. Forty seconds later, the Clippers were celebrating a road playoff win.

During Jokić’s postgame news conference, a reporter asked him about the turnovers. “They were definitely aggressive,” Jokić said. “They were attacking us. They were attacking the ball.”

The players had learned from their coach.