Game #64: T-WOLVES @ Clippers Tuesday 2/28 7 PM—TNT

[Clemenza]

Kawhi is testing his teammates like he always does

he's like, sure, I can take the ball and take every shot and win this sucker but you lameass MFers won't learn a damn thing if I do

the difference is, Jordan and Kobe loved dominating and would do it for fun

get tf out of my way, losers
and they were like,

ok boss

Huh, Kawhi was gassed and was either getting locked down by his defender or didn't even want the ball in the closing minutes of game

we're basically agreeing

we can guess why, but Kawhi is not doing what needs to be done by maybe the only guy who can do it

Maybe but he's clearly not the PG before he snapped his leg in half. Back then he tried to put players on a poster when he got within six feet of the rim. He's a "Robin" at this stage of his career and 24-33 point scorer these days. We're just hoping a Norm, Mann, Zu, Russ, etc. adds some scoring which all them struggled mightily to do last night. PG's problem is really his turnovers and head scratching decisions. Like you said earlier Kawhi put this whole thing together but his quietness and past success in Toronto & San Antonio gives him an easy route for all of this to slide right off of him and shift blame to everyone else.

[Clemenza]

The line-up you are talking about isn't going to fare any better. While we can say that the 0-3 stint started with Russ and the new guys were on a 2 game winning streak, people overlook a huge variable: The All-Star Break

Many teams were tired heading into the All-Star break and were refreshed coming out of it. As March progresses, we have a lot of home games while everyone below us in the standings (other than Lakers) have 7-9 road games. Even Phoenix and GS have at lest 7 road games each in March.

The Clips can separate themselves, but they HAVE to start defending the home court. Only teams with records 6 or more games under .500 have worse home records in the entire NBA. Just sad. I thought role players were supposed to excel at home.

I agree somewhat but you still had to roll with Mann, PG, and Kawhi starting for a few more games to see that play out and bring Westbrook in slowly with the second unit. I little less EJ if anything if minutes are a concern which they always are. If teams were now refreshed and the starting lineup started to slip then you try out Russ as the starting pg. But should've won the Kings game and the Nuggets game was also winnable.

Those 2 games went to OT. Then Clippers got off to a fine start vs the T-Wolves and then lost going away. Who starts is not the problem.

The assists are way up and so is the pace so those offensive concerns are fixed. Westbrook has not done poorly enough to be yanked to the second unit but the problem is, Westbrook is leaking points and it just doesn't matter why.

Not that Mann is doing better--he's not. Ty is screwed either way. Mann's 4/0/2 with 2 TOs in 22 minutes @ minus-6 is not justification for more PT. [Westbrook went 14/7/10 with 4 TOs in 28 minutes @ minus-5.] If Mann is to re-enter the starting lineup, it's gonna have to be with KL and PG onboard with it. I think Ty has no choice but to let it play out a little more until it becomes obvious to everyone that it's the only way.

[If it indeed is. Frankly I don't have an opinion. All I know is KL and PG have to be down with it.]


BTW, I think the EJ experiment is done. He was -17 with ZERO points in only 7 minutes in the first half and never got off the bench after that. Gordon's plus/minus is a team-worst minus-5.2, worse than Wall's, and literally unplayable.

[And Morris and Batum both played 20 minutes and had virtually identical stats. Which were crap.]

Mann was bad last night, no arguments there but you can't make last nights game the entire narrative on how he's played for the past couple of weeks because he's looked good and has helped the team greatly pre Russel Westbrook. Yes the assists numbers aren't really there but he's more like a defensive minded-energy-glue guy point guard. Plus PG and Kawhi are handling the ball a lot as well when he starts. Basically there are actual games that we've won with Mann as a starter as opposed to Russ starting so that's what I'm pretty much going off of.

PG & Kawhi are letting Russ handle the ball alot more than Mann and I guess that's a vet thing but on the filpside we're 0-3 and sinking in the West since that's gone down. I personally would've road Mann starting a bit longer but Russ is starting so there's that. We have no say so in the matter

[Clemenza]

Let’s see what happens these playoffs but I think Clippers should make this major change when they can next season or this off season.

Make PG available & try to get the very best in return in a trade. Include whoever else to make it happen. Many teams would still consider him elite talent.
All the other guys on this team besides Kawhi are just pieces. Not gonna put us over the top

We've got more games to go and I'm hoping we turn it around soon but if this thing does flame out I'm pushing the reset button if I'm Lawrence Frank. Its starting to look like The Bubble and the year after when we beat the Jazz to make our first WCF was our years to make this happen with this core. Just needed Kawhi to stay healthy. Now its like we're barely holding on and throwing anything against the wall to desperately see if anything works. We'll but if its not happening time to clear out some of these guys, keep a star or two, and go young. Need an attractive fun product on the floor to open the new arena with.

[esqtvd]

I agree somewhat but you still had to roll with Mann, PG, and Kawhi starting for a few more games to see that play out and bring Westbrook in slowly with the second unit. I little less EJ if anything if minutes are a concern which they always are. If teams were now refreshed and the starting lineup started to slip then you try out Russ as the starting pg. But should've won the Kings game and the Nuggets game was also winnable.

Those 2 games went to OT. Then Clippers got off to a fine start vs the T-Wolves and then lost going away. Who starts is not the problem.

The assists are way up and so is the pace so those offensive concerns are fixed. Westbrook has not done poorly enough to be yanked to the second unit but the problem is, Westbrook is leaking points and it just doesn't matter why.

Not that Mann is doing better--he's not. Ty is screwed either way. Mann's 4/0/2 with 2 TOs in 22 minutes @ minus-6 is not justification for more PT. [Westbrook went 14/7/10 with 4 TOs in 28 minutes @ minus-5.] If Mann is to re-enter the starting lineup, it's gonna have to be with KL and PG onboard with it. I think Ty has no choice but to let it play out a little more until it becomes obvious to everyone that it's the only way.

[If it indeed is. Frankly I don't have an opinion. All I know is KL and PG have to be down with it.]


BTW, I think the EJ experiment is done. He was -17 with ZERO points in only 7 minutes in the first half and never got off the bench after that. Gordon's plus/minus is a team-worst minus-5.2, worse than Wall's, and literally unplayable.

[And Morris and Batum both played 20 minutes and had virtually identical stats. Which were crap.]

Mann was bad last night, no arguments there but you can't make last nights game the entire narrative on how he's played for the past couple of weeks because he's looked good and has helped the team greatly pre Russel Westbrook. Yes the assists numbers aren't really there but he's more like a defensive minded-energy-glue guy point guard. Plus PG and Kawhi are handling the ball a lot as well when he starts. Basically there are actual games that we've won with Mann as a starter as opposed to Russ starting so that's what I'm pretty much going off of.

PG & Kawhi are letting Russ handle the ball alot more than Mann and I guess that's a vet thing but on the filpside we're 0-3 and sinking in the West since that's gone down. I personally would've road Mann starting a bit longer but Russ is starting so there's that. We have no say so in the matter

I still think it's hilarious that Reggie is now our plus/minus leader [last 15 games]

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?LastNGames=15&TeamID=1610612746&dir=A&sort=PLUS_MINUS

[Scoundreldays]

What happened to EG? He played well the first two games and fell off a cliff after

[nickhx2]

What happened to EG? He played well the first two games and fell off a cliff after

no defined role imo i think is really killing him. granted he could be better in the minutes he has, though.

[MartinToVaught]

Apparently PG is starting a podcast. Great timing, glad he's got his priorities in order.

[Scoundreldays]

Apparently PG is starting a podcast. Great timing, glad he's got his priorities in order.

Hopefully he has a Q&A and we can ask him why he continues to facilitate instead of shooting off the pass when his facilitating skills are equal to a drunk James Harden

[nickhx2]

drunk james harden LMAOO

[Scoundreldays]

drunk james harden LMAOO

It's true, he over dribbles and either chucks a three or drives to make a pass. Only difference is he does all of those things ALOT slower and worse. I don't want to sound like a PG hater I like PG and I so badly want him to win a ring but he is not even a little bit good at this role.

He has literally gotten what he has asked for and I see little change in his play. His best stretch over the last 3 games was when Westbrook was doing the majority of the facilitating in the Kings game and he was shooting off the pass.

Outside of limiting Morris' minutes the next best thing this team could do is limit PG's facilitating touches.

[MartinToVaught]

Apparently PG is starting a podcast. Great timing, glad he's got his priorities in order.

Hopefully he has a Q&A and we can ask him why he continues to facilitate instead of shooting off the pass when his facilitating skills are equal to a drunk James Harden

I'm preemptively cringing at the bulletin board material he'll be giving the rest of the league every week. When was the last time anything good came from PG talking in the media?

[madmaxmedia]

What happened to EG? He played well the first two games and fell off a cliff after

no defined role imo i think is really killing him. granted he could be better in the minutes he has, though.

The changes in our roster are even more significant than usual because we're swapping different skill types in and out. Say a team demotes the starting 2 and 4 for their backup 2 and 4, well at least the new guys directly slide into the open positions.

OTOH, we're like Mann is the new point guard since we dropped the other 2 that were filling in there, no EJ you give it a shot and Mann plays power forward as Marcus slides to center. But wait, now we have a new point guard and he's going to be the new starter. So forget whatever we just did.

It's hurting my head at this point. We're currently on pace to duplicate last year's record, when we had zero Kawhi, 31 games of Paul George, and 5 games of Norm Powell.

[nickhx2]

What happened to EG? He played well the first two games and fell off a cliff after

no defined role imo i think is really killing him. granted he could be better in the minutes he has, though.

The changes in our roster are even more significant than usual because we're swapping different skill types in and out. Say a team demotes the starting 2 and 4 for their backup 2 and 4, well at least the new guys directly slide into the open positions.

OTOH, we're like Mann is the new point guard since we dropped the other 2 that were filling in there, no EJ you give it a shot and Mann plays power forward as Marcus slides to center. But wait, now we have a new point guard and he's going to be the new starter. So forget whatever we just did.

It's hurting my head at this point. We're currently on pace to duplicate last year's record, when we had zero Kawhi, 31 games of Paul George, and 5 games of Norm Powell.

sad thing is that given kawhi's skillset and lue's own history with the lakers, implementing the triangle or at least some of their sets would have helped greatly in this regard, or perhaps ameliorated it completely.

[esqtvd]

Welp. SOMEBODY got to be that guy.