esqtvd wrote:That's the best defensive pairing by far in a league that has more than a few excellent guard tandems.I meant best on the Clippers of course, to defend in a league with pairs like Steph and Klay, where it's hard to hide a bad defender like, well, Milos. The best outcome would be if Pat and Austin combo would work. But we'll likely have to try Milos starting since Blake is really struggling without a PG. But that was not the plan.
Frankly, I expected more at least in isos from Blake for $30M a year. $30M players should be able to impose their will on the 4thQ but that's not happening. The underperforming in the W column can be ascribed solely to that: Blake has been miserable. If it's fair to blame his suckiness on his supporting cast, it's even more fair to blame their suckiness on their superstar. Superstars are supposed to make the other players better, that's part of the job.
As one of our smarter posters put it:
Sorry, I had to, but I get what you are saying, on one hand, he's been dealt a tough hand, but on the other hand, he's not a rookie, and he's not the first or only player to have that happen. He's a 28 year old experienced player, and as a guy paid at that level, there is some expectation to be able to will your team to a victory or rally your guys to defend well enough in at least two or three of the past 8 games.
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LATE ADD: If he's referring to Austin for lack of effort ["I don't care if you score 2 points"], that would be unfair since Austin is still recovering from mono and has been forced into extended minutes. Austin's problem is he's pressing, not that he's loafing.
Regardless, it's clear Pat Bev is taking dead aim at Blake and DJ, our two highest-paid contracts, supposedly our team leaders and they seem to think it matters that it still says "Clippers" on the front of their unis.
Despite it being his first game back, Pat finished in the plus column. Blake, DJ and Austin all finished -20 or worse; Lou was a team-worst -29. [Pat gave a pass to the bench, which I agree has been adequate, and so does the stat sheet.]
http://www.latimes.com/sports/nba/la-sp-clippers-knicks-20171120-story.html“This ... feels like 100 losses,” Beverley said. “Straight up. This ... is weak. This ain’t how I roll. That ain’t OK and I won’t allow it to be OK as long as I’m here. That’s a fact.”
The Clippers already had one team meeting following their third straight loss in San Antonio on Nov. 7. Is it worth having another one?
“Hell no,” Beverley said. “We just got to play harder. That’s it. We just got to play harder. You get rid of the mistakes by playing hard. We’re not playing hard; the first unit, not the whole team. I challenged the first unit to play harder.”
Griffin had 21 points on six-for-18 shooting, but had just four rebounds and also four turnovers. DeAndre Jordan had 10 points and nine rebounds. Beverley had nine points and Lou Williams had eight on two-for-eight shooting. Austin Rivers missed eight of nine shots and finished with two points.
“So what if you have two points? As long as we win, what does it matter? What if you don’t have no points?” Beverley said. “And that’s the maturity hump that we got to get over. We have to be more mature and I don’t think we’re mature enough yet. It’s there. It’s real close. It’s real, real close. But, we just got to play harder.
“We too cool. We too cool. We come in this game, we come on the court like people are supposed to back down because of the name on the back of our jerseys and that’s not the case. The only thing people are looking at is the name on the front of our jersey, and that’s nine losses in a row. They don’t give a ... about what you’ve done in the past or your stats or anything. Teams out here are trying to beat our ... and they are beating our ... .”
