Game 57: Los Angeles Clippers (37-19) vs. Memphis Grizzlies (28-28) - 10:30 PM ET

[NippySudz]

Beverley 6 points plus+3
PG 7 points minus-2

didn't do a lot, but just getting 40 combined NBA minutes out of them makes all the difference

it's just a critical mass thing

add in 43 combined quality NBA minutes from Morris and Jackson, and it's light years away from trying to fill that void with minor-league dreck like McGruder, Robinson, Mann and Walton

no defensive lapses
only 12 turnovers

Kawhi leads the first unit with 25
Trezz leads the second with 22
everybody else chips in 5 points or more

and that's how it's done baby

PG started off aggressive then cool off. I believe he will peak midway through the 25 remaining games.

[NippySudz]

I like this win, but I really need to see a good stretch with everyone healthy. No back to backs for the next two weeks. Lets try to have a healthy stretch and win some games!

[TheNewEra]

On to the next. Phoenix should be a good challenge just beat Utah and they have multiple gunners

[Max Headrom]

On to the next. Phoenix should be a good challenge just beat Utah and they have multiple gunners

I'm thinking the Clippers play with a chip that game as well because they owe Phoenix too

[NippySudz]

On to the next. Phoenix should be a good challenge just beat Utah and they have multiple gunners

we beat phx with a hallow roster by 21 points last time out. Phx is another chance to get more reps. The real challenge is denver with a tiebreaker for the second seed on the line.

[NippySudz]

Read on Twitter

setting the tone early

[esqtvd]

Read on Twitter

setting the tone early

There's a lot of playoff stuff we haven't unveiled yet. I've been saying, it's been up to Kawhi to give the word. It seemed like the other night, after our 3rd straight loss, the word was given.

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[ClapForClippers]

This team has simply outgrown what Trez and Lou bring to the table.

You are absolutely off your rocker.


Trez played exceptional offense tonight, including making his free throws AND played great D for the game.

Zu played great as well, but the man has butterfingers and a highly limited offensive game. I am loving his improvements on defense though. Will be great to hopefully see him shine against the Lakers in the post season.


Lou will be fine once he and Reggie figure it out.

[ClapForClippers]

In other news, loving what Morris brings to this team.

He helped so much on switches tonight and has a deadly perimeter shot that will force teams to give up more space to our other shooters and superstars.

Not to mention he brings a toughness along with Beverly that is the perfect balance to the laidback nature of P and Kawhi.


This starting lineup is tremendous and once PG stops playing hero ball we'll be set.


ONTO PHOENIX.


I can't state it enough, but it's critical we win ALL of the games until the Golden State one in like a week and a half. Every game is critical at this point to lock up that 2nd seed. 1st seed is irrelevant.

[NippySudz]

This team has simply outgrown what Trez and Lou bring to the table.

You are absolutely off your rocker.


Trez played exceptional offense tonight, including making his free throws AND played great D for the game.

Zu played great as well, but the man has butterfingers and a highly limited offensive game.


Lou will be fine once he and Reggie figure it out.

You have to get use to MTV. He says some hyperbole nonsense at times. Such as Patbev is the team coach and patbev is running the offense (yet at the time he said, Patbev only played 12mins in the first half). Silly hyperbolic logic. Wait to they run the same sets and actually lose, it will be doc's fault.

But I will say he's right in the sense that we cannot rely on trez and lou to be a "big four" they should be bench contributors in limited roles. That's where they shine. The offense needs to focus on running through kawhi and PG, not lou and trez pnr in order to suceed. It's not just about tonight, it's about what it takes in order to win a championship. Have we outgrown that? Time will tell.

Trez didn't play 17 straight mins.

I guess with everyone healthy, he wasn't asked to. But he looked a lot fresher than playing 17mins straight. I still don't agree with the coaching adjustments or the stubborness to change the gameplan as the game goes on. It seems like more or less through the bad stretch, we played the same when it ccomes to our center rotations. That doesn't change at all. 28 lineup changes and not much change to the C position. It's kinda crazy its the least flexible position the coaching staff is willing to budge on.

Please sign Joakim Noah as insurance. Bad achilles and on, just let him rehab for one month longer and let him play. If he's willing to take that risk to play, so be it. I'm not in favor of a player doing this, because of his health. I don't ever want him to risk his health, but if he's bent on trying and we need a dependable playoff center, let him sign and use him as insurance Doc needs someone else he can trust down the stretch.

I like Lou at the SG spot and not hogging the ball. Between him and Reggie, they had 12 asts last night. That's freaking good. I hope reggie handles more in the second unit

[NippySudz]

We shouldn't take away anything from this game other than they was effort and the ball was moving. This game is a nice game to win, but it doesn't prove we can beat elite teams. What proves we can beat elite teams is winning a stretch of games, where we establish a type of consistency and chemistry. When eeryone is clicking on the floor.

That will tell us where the team stands. Its nice to win, but this team still has a lot of work to do. Let's hope they can stay healthy. We have very important games coming up. Denver comes into town, we have houston, lakers . March will be interesting.

[NippySudz]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[Clippers2020]

Despite going 5-5 in last 10, and despite all the negativity, we are within a game of the Nuggets, which may as well mean we're a game away from the #1 seed, because there is no difference between #1 and #2 as far as home court 'advantage' goes.
Magnificent situation.

[esqtvd]

In other news, loving what Morris brings to this team.

He helped so much on switches tonight and has a deadly perimeter shot that will force teams to give up more space to our other shooters and superstars.

Not to mention he brings a toughness along with Beverly that is the perfect balance to the laidback nature of P and Kawhi.

Somebody on radio mentioned that although he only had 2 rebounds, Marcus was boxing out great. That has been a weakness of ours as long as I remember. We had like 50 rebounds.

[esqtvd]

Despite going 5-5 in last 10, and despite all the negativity, we are within a game of the Nuggets, which may as well mean we're a game away from the #1 seed, because there is no difference between #1 and #2 as far as home court 'advantage' goes.
Magnificent situation.

Well observed.



It was Kawhi [of course] who has kept us in it, flirting with career highs in almost every category. But also The Lou and Trezz Show. We'd be scrambling for the 7th or 8th seed without them. We have played only 5 games at full strength, and won them all. All the rest is noise. The lack of respect and appreciation for Lou and Trezz is painful.

Because once we get our starting 5 running on all cylinders, they're still not going to better than some of the other top 5's in the NBA, namely the Lakers and Bucks--only potentially their equal.

It's Lou and Trezz and a revitalized 2nd unit [Shamet, Reggie, plus some minutes from PG and Marcus] that remain the potential difference that gets us the ring. It's Lou and Trezz that are our "depth," not comparing depth charts from 1-10. Most teams will play 7 or 8 players; the test is what happens when your 2 studs are off the floor, or if you're staggering their minutes and not playing a second unit per se, when you only have one superstar on the floor.


For instance, I believe the Lakers are in the negative with LeBron off the floor and only AD on.

[NippySudz]

The only real real dumb coaching decision I can say doc made was to put PG back In the game up 30 on the fourth quarter. The game was over. Memphis yanked their guys

When asked about this, doc said PG wanted more conditioning for his legs so he put him in and pulled him out after 2mins

I think we can universally agree, that is the dumbest coaching decision of the yr. Guy has a hamstring injury and he's in the game up 30. Please don't do that again.

It's a hamstring. He has to warm up to peak minutes.. PG knows this.

Other than that I have some things I disagree with on doc but we're in a good position to secure the two seed and we're finally healthy. We should allow time to see how the squad looks like.

I can see why doc has a certain philosophy when everyone's healthy. My criticisms has just been adjustments when guys are not but perhaps realizing we were asking guys to do too much outside of their comfortzone.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk

[nickhx2]

disagree completely

if his legs weren't ready at all then he shouldn't have played a single second to begin with. but considering he was ok'd for real game action then he would have been fine, and getting him some extra burn for conditioning is ok.

his injury status is binary when it comes to playing an nba game. you don't use live NBA action to rehab your strain. you either are ready to play or you're still strained.

[NippySudz]

disagree completely

if his legs weren't ready at all then he shouldn't have played a single second to begin with. but considering he was ok'd for real game action then he would have been fine, and getting him some extra burn for conditioning is ok.

his injury status is binary when it comes to playing an nba game. you don't use live NBA action to rehab your strain. you either are ready to play or you're still strained.

I disagree. Your muscles is not at full game strength after being rested for so much time. You can't just magically be ready to play 30mins after missing two weeks.

Your body has to build back up to game load. Practice isn't going to simulate game load. Just as his breathing needs conditioning, so does his hamstring

Either it was misreported as a hamstring strain the second time and the clippers didn't want to risk it or there was an actual minor tweaks that didn't take that long to heal.

Either way he shouldn't have been playing when the team is up 30. If he got injured again, can you imagine? This isn't a Rodney mcgruder scenario where rodney tweaked it once and after that he was fine. PG has had hamstring complications on three different occasions.

Dumb decision. That's a thibodeau type of move.

That should be an emphatic hell no. You're done for the night.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk

[esqtvd]

disagree completely

if his legs weren't ready at all then he shouldn't have played a single second to begin with. but considering he was ok'd for real game action then he would have been fine, and getting him some extra burn for conditioning is ok.

his injury status is binary when it comes to playing an nba game. you don't use live NBA action to rehab your strain. you either are ready to play or you're still strained.

I disagree. Your muscles is not at full game strength after being rested for so much time. You can't just magically be ready to play 30mins after missing two weeks.

Your body has to build back up to game load. Practice isn't going to simulate game load. Just as his breathing needs conditioning, so does his hamstring

Either it was misreported as a hamstring strain the second time and the clippers didn't want to risk it or there was an actual minor tweaks that didn't take that long to heal.

Either way he shouldn't have been playing when the team is up 30. If he got injured again, can you imagine? This isn't a Rodney mcgruder scenario where rodney tweaked it once and after that he was fine. PG has had hamstring complications on three different occasions.

Dumb decision. That's a thibodeau type of move.

That should be an emphatic hell no. You're done for the night.

I questioned it too but I'm sure Doc asked PG if he wanted to go back in. And I watched closely--PG just coasted up and down the court a few times without really doing anything strenuous and played about a minute and 10 seconds. It was more a conditioning move than actual play.

I'm gonna guess he was capped at 24 minutes, what he averaged when he came back from the broken leg a few years back. PG had only played 20 minutes and finished with 21, so one more easy stint while up by 29 was just for the exercise.

[NippySudz]

disagree completely

if his legs weren't ready at all then he shouldn't have played a single second to begin with. but considering he was ok'd for real game action then he would have been fine, and getting him some extra burn for conditioning is ok.

his injury status is binary when it comes to playing an nba game. you don't use live NBA action to rehab your strain. you either are ready to play or you're still strained.

I disagree. Your muscles is not at full game strength after being rested for so much time. You can't just magically be ready to play 30mins after missing two weeks.

Your body has to build back up to game load. Practice isn't going to simulate game load. Just as his breathing needs conditioning, so does his hamstring

Either it was misreported as a hamstring strain the second time and the clippers didn't want to risk it or there was an actual minor tweaks that didn't take that long to heal.

Either way he shouldn't have been playing when the team is up 30. If he got injured again, can you imagine? This isn't a Rodney mcgruder scenario where rodney tweaked it once and after that he was fine. PG has had hamstring complications on three different occasions.

Dumb decision. That's a thibodeau type of move.

That should be an emphatic hell no. You're done for the night.

I questioned it too but I'm sure Doc asked PG if he wanted to go back in. And I watched closely--PG just coasted up and down the court a few times without really doing anything strenuous and played about a minute and 10 seconds. It was more a conditioning move than actual play.

I'm gonna guess he was capped at 24 minutes, what he averaged when he came back from the broken leg a few years back. PG had only played 20 minutes and finished with 21, so one more easy stint while up by 29 was just for the exercise.

It's still not smart. Hammy's injuries should be treated with caution. Be glad that injury didn't re-aggravate and live to play another day. He didn't do much to aggravate it in Boston. He took a jumper than got shut down

Mcgruder hurt his going for a dunk in Memphis if the wrong foot. PG is attempting to speed up the process and not taking it day by day. Which is probably what led to him re-aggravating the Injury in the first place. Within a couple games he was off his min restriction and went back to playing b2b. Again, not smart. The medical staff needs to be adamant about that.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using Tapatalk