GT: Clippers vs. Spurs

[Nolan]

When: 8:30 PM ET, March 9, 2012
Where: AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX



VS



Starting Lineups:

Clippers:
PG - Chris Paul
SG - Randy Foye
SF - Caron Butler
PF - Blake Griffin
C - DeAndre Jordan

Spurs:
PG - Tony Parker
SG - Gary Neal
SF - Richard Jefferson
PF - Tim Duncan
C - DeJuan Blair

The Clippers have been struggling over the last five game and we need to jump on them while they're down.

The key to this one as it always is with the Clippers is stopping the Paul Griffin pick and roll. We did a good job of stopping the Knicks pick and roll offense the other day so if we can keep up that defensive effort we can win this game.

Go Spurs!!

[co_laper]

Parker out. Manu not 100%. Ford out. Clippers still have that loss to us on their minds. Probably a recipe for a loss tonight.

Something to watch tonight is who's gonna attack the paint and replace Tony. We can't have everyone just shoot jumpshots all day.

[co_laper]

When it's not Mo Williams, it's Chris Paul.

Well, our offense looks alright without Parker. Manu looks real good.

[Ballings7]

Played well without Parker... perimeter defense was just not really there, though... Clippers announcers made way too big of a deal about this win.

Annoying loss

[Ballings7]

And apparently Mo Williams took form as Glen Rice last night

[SinJackal]

We had no backcourt defense for them at all. No Parker (underrated defender), no backup PG in Ford. Had to use Neal and Joseph as our PGs? Yeah, they're not gonna stop Chris Paul and Mo Williams. Clippers took huge advantage of the Spurs injuries by attacking the players with the least experience and defensive strength on the team. I give them credit for riding their PGs, but honestly, losing to them doesn't change my opinion of them at all. I hope we play them in the 2nd or 3rd round, I don't see us losing a 7 game series to that team. I'm still more worried about Dallas and LAL and OKC. LAL and OKC moreso for the calls they'd be getting, Dallas more for them playing full team basketball that matches up well against us. Denver also gets tons of calls, so that could be a tough matchup too.

At least we get a free practice day monday. It'll be good to get people some practice time in against a D league team.

[co_laper]

We've gone past the half way point of the season. At this point, I'm gonna do what I did last year. Give up on hoping we become a defensive team this year. I was hoping that would turn around this year, but it hasn't and I don't have any good reason to think it would. We have basically the same team as last year. Even if we're a better team defensively than last year, how much better can you expect us to be given that we have largely the same personnel.

With that said, yes, our defense sucks. We'll see spurts here and there, but our defense lacks physicality. Bowen took it with him when he left. But i thought the backup PG issue wasn't why we lost. We didn't lose because our offense sucked in this game. We lost simply because Mo Williams went crazy and our defense wasn't good enough to stop it anyways.

To stay positive, I have to say that I don't think our team has went through some rough patches yet. I mean we started off well, lost Manu and still played well. We've generally been playing well so far this season. Every team went through a rough stretch at some point in the season. Better have it now than late in the season going into the playoffs. If we're still struggling in April, that's when I'll be worried. I'm giving our team a pass on March losses.