RealGM

Los Angeles Clippers VS Chicago Bulls
Where: The Griffin Observatory in Los Angeles, CA
When: Wednesday, January 2nd, 2011 @ 7:30 PM
TV: /
Radio: KFWB News Talk 980

PG: #5 - Baron Davis SG: #4 - Randy Foye

SF: #15 - Ryan Gomes PF: #32 - Blake Griffin

C: #9 - DeAndre Jordan

PG: #1- Derrick Rose SG: #6 - Keith Bogans

SF: #9 - Luol Deng PF: #5 - Carlos Boozer

C: #40 - Kurt Thomas

Eric Gordon - 24.1ppg (8th)
Blake Griffin - 12.7rpg (4th)
Baron Davis - 6.8apg & 1.2spg
DeAndre Jordan - 1.7 bpg


Derrick Rose - 24.4ppg (7th) & 8.1apg (8th)
Joakim Noah - 11.7rpg (6th)
Ronnie Brewer - 1.4spg
Taj Gibson - 1.7bpg

Meshing Together

When it comes to winning, it’s tough to overstate the necessity of having a defensive anchor. A potent offense is great and all, but stopping your opponent from scoring is just as crucial. It’s vexing, then, that defensive standouts are largely underappreciated.

This is certainly the case with the Clippers, who have garnered plenty of national attention with Blake Griffin’s nightly thrills. Less known, though, is DeAndre Jordan’s defensive impact. But there’s a more interesting story to be told behind Jordan’s defensive prowess. How does one go about summarizing Jordan and Griffin’s coexistence as a frontcourt defensive tandem?

The short answer is that it’s not always a balanced effort; typically, Jordan shoulders more of the defensive load than Griffin. That’s no knock on Griffin’s defense, though, as his focus on offense and rebounding can account for his decreased influence on D, and it’s not a lack of effort. For a more in-depth analysis of this imbalance, let’s go to the numbers. Telling defensive statistics are few and far between, so the analysis is based largely on the per-possession defensive numbers accumulated by Synergy Sports.

Jordan allows .797 points per possession, ranking him 30th among all defensive players with 200 or more defensive plays on the season, according to Synergy Sports Technology. More specifically, he is sublime defending spot-up shooters, allowing just .8 points per possession. The truly illuminating number, that is great evidence for his prolific post defense, is his .66 PPP on non-post-up shots around the basket. That’s fourth in the league among bigs with 40 such plays.

Danny Savitzky, Clippers.com

mkwest wrote:Both Blake Griffin and Eric Bledsoe have had their moments going through the customary rookie hazing, now they get to showcase their basketball talents in front of the world along with 16 other rookie and sophomore players at this year's NBA All-Star Weekend Rookie Challenge.

mattfish wrote:

mkwest wrote:Both Blake Griffin and Eric Bledsoe have had their moments going through the customary rookie hazing, now they get to showcase their basketball talents in front of the world along with 16 other rookie and sophomore players at this year's NBA All-Star Weekend Rookie Challenge.

I was surprised to see Aminu not make it. Hopefully he takes that as motivation to be better and has a break out game tonight!

Leor_77 wrote:Yeah, this game is going to be very tough to win, since EJ is out, and since the Bulls now have Noah back, and will undoubtedly be looking for revenge. Should be an exciting game, and I'll be happy if we put up a good fight.

Leor_77 wrote:They can't guard Blake. Let him go at 'em and get them in foul trouble.