RealGM

Round 2 Game 1: Monday, May 4 at 6:30 west, 9:30 east on TNT

Clippers Starting 5


Chris Paul (22.7/4.6/7.9)


JJ Redick (13.7/2.3/1.3)


Matt Barnes (7.6/5.0/0.9)


Blake Griffin (24.1/13.1/7.4)


DeAndre Jordan (12.6/13.3/0.6)

Clippers Bench
Jamal Crawford
Glen Davis
Jordan Hamilton
Spencer Hawes
Lester Hudson
Dahntay Jones
Austin Rivers
Hedo Turkoglu
Ekpe Udoh
CJ Wilcox

Rockets Starting 5


Jason Terry (7.8/1.6/2.2)


James Harden (28.4/3.8/7.8)


Trevor Ariza (8.2/6.6/3.0)


Terrence Jones (12.8/6.4/1.4)


Dwight Howard (16.6/13.8/1.2)

Rockets Bench
Patrick Beverly (injured)
Corey Brewer
Clint Capela
Joey Dorsey
Nick Johnson
KJ McDaniels
Donatas Motiejunas (injured)
Kostas Papanikolaou
Pablo Prigioni
Josh Smith


Lets Goooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

We're going to run you into the ground as a threadmaker just like Doc is doing with our starters.

I wouldn't mind CP being rested in this first game, we need to think about the bigger picture. Who knows, him sitting might even motivate the rest of the team.
Rockets will be hungry and come out strong. Let's just keep our cool and focus on getting a road win. I have some doubts about tonight, we'll see how it goes, but the second game is definitely winnable. Would be nice if the bench could contribute more against a less intimidating opponent than the Spurs.

No more home court advantage. Not that it mattered anyway.

Its so nerve wracking thinking about if cp3 will play.

I definitely think hawes will get more time this series.

Rebounding will be huge in this series again. With a lot of threes comes weird bounces, so the whole team better help. If not, it could easily be 15 3s for the rockets.

Any report on how severe CP's hamstring pull is?

haven't heard anything about how bad his strain is, but since it's a serious one without being a full blown tear it's probably grade 2 (which usually takes weeks to heal). being active on it is gonna be pretty rough and can potentially worsen it. my guess is they'll rest him game 1 to at least get him as much recovery time as possible, but throw him in there in game 2 and find ways to restrict his range of movement so it doesn't get too much worse.

it's already bad enough for the hamstring that he was forced back into action. with a hamstring strain full recovery isn't really in sight unless he gets to rest the entirety of the series. the best possible thing would be for us to completely obliterate houston in game 1. that way doc can take a chance on resting cp3 in game 2 as well and go from there depending on how well we do. a sweep would be magic and could get cp3 right just in time for the WCF. but of course that's just ideal and not necessarily realistic.

I would hack-a-dwight, hack-a-josh, hack-a-jones. Force them to play small.

My take

tl;dr: Clippers in SIx.

would someone please tell those bone head guys at tnt, especially Kenny smith, that it is not the size of the player but the size of the heart and the desire to win that matters. I am tired of hearing that It will be hard for the clippers to win because of the small back court.

Dynamix wrote:We're going to run you into the ground as a threadmaker just like Doc is doing with our starters.

Yup, we might have used the Matt bullet too soon

Yes please, rest Paul even if his hamstring feels awesome. He needs the rest anyway, and with the whole team fatigued it's pretty much a lost game (I'll be glad to be proven wrong). Depending on how competitive we look, maybe even rest him for game 2 as well. I feel very confident we can do a lot of damage to the Rockets even without him. Doc is gonna run circles around McHale.

mattd13 wrote:would someone please tell those bone head guys at tnt, especially Kenny smith, that it is not the size of the player but the size of the heart and the desire to win that matters. I am tired of hearing that It will be hard for the clippers to win because of the small back court.

Have they ever been right with any prediction? they look like they haven't watched basketball since zone defense was allowed, talking all the time about drawing double teams (who even draws double teams anymore? at most you make the defense subtly collapse around you) and posting up, which is a seldom used and inefficient play nowadays. They're there for entertainment, not because of their bball knowledge, so don't take anything they say seriously and you're alright

I'm 4-0, might as well keep riding it while they're winning haha. This is going to be the series of hack-a. Hope we come out and take game 1. Anxious to hear how CP is doing. Can't wait for tonight!

Picked you guys to win in 7 assuming Chris Paul doesn't miss many games.

Hope its cool if I continue to post in the GTs. Guess I've been bringing some luck to your club

Keep bringing the luck truth

Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt!

Hudson and Lil Rivers need to step up tonite but I already know everyone else will be jacked up and ready to win this game even though we're coming off a tough series win vs the defending champs..

GO LAC!! BEAT HTOWN!!

Good stuff Matt

Crawford better focus on his playmaking and facilitating for others instead of his normal chucking. Plus, defense would be nice. Also, Doc better have a short leash on Junior. I'd to see Train Hudson get some play.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/DanWoikeSports/status/595378005070843904[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/LAClippers/status/595378077762334721[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/ArashMarkazi/status/595378694081777665[/tweet]

This may sound stupid but I think we have a better chance of winning this game without paul than we do winning the game for which he returns. I've noticed whenever CP or Blake return from injury, the rest of the team looks lazy. Hopefully every one steps up tonight and we'll get to see Blake go into beast mode.

My simple keys to the game:
1. Do NOT let harden get to the FT line, make him take a step back jumper.
2. 110% effort on boxing out and making sure HOU don't get easy ORs.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Pflanns/status/595377273286492160[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/kpelton/status/595378223107543040[/tweet]

Ranma wrote:Crawford better focus on his playmaking and facilitating for others instead of his normal chucking. Plus, defense would be nice. Also, Doc better have on short leash on Junior. I'd to see Train Hudson get some play.

Yea this would be ideal in general. I'd rather see him starting at the point than Austin tonight, if Doc can drill into him to run the sets with the starting unit... or even if he can't. Crawford is a significantly better passer when he's looking to do so, and while Crawford obviously looks to shoot usually, Austin has severe tunnel vision. Add that to his propensity to completely lose control on drives and less familiarity with our offense, and I don't see why you'd start Austin. I doubt it happens in order to keep some punch with the bench unit, but I think it'd be for the best to start Crawford. I'd rather see if Austin can get lucky again against Houston's bench. Let him go at Prigioni all night.