Will the Clippers D turn it around?

[kylem4711]

i think some things will change and somethings wont. rotations should get better. Dudley's slow feet wont. Neither will Mullens. Jamal will always be jamal.

I'm pretty happy with the progression that blake has showed though. DJ is different now too, and everyone knows that. so there are some pluses and bigger minuses.

[DraftSpecialist]

Jamal is a terrible defender. So is Collison. Nobody is going to write home about Mullens or Hollins defense either. I'd like to see more of Bullock, as unless/until we get another big, he is our best chance of providing an athletic defender off the bench.

[marcusaurelius]

With the present roster, and assuming solid defensive improvement from Griffin and Jordan, this team can be slightly above average defensively by the end of the year. Can they win a championship like that? With a great offense, possibly.

To have a great offense, Jordan has to get a bit better and be much more consistent. That may be asking just a little too much. Especially since he also needs to be better and more consistently defensively.

The backups at PF and C just look really poor, especially defensively. And most of the other backups just haven't been defensive stalwarts either. Hard to see the Clips getting better defensively than middle of the pack with this crew.

But, again, I think that they have an outside chance at being good enough offensively to overcome this, and win a championship. Everything has to fall in place though. Probably just won't happen. Paul may have to turn Jordan into an offensive juggernaut using the pick and roll.

[mkwest]

SECOND-HALF DEFENSE PROOF CLIPPERS MAKING STRIDES

“Me and Blake just talked about it in the locker room,” Paul said. “We said that second half we’ve got to find a way to compete like that every night. If we play that defense we played in the second half, and we lose… I’m fine with it. We’re fine with it.”

Griffin nodded twice and audibly agreed in the middle of Paul’s statement.

“If we compete like that, we give ourselves a chance to win and doing that every night we’ll be tough to beat,” Paul continued.

Since trailing by 15 entering the third quarter in Houston on Nov. 9, the Clippers have allowed an average of 85.6 points per 100 possessions in the second half. Against the Thunder, they held one of the most athletic and deadly transition teams scoreless on the break in the third quarter. They went on a 31-11 run to rip away control of the game.

“I thought it was terrific,” Rivers said of the defense against Oklahoma City. “But again, I think it’s the third time that we didn’t make an adjustment, and we came out and pitched a great defensive performance. I told our guys before the game, ‘We now know it. Now we’ve got to go from knowing it to doing it, then doing it, and then doing it all the time.’ That’s where we are at right now defensively.”

Eric Patten, Clippers.com