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The clippers are on a roll right now, winning 11 straight and going from 5th in the standings a few weeks ago to 3rd. San Antonio is pretty locked in as the first spot in my opinion. The clippers are 3 games back of them and the spurs are on a winning streak of 10 themselves. However there is OKC within one game for the taking of the 2nd seed. They have decided to start resting Westbrook on back to backs to end the season and regardless of that, they have been dysfunctional as of late compared to their usual success in the past couple years (all of the top teams have besides San Antonio). Houston is suddenly 3 games back of the clippers after losing 3 straight.

Chris Paul has recently come back from a serious shoulder issue that caused him to miss 20? odd games. Then he sprained his ankle Friday against the Jazz and apparently there is an issue with his thumb? The rest of the team is no better off. Who knows when Redick will be back. Dudley is on and off hurt throughout the season. Crawford recently. I read somewhere that Blake is dealing with some issues, understandably so as it is nearing the end of the season and he has carried a huge load for the team.

My question: There are 14 games left in the season. Should the Clippers be more worried about health and rest or wins and their playoff position?

I pondered that maybe they should just shut Paul down for maybe 5 or 6 games so he can get 100% healthy, similar to what the spurs did with Tony Parker after the alllstar break. Maybe griffin should be sat a couple games? We saw what happened last year as the clippers entered the playoffs on another win streak, only to be hindered by injuries in the memphis series. Having a run down CP3 and Griffin against Memphis again would not work out well. Even against the warriors. And it isn't like once you get passed the first round, things get easier. 4-7 games battling with the grizz is only going to make an injured team like the clippers easy prey for the spurs or thunder.

I say give up a few of these wins. Maybe sign a few vets for two week contracts to fill out the roster if there is room? Sit paul, griffin, even deandre for a few games against the weaker foes to give us a chance. Maybe the upcoming milwaukee, detroit, new orleans stretch would be sufficient?

I seriously doubt the clippers lose the third seed to houston but even if comes down to that, I would rather that happen and have a healthy squad going into the playoffs than not

They can't allow themselves the luxury of just resting the good players or they'll start losing games like it's nothing, and home court advantage and good seeding will go away. The other day in Utah Doc had to put the starters back in after a very small rest because the Jazz were having a good run and getting back in it. Yesterday we let the Cavs come from 20+ to a 7 point deficit in the 4th quarter, and the starters had to play most of the game because of it. That's against bad teams, imagine when we play the good ones.

The west is too good to allow yourself to take it easy and rest. Playoff seeding is gonna be very important, and the team's worked too hard all year to have a chance at a good playoff path, to throw it all away for a couple of games of rest. Specially when resting 4 or 5 games doesn't at all guarantee that you aren't getting injured in a 1st round game, like last 2 years. Resting 5 RS games wouldn't have prevented Blake from falling into Odom's foot last year. Just like resting Westbrook now is not gonna free him from Beverly running into his knee again.

Also, too much rest just before the post season might mess with the team's rhythm.

Health is definitely the number 1 priority, but it's not something you can fully control, so throwing playoff position away for a chance at maybe being a bit healthier or maybe not, is not a clever strategy imo. Having home court advantage against OKC in the 2nd round would be HUGE.

Health is a top priority...but u don't go into games expecting "injury." I'd say rest at this point of the year is just as much, if not more, about having fresh legs than it is preventing injury.


We're not the team that can rest players and pretend that we'll turn it on when it counts. We DO have something to prove (wassup Ranma).

- we need seeding for the 2nd round
- we have a good chance at having the most wins in franchise history....would I care about this if I was a Purple n Piss fan? A Celtic fan? A Spurs fan? Maybe. Maybe not..,,but I wanna know what it's like to pull for a 60 win team...as much as we've been through...we deserve it.

ninja edit:
I just love how every team in the 5-8 who is probably going to get bounced in the 1st round is hoping to run into us in the playoffs.

The higher seed the better we have been prone to struggle on the road. Also feel with our players missing a game would be a step back in rhythm that is unneeded.

I understand where you are all coming from. Just in my mind, i would rather face OKC without homecourt but a healthy and rested griffin deandre and paul than with homecourt and trying to have a hobbled team try and get through OKC's strong defense.

Everyone is saying that we have struggled on the road and I cant deny that. Homecourt would obviously be an asset. But i dont think it is the end of the world if we dont get it. And even if we dont rest anyone, there is still a good chance we dont pass OKC. What then? We are hurt and tired AND we dont have homecourt.

We have a roster that is FULL of playoff experienced players. Paul, Redick, Crawford, Turkoglu, Granger, Davis, Collison, Barnes have all been through relatively long postseason runs or have been to the playoffs multiple times. Griffin and Deandre have been in two postseasons, which for their age is better than nothing. I think we have the will to take OKC without homecourt if Chris Paul is actually Chris Paul. Griffin's game and progression as a player has been amazing but without his athleticism, he will still struggle at times against Howard/Asik, Bogut/Lee, Duncan/Splitter, Ibaka/Perkins/Collison, Randolph/Gasol. I just want to see them all healthy.

Quake Griffin wrote:- we need seeding for the 2nd round
- we have a good chance at having the most wins in franchise history....would I care about this if I was a Purple n Piss fan? A Celtic fan? A Spurs fan? Maybe. Maybe not..,,but I wanna know what it's like to pull for a 60 win team...as much as we've been through...we deserve it.

I think we should be more concerned with getting out of the 1st round before worrying about seeding for the 2nd.

And it basically sounds like you are willing to give up a post season advantage of health over regular season success. Won 56 games last year, almost a 60 win team and see how far that win streak got us going into the playoffs with injured players. Probably why on the GB and elsewhere the consensus is that the clippers are a regular season team.

BlzMwt wrote:I understand where you are all coming from. Just in my mind, i would rather face OKC without homecourt but a healthy and rested griffin deandre and paul than with homecourt and trying to have a hobbled team try and get through OKC's strong defense.

Everyone is saying that we have struggled on the road and I cant deny that. Homecourt would obviously be an asset. But i dont think it is the end of the world if we dont get it. And even if we dont rest anyone, there is still a good chance we dont pass OKC. What then? We are hurt and tired AND we dont have homecourt.

We have a roster that is FULL of playoff experienced players. Paul, Redick, Crawford, Turkoglu, Granger, Davis, Collison, Barnes have all been through relatively long postseason runs or have been to the playoffs multiple times. Griffin and Deandre have been in two postseasons, which for their age is better than nothing. I think we have the will to take OKC without homecourt if Chris Paul is actually Chris Paul. Griffin's game and progression as a player has been amazing but without his athleticism, he will still struggle at times against Howard/Asik, Bogut/Lee, Duncan/Splitter, Ibaka/Perkins/Collison, Randolph/Gasol. I just want to see them all healthy.

Quake Griffin wrote:- we need seeding for the 2nd round
- we have a good chance at having the most wins in franchise history....would I care about this if I was a Purple n Piss fan? A Celtic fan? A Spurs fan? Maybe. Maybe not..,,but I wanna know what it's like to pull for a 60 win team...as much as we've been through...we deserve it.

I think we should be more concerned with getting out of the 1st round before worrying about seeding for the 2nd.

And it basically sounds like you are willing to give up a post season advantage of health over regular season success. Won 56 games last year, almost a 60 win team and see how far that win streak got us going into the playoffs with injured players. Probably why on the GB and elsewhere the consensus is that the clippers are a regular season team.

RESPECTFULLY...and i mean RESPECTFULLY....your history is a bit revisionist...and if not that, you're just not remembering properly

LAST YEAR was the year of rest...do you not remember?
us blowing teams out and sitting our starters in the 4th quarter? we protected our health all year and going into the post season.
what happened?
Griffin rolled his ankle in practice on Lamar Scrotum's foot going into Game 5 against the Grizzlies AKA there was nothing we could do to prevent that besides not having practice the day before that game. I don't subscribe to the Griffin/Clipper hate and unspoken theory that Griffin's injury meant nothing to that series. I thought Griffin outplayed Randolph in the 1st 2 games and it was an incredible detriment to our team to not have him healthy for games 5 and 6.

2nd.
Having a higher seed is more than likely going to yield us a better 1st round matchup...something most people here know i don't care about because I don't think anybody seeded 4-9 can beat us.

HOWEVER, it will likely yield us a better matchup.
with Portland being sucky and losing Aldridge at the end of last week, waiting around at the 3 seed is asking for Memphis to run off 3-5 in a row and meet us at the 6th spot...or for memphis to run off 5 in a row, get the 5th spot and have the Warriors met us at the 6th spot.

u get the 2 seed...youll probably meet a humbled Portland, Dallas or PHX in the 1st round.

I think the problem is you're assuming a couple games of rest means we are healthy and rested all season, while playing all games means we're injured and tired. That correlation is not that simple. While the correlation between lacking your good players and winning less is simple enough.

There's been multiple studies (I think there was a paper in last year's Sloan academy) trying to relate rest on back to backs and playing less minutes a game with later injuries, and none of them was able to find a direct relation. Playing 2, 3, 4 games less in the regular season is not gonna make Blake or Paul feel better in the 2nd round. They're not gonna notice those 3 days of rest. Popovich, the biggest advocate for resting players during the season, says he does it for the long term, he believes itm akes a difference in a 10+ years career. But he's not thinking "if I rest Duncan on a b2b in Martch he'll be healthier in June".

Plus, we already rest our players enough as it is. There's no Clippers player in the top 20 in the league in minutes per game. Blake is playing 36 a night, and Paul is under 35. Basically every star in their prime is playing more minutes. And Paul just missed 18 games, he need to play and get into a rhythm, not more rest!

Health is the most important. However, skipping games can only do so much. The main thing is to not have any significant/limiting injuries. There will be opportunities for rest without sitting players imo.

We have a stretch starting next week where we play 7 games in 11 days. Getting past that is the tough part. For most of the month of April, we have 2 days off in between games with the majority of those games at Staples. The final game is in Portland, so we're talking basically 2 weeks of home games with quality rest in between. That's not a horrible way for the season to wind down imo.

i stand corrected. i can admit when i am wrong lol

i still think health will be the determining factor in how far we go this postseason and because of that i am a little paranoid.

But i get it, resting games is not worth it

Quake Griffin wrote:We're not the team that can rest players and pretend that we'll turn it on when it counts. We DO have something to prove (wassup Ranma).

Believe it or not, I agree with everything you stated in this thread including the reference to last year's playoffs where Blake got hurt even with VDN's regular-season resting. I even applaud the manner with which you laid everything out as I don't think I could have said anything better. I'll just echo the sentiment that we do indeed have something to prove and Doc seems to allude to it himself in a recent statement. It seems like once the team proves not only to the outside doubters but themselves that they can overcome obstacles such as winning on the road, playing good defense, getting past the first round of the playoffs, et al, it will only build their confidence and unleash them further as they reinforce the trust in the system and themselves more and more.

We have new players and hopefully returning players that need to play together to acclimate themselves so getting more reps together seems more of a priority than resting legs that aren't exactly that weary to begin with (not counting random injuries). Our timely defense is encouraging but I'm still worried about our lack of rebounding and winning the 50-50 battles even as that has gotten better. I continue to look for continued improvement but there are less things to criticize now than there were at the beginning of the season.

i think...

health is most important, followed by opposite team's health

The Clippers are still one of the least respected teams in the NBA and everyone in the West (except for the Rockettes) is hoping they get to play us in the first-round.

You don't erase that stigma by resting guys for the last month of the season.

They need to keep building on this win-streak for the rest of the West to even begin to doubt themselves in a 7-game series with us.

DLaren wrote:The Clippers are still one of the least respected teams in the NBA and everyone in the West (except for the Rockettes) is hoping they get to play us in the first-round.

You don't erase that stigma by resting guys for the last month of the season.

They need to keep building on this win-streak for the rest of the West to even begin to doubt themselves in a 7-game series with us.

this reminds me of a conversation my brother was having with a kid at the snack tables during nutrition.
this was in middle school.


kid: i don't care. I'm not scared of you
big bro: you don't gotta be scared to get knocked out.

health and rest can take us a long way in the postseason. Also, team cohesion is vital.