“I was just staring at it the whole time.” —Kevin Durant, on The Wall!
I.
I was courtside when the doors opened, one eye on Nikola Jokic warming up, one eye on The Swell. See, there is The Wall! (exclamation point theirs but also mine) and there is The Swell. The Swell is a subsection of The Wall! Yes, that’s how The Wall! is always written, with an exclamation point at the end. All the signage around the arena and online: The Wall! It’s kind of a “Steve Holt!” situation or, if that reference doesn’t do it for you, it’s in grammatical concert with the spirit of my new teammate Zach Lowe’s old LARRY SANDERS! stylization from the Grantland days. Is the exclamation point a way for the Los Angeles Clippers to get fans in a screaming mindset before the game? If I say “The Wall!” out loud, am I required to shout? Do I have the option to say “The Wall” in a more flat, matter-of-fact way or is that not canon? Can I whisper it?
The Wall! is the Clippers-fans-only section of Intuit Dome. Fifty-one rows high and 4,500 seats deep, an unbroken mass of Clips diehards behind the basket closest to the visiting team’s bench. Inspired by Dortmund’s Yellow Wall, the Clippers’ Wall! is the first of its kind in the NBA. There are yell leaders and base drums, Clippers car flags and Fatheads of Norm Powell. Fans of the visiting team are not allowed to sit there. You have to download the Intuit Dome app and become “Chuckmark Certified” before you can even purchase a ticket. The opponent’s gear is off limits; so is cheering for them. Do so and you’re gone.
The Swell makes up the first 13 rows of The Wall! Why “The Swell”? Because, for the first time since they had ships on their jerseys, the organization’s finally getting back to embracing the ocean. And these Swelldwellers are in the business of making things a loud hell for the opponent. Fans in The Swell are expected to stand for the entirety of the game, to chant and holler and make merry. The Clippers refer to The Wall! as the Intuit Dome’s “beating heart.” If that’s true, then The Swell is its myocardium, the central layer of the team’s supporters, the people who set the tone for everyone else in attendance.
For Game 3 of the Clippers’ first-round series against the Nuggets, fans in The Swell received horse hats to wear in the hopes that they might make famous horse lover Jokic lose focus. When I went to Game 6, fans were given inflatable stick horses and rainbow umbrella hats as distraction tools, plus noisemakers and rally towels that said “Win For The Wall!” Before tip, I watched fans file down the stairs and take their places among the plastic ponies. They were decked to the nines in their best Clippers gear. Old San Diego Clippers satin jackets, Elton Brand jerseys, Sean Livingston jerseys, Mitchell & Ness authentic warm-up jackets from the mid-’90s like the one Brent Barry won the dunk contest in, shooting shirts from back when Adidas had the NBA contract.
In the lower right-hand corner of The Wall! was an older dude wearing a Derrick Jones Jr. jersey and a Clippers-branded water bottle hanging off a lanyard around his neck. His beard was gray and his bill was flat and he had the reigning MVP in his sights.
“We’re gonna crush you, Joker. We’re gonna get loud. We’re gonna get loud. You’re going down today. I wasn’t here before but I am now. I’m here. I’m here.”
Jokic was shooting jumpers along the baseline closest to The Wall! and the man could see Jokic smiling, knew he could hear him.
“I’m here, sucka,” the man said.
Jokic looked to his right and smiled at him, then went to the left wing to start shooting 3s.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Now you know.”
Then the man on The Wall! pulled out his cell and made a call. With the phone to his ear, yelling loud enough for the three-time MVP to hear: I’m staring at Jokic right now telling him he’s going down tonight. We’re on him. We’re on you. We’re on you. We’re on you. All right, man. Let me hit you back.
I do not think Jokic missed a shot the entire time.
II.
The first regular-season home game at Intuit Dome was October 23, 2024, against the Suns. ESPN was in town for the game, NBA Countdown broadcasting live from outside the Clippers’ crispy, new, well-appointed abode. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer joined them to yell about his Xanadu.
ESPN’s Malika Andrews: What are you expecting from the Clippers fans on this inaugural night?
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer: I’m expecting the energy, the passion. We try to pack everybody close. We want everybody exploding. [Screaming.] We want our fans to be part of why our team wins games. [Roaring even more.] That’s what we want. Isn’t that what we want? That’s what we want, Clipper nation!
Andrews: Is there a feature you’re most excited about here?
Ballmer: [Holding a hand up like he’s worshipping at church.] Our wall. [Hollering more than ever now.] Fifty-one straight rows and in the middle everyone standing-room only with folks like this. They’re gonna bring it tonight. The scoreboard! Pulsing with stats and fun! [Face pink with rage.] Let’s go Clips!
Ballmer called his shot. Intuit Dome has fast become one of the best home-court atmospheres in the league, L.A. fans showing out and booming, making the environment hostile. “I absolutely love the wall that they got,” Durant said after that night’s game. “It’s insane. I know in the playoffs, once people get more and more comfortable with the arena it’s gonna be insane in here.”
Gone are the days of the Clips being the third tenant at Staples Center, playing under championship banners that are not their own, huge playoff games relegated to weekend afternoons because they’re at the bottom of the totem pole behind the Lakers and the Kings. Now the Clips are the main attraction, waist-deep in the best series of the first round, facing elimination on their home court after a shockingly successful season compared to preseason expectations. Back then, we didn’t know whether Kawhi Leonard’s banged-up body would even see the court this season. Now, six months later, he looks like old Kawhi, zippy and tireless.
III.
Section WALL15, Row 23, Seat 25. That was my place in The Wall! for Game 6, the closest I could get to the party in The Swell. I sat next to a middle-aged dude named Larry. Larry was decked out in Clippers gear and had just come back from the gift shop after adding more to his collection, an Ivica Zubac jersey.
“They’re sold out online,” he said.
Larry had just moved back to L.A. after being in Phoenix for a handful of years, and he was locked in for the game. When I first spoke he heard my twanged accent and asked where I was from. Oklahoma, I told him. He looked at me like I was an alien, then asked whether I was sure I wasn’t a Nuggets fan. I told him I was a writer, here on assignment to write about The Wall! He made a Denver Post joke and asked if I’d be flying back to Colorado on the team plane. I do not think I ever fully convinced him I wasn’t from Denver, but he did not hold his assumptions against me. He filled me in on The Wall! and how it all worked. He was excited to be on the list for a pass to sit in The Swell next year and he was considering season tickets. He had been to Game 3 and Game 4 and kept mentioning how he wished I’d have been there Saturday when the place was much louder.
“People have work tomorrow,” he said.
Larry had grievances. Some with Jokic, some with the refs, some with the internet. Jokic, he said, had obviously made a deal with the Devil. It was the only way to explain the fact that everything he shoots goes in, no matter how ridiculous it looks coming out of his hands. As for the refs, they were the main reason Larry felt the Clips lost Game 4. Missed travels, missed fouls, phantom fouls, blatant favoritism. He reminded me of me watching my favorite teams play. As for the World Wide Web, it wasn’t just the lack of Zubac jerseys online that had him pissed; they also didn’t sell any Danny Manning retros. There was a guy sitting a few rows down from us in a Chris Kaman jersey and Larry saw that and said, “How they gonna have a Chris Kaman jersey but no Manning?” And I did not have the heart to tell him that the man wearing it looked to have purchased it sometime in the back half of the 2000s, back when Kaman made his lone All-Star appearance. For what it’s worth, I agree with Larry. The NBA Shop needs to get it together. He deserves it.
As the game wore on, Larry’s concerns about the place not being loud enough were quickly squashed. Durant’s a prophet. The atmosphere was outrageous. In the first half, James Harden took the game under his wing, scored 21 of his 28 in the first half. Leonard took over after halftime, scored 14 of his 27 in the second half. Jamal Murray and Jokic put up numbers but the Clippers defense made them claw for everything. Zubac was loadbearing down low, Norm Powell had it going offensively, Nicolas Batum made some timely 3s. Larry was clapping with the noisemaker like he was Charles S. Dutton. It was all hands on deck with their season on the cliff and the Clippers responded with their chests. This series was always supposed to go seven games. That’s what the great series do.
At the end of the game, the Clips W in the bag, Larry and I shook hands and parted ways. He told me he’d look in the Denver Post tomorrow for my article on the game. I said thank you and please subscribe. Local news needs our help now more than ever. I think part of him will forever believe I was a Nuggets fan, unless he somehow makes his way to this, in which case what’s up Larry. Hope the Zubac jersey fits you well.
IV.
The coolest thing about The Wall!—it works. Players miss more free throws on the goal in front of The Wall! than any other goal in the league. The only time the people in The Swell even sit down is when the Clippers shoot free throws on that end. Everyone cops a squat for a brief period, the PA announcer strings out the “shhhhhhhh” portion of “shooting two” and the whole section shuts the hell up. It is the only place of its kind in the league.
The Wall! captures something essential about basketball that some organizations, even some fans and media members, seem to have forgotten. The thing about basketball—it’s fun.
