Post#26 » by winforlose » Mon Mar 11, 2024 7:16 am
I keep reading people saying based on the last 2 games we are in trouble without KAT. To be fair and clear, the Cleveland game was about as dead legs as you can get. We had 5 non Naz 3s in the first half of the LAL game, and in the Cavs game we shot 1 of 19 outside of Naz for the game. That tells you all you need to know about extrapolation value. The LAL game was missing 4 of 9 rotation players. Worse, 3 of those four were bigs. LAL had LBJ, AD, Rui, and Dlo all at size advantages. Let’s be pessimistic and assume all those guys miss the clippers game and we lose it. We get 3 full days off to get guys healthy. Counting the 3 days since the Cavs game, the day of the Clippers game, and the 3 days off after it, that is a week for Monte, Rudy, Kyle, Ant, and anyone else banged up to heal. This team is not doomed yet. Losing to the Cavs was always going to happen. It was a schedule loss given the insane number of games we played to that point (in a short span.) The LAL loss hurt, but those depleted bench games happen to everyone. Look at Dallas. Denver had one not that long ago where two starters went down for the second half and they lost. The Clippers lost to the Kings today resting PG and KL.
This is the worst part of the season for us. We are watching our guys go down or get banged up, and we are watching our top seed from the whole season disappear. But we failed to take advantage of opportunities when healthy and this is what happens. Whether we are the 1 seed or 3 seed or worse, we will be fine. Just remember, this is the last major road trip of the year, and there are plenty of bad teams ahead of us we can beat short handed.