Blake Griffin's defense in game 7

[Roscoe Sheed]

Did anybody else notice how uninspired his defensive effort was in game 7? That was quite disappointing in an elimination game. He usually gives full effort all the time. I wonder what reasons were for his game 7 lack of effort.

[nickhx2]

game 7 his defense was really bad.

if you listened to zach lowe's emergency podcast on the clippers with ramona shelbourne, she said she went into the lockerroom after and said they all look exhausted.

blake replied to her and said something like "i've never been more tired in my life."

i think the somewhat unforgiving schedule and it being the 14th game did him in. too bad we'll never know if winning that 6th game would have rested the team up enough for the WCF.

[Quake Griffin]

I can barely remember the game anymore. I just remember we got the game to 3 and then Griffin let Harden waltz to the hoop for a dunk. Easily Harden's easiest bucket against a set playoff defense in his career. I lost my ****.


I don't want to make anymore excuses for Griffin.
Draymond's standing reach is the same according to draft express. He doesn't have to be prime Duncan but he can be a really good defender if he puts the work in. I'm not going to accept any less from a guy who works as hard as he does.

[nickhx2]

i think he's too hard a worker and too good a player not to. he's come a long way, but still has a ways yet.

personally not gonna be too concerned with him, but i think he clearly has some mental kinks he still needs to work out. i imagine the next time we get to the playoffs he's also going to find other ways to make sure he's operating with more gas. i would be completely unsurprised if he had a career worst regular season next year, to go along with some 3 point experimentation.

[LACtdom]

The positive thing about Blake is that he is one of the few Clippers who works really hard during the off-season to improve his game. Hopefully this time, he focuses a lot on improving his defense.

[mttwlsn16]

I only watched the 3rd Q of game 7. I was at work. All I saw was we cut it down to 3, then we were down by 17 at the end of the Q.

[Roscoe Sheed]

game 7 his defense was really bad.

if you listened to zach lowe's emergency podcast on the clippers with ramona shelbourne, she said she went into the lockerroom after and said they all look exhausted.

blake replied to her and said something like "i've never been more tired in my life."

i think the somewhat unforgiving schedule and it being the 14th game did him in. too bad we'll never know if winning that 6th game would have rested the team up enough for the WCF.

I understand that he might have been tired- but you'd think two days off before the game and the pride of playing hard in game 7 would have overcome that. He played uncharacteristically lazy.

[MartinToVaught]

I don't want to make anymore excuses for Griffin.
Draymond's standing reach is the same according to draft express. He doesn't have to be prime Duncan but he can be a really good defender if he puts the work in. I'm not going to accept any less from a guy who works as hard as he does.

Poor comparison. Draymond has basically no offensive responsibilities. He's a role player on a stacked team. Therefore, he can spend all his time and energy on defense. The same is not true for Blake.

[Quake Griffin]

I don't want to make anymore excuses for Griffin.
Draymond's standing reach is the same according to draft express. He doesn't have to be prime Duncan but he can be a really good defender if he puts the work in. I'm not going to accept any less from a guy who works as hard as he does.

Poor comparison. Draymond has basically no offensive responsibilities. He's a role player on a stacked team. Therefore, he can spend all his time and energy on defense. The same is not true for Blake.

Word.

Mr. I-Wont-Accept-Mediocrity-From-This-Team is here to tell us why it's ok for Blake to be anything less than a good defender.

Cool Story Mart

[Dynamix]

Martin is such a Blake fanboy. I love it!

Mentally he just wasn't there for Game 7. It was pretty clear how hard Game 6 impacted him.

I want Blake to improve on the defensive end (it's mostly about focus and playing through fatigue), but that won't solve all our problems over night. What's the point when Doc will just throw Jamal out there hoping for the best?

[og15]

He struggled a bit defensively over the last couple of games, and the Houston PF's production slightly reflected that, but like I've also said before, the defensive system and lack of depth plays into this. The Clippers run a defensive system that calls for a lot of help, help the helper, hedge and rotate. There's a bit of chaos and running around and covering a lot of ground.

It is a tiring defensive system. A helpful thing for a team wanting to play defense like this is to have solid depth so that the players on the court consistently have the energy to go like that. The team has a combination of playing a tiring defensive system and lacking solid depth. Blake has always had issues with getting a little burned and it generally would always present itself in lazy defense, poor defensive rotations, not getting position for a defensive rebound, but just watching.

Now, I don't want to make excuses for Blake, he isn't the only guy on the team that has a big offensive role, plays big minutes and has to defend. CP's defensive consistency is higher for more of the game, and he was even picking up Harden full court and playing denial in game 7, but they are put in a fairly difficult situation because fatigue is real.

Hopefully there are adjustments made to alleviate this issue, but we'll see.

[nickhx2]

Isn't it kind of sad? Doc has this system that requires constant movement and rotation and he expects his players to handle all obligations over the course of an 82 game season and then some. But how can you reasonably expect players to handle it when you start pushing 40 minutes a night because your sh**show of a front office provide no support for them? It's unbelievable.

[Roscoe Sheed]

I know Blake trains hard all the time, but perhaps he needs to get in better cardiovascular shape this summer. Not that he needs to lose weight- he is quite lean, but perhaps losing 10 pounds like LeBron did would help his stamina

[kylem4711]

I don't want to make anymore excuses for Griffin.
Draymond's standing reach is the same according to draft express. He doesn't have to be prime Duncan but he can be a really good defender if he puts the work in. I'm not going to accept any less from a guy who works as hard as he does.

Poor comparison. Draymond has basically no offensive responsibilities. He's a role player on a stacked team. Therefore, he can spend all his time and energy on defense. The same is not true for Blake.

Word.

Mr. I-Wont-Accept-Mediocrity-From-This-Team is here to tell us why it's ok for Blake to be anything less than a good defender.

Cool Story Mart

Of course its silence from Martin now...

[MartinToVaught]

I don't want to make anymore excuses for Griffin.
Draymond's standing reach is the same according to draft express. He doesn't have to be prime Duncan but he can be a really good defender if he puts the work in. I'm not going to accept any less from a guy who works as hard as he does.

Poor comparison. Draymond has basically no offensive responsibilities. He's a role player on a stacked team. Therefore, he can spend all his time and energy on defense. The same is not true for Blake.

Word.

Mr. I-Wont-Accept-Mediocrity-From-This-Team is here to tell us why it's ok for Blake to be anything less than a good defender.

Cool Story Mart

I've been saying all year that Blake needs to work on his defense in the offseason instead of dicking around with his jump shot. That doesn't make it any less dumb to compare him to a role player whose sole use in the NBA is playing defense and who doesn't have superstar-level responsibilities on offense.

[Quake Griffin]

Poor comparison. Draymond has basically no offensive responsibilities. He's a role player on a stacked team. Therefore, he can spend all his time and energy on defense. The same is not true for Blake.

Word.

Mr. I-Wont-Accept-Mediocrity-From-This-Team is here to tell us why it's ok for Blake to be anything less than a good defender.

Cool Story Mart

I've been saying all year that Blake needs to work on his defense in the offseason instead of dicking around with his jump shot. That doesn't make it any less dumb to compare him to a role player whose sole use in the NBA is playing defense and who doesn't have superstar-level responsibilities on offense.

Pointing out that he shares the same standing reach with a good defender in the NBA isn't a comparison of their games. It was just to state that it was possible for him to be a good defense run this league. His height and length and how it limits him defensively has been a subject around THIS forum since Ive been here.

You would read that ONE sentence and take issue with it…ignore the next sentence that says, "he doesnt have to be Prime Duncan" and draw from all that, that I'm doing a complete 1 to 1 comparison of him and Draymond Green (which I wasn't).

Typical emotional school girl Martin to Vaught
the sky is falling
Burn Chris Paul and Doc at the stake
Save Griffin at all costs.

stfu