Game 10: Clippers (5-4) visit Spurs (6-4) on 11/07 @ 8:30PM

[esqtvd]

Well, I don't blame anybody. We is what we is, which at the moment kinda stinks. Blake and Austin are playing near their career bests, DJ is DJ. Otherwise we have two hurt Euros and 4 D'Antoni rejects. And WeJo the Marshmallow Man, LOL. This is pretty close to a pick-up team and besides Blake, we get last pick.

I used to tell all the CP-haters be careful what you wish for, and this is it. CP turned out to be a bit of a Clayton Kershaw, so I learned to be content with 6 months a year of 50-win seasons rather than letting the inevitable playoff failures ruin everything. Now we can suck for all 82 games rather than just one 7-game series.

Hey, CP has accepted his inner Kershaw--he just gave up the leadership game and went to play 1a to The Beard. CP isn't even CP anymore.

I still have hope that Pat Bev will take that quantum leap he predicted and we were hoping for; that Gallo can stay in one piece and find his shot; that Dekker becomes a solid NBA rotation guy, and that Trezz becomes a Reggie Evans-type beast. If Sindarius can learn the 3 [1-6, 17% so far], there's another contributor. And of course there's Milos, whom we might be able to hide on defense--that is if we ever GET a defense.

Hope springs infernal.

No reason to diminish all our players, we're 5-5, you guys are acting like we're 60 games into the season and the team is 27-33 or something. Since when the the pieces we got from the Houston trade now become "D'Antoni rejects"? They weren't rejects, Frank thought they were good pieces, West thought they were good pieces, and the Rockets didn't move them because they didn't like them, they moved them because they were getting a vastly superior player. We had posters saying we're actually even better off, and we are depth wise. This team has talent, we are small at SG, and defense is questionable, but the offensive talent is there, and the defense should at least be below average, but not bad. There's no reason that 10 games in, because the team is .500, we already have all this "woe is me" kind of talk, it's ridiculous.

How are we already talking about sucking for 82 games and tanking? I don't even know where I am right now.

Well, we do stink right now, lost 5 out of 6. But the Thunder are bad too at 4-6. They're also a new team and it takes awhile to jell. I'm hopeful but I'm also not drinking the kool-aid. Austin is our second-best player and that's not good.

[og15]

You're right, but I think people are still judging this team like it's supposed to be a contender. 45-47 win teams have stretches like this. For example, OKC last season had these:

4 game losing streak, losing 5/7
3 game losing streak
Lost 4/6
3 game losing streak, lost 4/5
3 game losing streak, lost 6/9
4 game losing streak


So as long as you mix in winning streaks in there, you will be an over 500 team, so sure, they lost 5/6, but that might say they aren't a 55-60 win team, but it doesn't say they aren't a mid to high 40's team.

[esqtvd]

You're right, but I think people are still judging this team like it's supposed to be a contender. 45-47 win teams have stretches like this. For example, OKC last season had these:

4 game losing streak, losing 5/7
3 game losing streak
Lost 4/6
3 game losing streak, lost 4/5
3 game losing streak, lost 6/9
4 game losing streak


So as long as you mix in winning streaks in there, you will be an over 500 team, so sure, they lost 5/6, but that might say they aren't a 55-60 win team, but it doesn't say they aren't a mid to high 40's team.

My prediction was 47, so yeah. And again, Milos is a nice shiny toy but we shot over 50% against the Spurs without him. It's the defense, and the returns of Milos and Gallo aren't going to improve that. Familiarity will. We have a lot of new guys to work in, and that doesn't happen with just a few practices.

Clippers can't figure out why they're struggling on defense

http://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/la-sp-clippers-report-20171108-story.html

[og15]

Doc might also be overrating how good this team can be defensively. I don't know if they project as a top 5 defense like he is thinking, but they can be at least average. They obviously have dropped very far. 10 games in, here's how we look:

111.2 Ortg (2nd)
107.3 Drtg (19th)
96.7 Pace (25th)
20.2 APG (24th)

Offensively, our best attribute right now is offensive rebounding, which we are first at 28.3%, and we're been low turnover and good at drawing FT's.

[esqtvd]

Doc might also be overrating how good this team can be defensively. I don't know if they project as a top 5 defense like he is thinking, but they can be at least average. They obviously have dropped very far. 10 games in, here's how we look:

111.2 Ortg (2nd)
107.3 Drtg (19th)
96.7 Pace (25th)
20.2 APG (24th)

Offensively, our best attribute right now is offensive rebounding, which we are first at 28.3%, and we're been low turnover and good at drawing FT's.

Interesting. Doc's philosophy has always been to de-emphasize offensive rebounds and get back on defense. I always chafed at it, and was wondering if he might change that with this new crew. And if he has, I wonder how much it's affected the D rating--and the bump in the O rating for that matter.

Maybe he was right all along. We're going nowhere with this defense. We've given up an average of 119 in the past 5 games or so. When Milos gets back and Gallo gets right, offense shouldn't be a problem. I'm pleased/surprised we aren't turning the ball over that much--we're 9th best in TOs at 14.9, and that should improve as the team gets more familiar with each other. [Although maybe worse in the short term as we work Dekker and Trezz in.]

Statswise,

https://stats.nba.com/teams/traditional/?sort=STL&dir=-1

we're between 14th and 19th in most categories, which puts us in the middle of the pack. We're 5-5.



BTW, Pat Bev's out for 2 games and Austin's gimpy from turning his ankle in practice Thursday as we head into OKC. The stats are unlikely to improve in the immediate future. We have some tough going coming up, though we have an easier streak of 6 games against weaker teams after that. Things will probably get worse [falling under .500] before they get better [a winning streak?].

[og15]

Sadly while the low turnovers isn't bad, it is good, but for this team it is because of little ball movement. Low turnovers was one of the staples of the Mike Woodson Hawks teams who were predicated on a lot of isolation. They didn't turn it over, but if you're going one on one more than you probably should be, you decrease your chance of turnovers.

It's actually possible to produce a good, very good regular season offense with that style + great offensive rebounding, but it usually fails in the post-season.

It is possible that we go under, 50% winning for a little bit, but this team isn't devoid of talent, they should be able to fight. With so many
guys out, we might see Blake taking on more offensively. It's not seeming natural for him to just want to do that if he doesn't basically have to. He has a different mentality from some other guys in regards to that it seems.

Sent from my SM-G955W using RealGM mobile app

[Roscoe Sheed]

Yes defense is a problem, but Memphis, Miami, and San Antonio shot the ball better than they usually do. Even wide open guys like Ellington, Gay, and pau don’t usually go off like they did against the clippers. So some of it is unlucky misfortune as well

[og15]

Yes defense is a problem, but Memphis, Miami, and San Antonio shot the ball better than they usually do. Even wide open guys like Ellington, Gay, and pau don’t usually go off like they did against the clippers. So some of it is unlucky misfortune as well

True, but if you are giving up wide open shots, then you are opening yourself up to someone getting hot. The last three games, since November 4th, we've given up 19.3 Wide Open 3PA/G. Only two teams have been worse in that span, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. We've also given up another 10.7 Open 3PA/G, that is average, but combined with all the wide open 3PT shots given up, I guess there's a reason teams have been able to go off on us.