clipperlover wrote:I would like to invite everyone to come back from the ledge.
Let's puts things into perspective.
1. Last night was only the third time since November where we lost back to back games.
2. None of those back to back losses came with our starting 5 on the court. Last night had our starting 5, but we all know Kawhi left early.
3. Since the All-Star break no team behind us before the break has made up more than 2 losses on us. Minnesota has only increased their distance in the loss column by 1 and OKC by 3 (last night's debacle really hurt more because OKC lost to Indy).
So, outside of the Defending Champion Nuggets, who in the West is going to beat us in a 7 game series?
I put our team up against all of those other teams. No one has their back to the wall right now. No one's season is on the line right now.
Ty Lue, PG, Zubac and Mann were all part of the team that made it to the WCF after Kawhi went down. That team played a brutal playoff schedule, but were still on their way to the Finals until Zu hurt his knee in Game 4. I'll take Ty Lue's adjustments over the course of a playoff series.
This is wrong POV i think. Your statement sits behind the 2021 team's success but there are several points will make this take baseless unfortunately. First of all Pg13 is not the same player, he was like top 15-20 player at that time. Can you put him into top 30 player conversation after the last 3 years? Personally I don't. More like he's top 50 to me but this is a topic for later.
Secondly, more importantly the entire league is different. Our age difference with opponents will be much different than what it was in that 2021 run. It's not surprise anymore that our team isn't good with catching up young teams. Among those younglings in 2021 become superstars after 3 years. For example SGA was behing Pg13 for impact standpoint but right know he's far better. Edwards too. Jamal Murray, De'aron Fox, Brandon Ingram can school Pg13 right know. Same can be said for Harden, they are staying behind with age, It happens and it's perfectly normal.
Lastly, the player pool we'll face are much different than it was.
- The wings are more athletic than our wings comparing to 2021 run. Payton Watson-Aaron Gordon duo will be menace, Jalen Williams-Lu Dort duo will do nasty things, Edwards-Jaden McDaniels already putting mockery. You already know whats gonna happen when we face Herb Jones-Trey Murphy- B. Ingram.
- Bigs are more skilled than our bigs comparing to 2021 run. Zubac was young and his body was like iron back then, I have a bad news for you, Zubac misses so many games with minor injuries lately. He's getting veteran problems, his body peaked and now shows syndroms of reaching to the wrong side of age. You can't get 2021 Zubac, whatever left of him is not looking good to face Chet, Jokic, Gobert, Zion, Sabonis, Nurkic and Davis. For this result your coach got tendency to go small simply our bigs are vaslty undertalented. big time!
- Guards around the league are way faster, Doncic-Conley and Cp3 trio doesn't considered fast when we had that run. Now Edwards, Murray, Fox, SGA will murder our guards. Harden&Powell simply can't keep with any skilled perimeter player and their defensive deficiencies can't solved with lesser athletic wings backed up with lesser skilled bigs.
This is the last year of their window. If they fail big time, they shouldn't bring them for next season, big changes needs to happen around Kawhi.