GAME #24: LAC (6-17) @ MINN (14-8) — SAT 12/6, 5:00 PM PST

[Ballings7]

https://www.espn.com/nba/game/_/gameId/401810210

Clips up 12 after 1q

Bogdan back, and Lopez getting minutes.

[Caneman786]

Damn I guess this one's Chris Paul's fault too.

Lol. Ty Lue will be the coach for a long time!

[Bobbymcgee]

Clippers bench is hot garbage.

Tonight's game:
Batum - 18 (3pts)
Lopez - 5 (3pts)
Bogdanovic - 7 (9pts)
Kobe Sanders - 1 (2pts)

[og15]

Clippers bench is hot garbage.

Tonight's game:
Batum - 18 (3pts)
Lopez - 5 (3pts)
Bogdanovic - 7 (9pts)
Kobe Sanders - 1 (2pts)

I mean just looking at the names, yea, there's no playmaking, there's little athleticism, no POA defender, I mean it's pretty bad, can't win with this. DJJ coming back adds some athleticism and a reliable POA defender, but still not enough.

Now, like him or not, we do have to also acknowledge that the roster was built for Beal to be on the floor most nights of the season. With Beal and health, and let's just say this same starting lineup, the bench is Beal, DJJ, Bogi, Batum, Lopez, for a bench that is an upgrade. Obviously they wanted Beal to start, and maybe DJJ is starting too, but it is still Dunn, Bogi, Batum, Collins, Lopez, which again, comparatively is MUCH better.

[Roscoe Sheed]

Clippers bench is hot garbage.

Tonight's game:
Batum - 18 (3pts)
Lopez - 5 (3pts)
Bogdanovic - 7 (9pts)
Kobe Sanders - 1 (2pts)

Bogdan actually played fairly well- I hope the staff is able to find more minutes for him- he plays particularly well with Zubac. He is a good ball handler/play-maker and can get hot from the perimeter.

[TrueLAfan]

Yup--Bogie can help. If he plays. But--I'll say it again--teams that are built like ours have two major risk factors:

Injuries (to anyone, but especially normally healthy players)
Age Catching Up

We've run into both.

Beal, DJJ, Bogie ... DJJ was unexpected and he's a top level defender, so it hurts. Beal and Bogie have some injury histories though. We hoped to get 60 games out of both. Looks out of reach for Bogie; we didn't even get 7 games from Beal. I'm not even counting Kawhi, because he's hurt so much it's kinda par for the course.
Batum and Lopez got really old really fast. Kinda saw it a little with Batum last year, but it's surprising to me just how much they've lost.

[Roscoe Sheed]

Yup--Bogie can help. If he plays. But--I'll say it again--teams that are built like ours have two major risk factors:

Injuries (to anyone, but especially normally healthy players)
Age Catching Up

We've run into both.

Beal, DJJ, Bogie ... DJJ was unexpected and he's a top level defender, so it hurts. Beal and Bogie have some injury histories though. We hoped to get 60 games out of both. Looks out of reach for Bogie; we didn't even get 7 games from Beal. I'm not even counting Kawhi, because he's hurt so much it's kinda par for the course.
Batum and Lopez got really old really fast. Kinda saw it a little with Batum last year, but it's surprising to me just how much they've lost.

Batum is definitely a step slow and his 3 point shot is much more inconsistent.

I'm not sure how much Lopez has regressed- he looked ok defensively against Minnesota and he can still shoot. I know his foot speed isn't the best, but he was never a speed demon. I think being a back up center just isn't suited for him as many teams don't really play true 5 in the back up role, so he is left on skates chasing around guys who are 6'9"

[Roscoe Sheed]

Of course Reed goes from shooting lights out against the Clippers to 2-10 vs the Suns

[PeteyPablo]

Clippers played well through out the game. They allowed Minnesota to take the lead and the momentum in the 4th quarter.

They allowed the wolves to get hot from three. Wolves spread the floor and pass the ball around to hit the open man.

Clippers should try this. Most teams plat this way now a days.

[og15]

Clippers played well through out the game. They allowed Minnesota to take the lead and the momentum in the 4th quarter.

They allowed the wolves to get hot from three. Wolves spread the floor and pass the ball around to hit the open man.

Clippers should try this. Most teams plat this way now a days.

Little chance of that. Superstar Kawhi became an ISO guy, and Harden is the system. If you want that style, these aren't the two main scorers you should have.

Of course the Clippers will find ways to get two too the ball and hit the open man, but it's going to look different than a drive and kick, read and react offense style, or a motion offense style

[og15]

:banghead: Of course Reed goes from shooting lights out against the Clippers to 2-10 vs the Suns

Reid came into the Clippers game having hit 2+ 3PT in 5 straight games and 11/24 (45.8% 3PT) in his previous 3 games.

The Clippers porous defense just helped his already on fire self lol

Would have been nice for him to balance his sitting out to the mean vs the Clippers, but usually it's not the 25th ranked defense that gets you.

[Captain Ballmer]

Clippers played well through out the game. They allowed Minnesota to take the lead and the momentum in the 4th quarter.

They allowed the wolves to get hot from three. Wolves spread the floor and pass the ball around to hit the open man.

Clippers should try this. Most teams plat this way now a days.

Little chance of that. Superstar Kawhi became an ISO guy, and Harden is the system. If you want that style, these aren't the two main scorers you should have.

Of course the Clippers will find ways to get two too the ball and hit the open man, but it's going to look different than a drive and kick, read and react offense style, or a motion offense style

Superstar? Does he?
One example, He takes 20% of his shots in his career by driving to the basket(0-3 feet). In 7 years of Spurs (23,8%), a year in Toronto (25%), 6 years in Clippers (15%), Last season was a career low until that point(13,2%). This season though only 14 games, it's abysmal so far only 5%.

Same type of decline happens in Harden too but he still at 13,7% rate in (0-3 feet) however he shots 71% in that range whic is career high since OKC his early days.

I think Harden plays the Superstar level, while kawhi benefits of it with his Iso game and don't bring much else to the table. He is like more rangy Derozan this days.

[og15]

Clippers played well through out the game. They allowed Minnesota to take the lead and the momentum in the 4th quarter.

They allowed the wolves to get hot from three. Wolves spread the floor and pass the ball around to hit the open man.

Clippers should try this. Most teams plat this way now a days.

Little chance of that. Superstar Kawhi became an ISO guy, and Harden is the system. If you want that style, these aren't the two main scorers you should have.

Of course the Clippers will find ways to get two too the ball and hit the open man, but it's going to look different than a drive and kick, read and react offense style, or a motion offense style

Superstar? Does he?
One example, He takes 20% of his shots in his career by driving to the basket(0-3 feet). In 7 years of Spurs (23,8%), a year in Toronto (25%), 6 years in Clippers (15%), Last season was a career low until that point(13,2%). This season though only 14 games, it's abysmal so far only 5%.

Same type of decline happens in Harden too but he still at 13,7% rate in (0-3 feet) however he shots 71% in that range whic is career high since OKC his early days.

I think Harden plays the Superstar level, while kawhi benefits of it with his Iso game and don't bring much else to the table. He is like more rangy Derozan this days.

I wasn't actually commenting on whether Kawhi is a superstar or not. My statement was meant to say that Kawhi since becoming a superstar ("superstar Kawhi") has become more of an isolation player, not a movement player.

Where his shots come from are what they are, just commenting on how he's generating shots.

[TrueLAfan]

Batum is definitely a step slow and his 3 point shot is much more inconsistent.

I'm not sure how much Lopez has regressed- he looked ok defensively against Minnesota and he can still shoot. I know his foot speed isn't the best, but he was never a speed demon. I think being a back up center just isn't suited for him as many teams don't really play true 5 in the back up role, so he is left on skates chasing around guys who are 6'9"

Yeah, I agree Lopez hasn’t lost a whole lot … I think the issue is, he didn’t/doesn’t have much to any leeway in that department, so the loss hurts him more. He used to get back to low post enough to rebound once in a while and get some high percentage twos. On offense, he’s exclusively a perimeter because of his speed and quickness issues. He shoots more threes than ever because he doesn’t ever go down low. On defense, he isn’t able to switch down on D, so he’s an awful rebounder for a C now. And, like you said, he can‘t defend on the perimeter. It just seems like he hit a tipping point where what he’s lost has put him a steeper downward slope. We got him to be a backup C, and I guess he’s that … but Zu is one of our best players, Lopez can’t play any other position and like you said, has no hope against small ball Cs. He loses minutes for the last two things—and we want Zu on the court so he loses more time.

I mean, you can just break it down by raw numbers at this point. We’re going to lose DJJ for 400 plus season minutes more than we expected. I wasn’t expecting Beal to be perfect, but I was hoping/expecting for 1700-1800 minutes from him. Same with CP3—he was never going to be a huge minutes guy, but if he had given us a satisfactory 900 minutes, it would have been great. That’s 3000 plus minutes of unexpected losses from high rotation players, and it’s leaving out Kawhi and Bogie and Harden, who are going to miss games. You combine that with the drop-offs for Lopez and Batum--and that’s another 2200 minutes or so—and you’re talking about close to 30% of the team’s overall minutes. When you’re talking about a team that’s led by Kawhi Leonard and James Harden, and even though Harden has both durable and productive so far, you’re on a fine line. You know you’re going to lose those guys for a while, and we’re hurting in the other rotation players. The supposed depth we had is decimated. I don’t think we’re as bad as our record indicates—but I don’t think you can lose 3000 high rotation minutes completely, and have a player dropoff for 2000 more, and figure Kawhi and Harden *only* miss 20-25% of available games. and by anything other than mediocre.