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After bouncing back on new years eve and winning against the Sixers, the Clippers will face their first opponent of the new year. It will be the injury ridden Portland Trailblazers, who just beat the Clippers a couple days ago. This time around, the Clippers have the home advantage and will need to use their size better, to beat a team, which is without their best 3 big men.

The Clippers are still missing Blake Griffin and Kareem Rush for this one.

The Blazers will be without their starting center, starting power forward, starting small forward and starting point guard from a year ago. They'll also be without their back up center, back up small forward and back up shooting guard.


When and Where?

Monday, January the 4th, 7:30 p.m. PT, Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
This game will be broadcasted by





Starting Lineups:

Los Angeles Clippers


Portland Trailblazers


Important Role Players

Los Angeles Clippers


Portland Trailblazers



Team Leaders

Chris Kaman 20.3 PPG
Marcus Camby 11.4 RPG & 2.2 BPG
Baron Davis 7.8 APG & 1.70 SPG


Brandon Roy 23.3 PPG & 5.0 APG & 0.9 SPG
Greg Oden 8.5 RPG & 2.3 BPG


Key Matchup


Baron Davis

vs.


Andre Miller


Just for the looks





Questions:
Can we keep getting our bigs involved, even if they play zone again?
Will Baron be able to outplay Miller?
Will EJ be able to keep up with Roy in the scoring department?


Discuss and Let's Go Clips!

Inconsistent*

For any Australian basketball fans Patty Mills will be suiting up for this game. You may get a brief glimpse of him if either team is ahead by a lot or a Portland guard fouls out.

I feel we may beat them this time. I don't think the players took the team serious the first game and that's why they got outplayed by a bunch of bench players. So I would expect them to put more effort this time around. I hope..?

Portland is still playing some pretty decent basketball though. Gotta appreciate teams like that who can continue playing hard, and getting positive results, rather than losing and using the whole injury excuse.

It's still gonna be a hard game to win. I dont know how they are managing but blazers are still one of the top team despite all their injuries.
Did you hear that Dumbleavy????

lol we need this one badly knowing we are going to take the loss versus the Lakers

The Blazers have had a lot of injuries, but we have won 8 out of the last 10 with all the problems. I'm gonna say the inconsistent dudes win, but believe me, we've been giving teams a lot of problems lately with the exception to 1 flub up game against Philly.

Pendergraph doesn't look so tough this time around

I'd hope that we take this game more seriously than we did the last game. I'm sure Baron is looking to redeem himself. He went 2 for 15 against Portland after hitting the game winner against Boston. We have 3 games in the next 7 days with 4 days off prior to this one. This helps for guys recovering from injury (Camby). It doesn't mean anything if we don't take advantage of it though. There's an obvious difference in what we can, should and will do. I do like our chances.

According to Lisa's twitter, Al is questionable with a stomach virus.

J~Rush wrote:For any Australian basketball fans Patty Mills will be suiting up for this game. You may get a brief glimpse of him if either team is ahead by a lot or a Portland guard fouls out.

This is my dream match of the season. Obviously, I'm a Clippers fan, but I have known Pat since he was dominating finals matches against my brother when they were 9 years old.

He is an absolutely great kid, his dad is a great man, his uncle was the first indigenous Australian to play basketball at the Olympics and he was a great man too. I am so happy for Pat and his family that a dream will be realized tomorrow.

I hope for a 10 OT game that ends in a tie when the refs collapse of exhaustion.

Just a clarification...

Portland is missing it's 4 big guys... Oden (C), Przybilla (backup C), Aldridge (PF) & Outlaw (backup PF).

So, Portland is actually missing their starting C, backup C, starting PF, backup PF, starting SF, backup SG, now backup PG (started up until about 10 games ago).

Portland is playing 2 rookies, a 2nd year player, and a 36 year old big minutes every night. I keep calling for a loss, but somehow the guys keep pulling it out. To no surprise, I'm calling for a loss against the Clippers. I gotta think the Clips bigs will take advantage of our age (both young & old). Let's hope Baron does not make up for the last time these 2 teams met.

Payback is a mother..

You should re-title this thread "No Excuses @ Nothing But Excuses."

First day of Winter session for me so I'll be missing most of the games this month. Hope the game is fun to watch for you folks.

illastrate wrote:You should re-title this thread "No Excuses @ Nothing But Excuses."

+1

Det the Threat wrote:Portland Trailblazers

Due to this series of photos, as well as recent comments made by Pendergraph to the media about his enforcer-type mentality, he shall, from this point forward, only be referred to as Jeff "The Headhunter" Pendergraph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_a2M4SK ... re=related



Anyways, good luck tonight, guys (although hopefully not *too much* "good luck" ). Hopefully, like us, you can get healthy and put together a solid 2nd half of the regular season. Just out of curiosity, when does it look like Blake is going to make his debut? Your frontcourt is going to be AWESOME once he returns!

GoBlazersGo wrote:

Det the Threat wrote:Portland Trailblazers

Due to this series of photos, as well as recent comments made by Pendergraph to the media about his enforcer-type mentality, he shall, from this point forward, only be referred to as Jeff "The Headhunter" Pendergraph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_a2M4SK ... re=related

That's exactly what I thought of when I saw that pic.

GoBlazersGo wrote:Anyways, good luck tonight, guys (although hopefully not *too much* "good luck" ). Hopefully, like us, you can get healthy and put together a solid 2nd half of the regular season. Just out of curiosity, when does it look like Blake is going to make his debut? Your frontcourt is going to be AWESOME once he returns!

Don't really know; but with the way he was talking tonight, it seems like it could be anywhere between the end of the month and the all-star break.

Kaman should have passed it to Gordon.

Clippers are committing a lot of turnovers

Baron has been awful so far

21-20 Blazers at the end of 1. It was a pretty uninspiring first period of the Clippers. We let them have 4 or 5 slam dunks. We made lazy passes, missed easy shots, poor choices and I would say we got out worked. Still it's a 1 point game. We have to step up the intensity.