Game 45: LA Clippers (26-18) vs Indiana Pacers (25-18)

[kombayn]

I was expecting this road trip to be 1-2. I'm starting to think Vinny Del Negro will get fired especially if we lose in the 1st round of the playoffs and then start looking at a coach that CP3 will approve of.

[apet8945]

Yeh i get that guys, Its frustrating for me too. But realistically I just think we gotta realise that we weren't gonna be amazing straight out of the gates just cause we got CP3. We obviously aren't as close chemsitry wise as we will be and that results in slumps and loosing games we should win I guess. We will be better, especially with a full off season. I'm kinda with you on aking whatever win we can get right now though.

See the problem is, we need to be amazing right from the get go. The timetable for this team to become one of the elites in the league is not large, and the players, coaches, and front office knew this when trading for CP3. This is why we went and got guys like Chauncey, Butler, and Martin. We needed to become an elite team over night, and as impossible as that sounds, it seemed as if we had accomplished it at some point.

I was really hoping that this team could make it very far in the playoffs THIS year so that we could try to avoid all the media circus that will be creating huge distractions for us next year with the deadline for CP3 to make his decision about staying or not will come closer and closer. Could you imagine our team going through what the Magic went through this year with all the Dwight drama?

But with us playing so poorly, if we finish the year getting booted out of the first round or not even making the playoffs, that might just happen. The media is going to completely kill us and CP3 with ongoing questions of whether he's happy in LA and wants to extend and a bunch of other distractions. And so it'll be another huge challenge in itself for the team to do well in that type of environment.

I want to avoid something like this but looks like that ain't happening.

[TheNewEra]

Hell no to that pasty selfish piece of $h** Kaman on this team we needed to move forward this team jus needs some strong discipline and we will be ok.

[mj_shoefanatic]

DJ is pathetic.

[Angel strike1]

kama>dj

and apet can you stop talking about if making playoffs. not making playoffs?

thanks

[Kyle]

We all need to come together

[og15]

This is what I had anticipated earlier:

Coming up in March:
5 Home: Bos, Atl, Pho, Hou, Det
3 Road: @Ind, @OKC, @NO
5 Home: Mem, NO, Pho, Por, Uth
(10/13 at home)
-Indiana and OKC will be tough road games. New Orleans is winnable of course
-could anticipate going 8-2 at home and 1-2 on the road
-9-4 for the month

My projected home losses were Boston and Memphis. So far it has been Boston and Phoenix. While how one looses can be frustrating, I'm not specifically disappointed at loosing to a .591% team that is 14-6 at home.

If the team can steal the game In OKC against those guys who have won 19/23 at home, it would be nice. All the home games are winnable, but of course, winnable doesn't mean one will win, but 4/5 on those should be possible.

[TheNewEra]

Kaman was a lazy low ball iq bum. I rather have the young guy who makes the young player mistakes than the old guy who never learned to correct and still makes the same mistakes.

[madmaxmedia]

Yeh i get that guys, Its frustrating for me too. But realistically I just think we gotta realise that we weren't gonna be amazing straight out of the gates just cause we got CP3. We obviously aren't as close chemsitry wise as we will be and that results in slumps and loosing games we should win I guess. We will be better, especially with a full off season. I'm kinda with you on aking whatever win we can get right now though.

Actually, we were pretty darn good right out of the gates. I think 19-10 at one point?

My rough benchmark for a real QUALITY team in the NBA is 2x wins:losses. It doesn't mean you're going to win a title or even conference championship (that depends on other teams, etc.) but it means you are doing things right for sure. The Clippers were right there until Chauncey got hurt.

Since then, it's surprising how things have fallen off. Chauncey was a leader on the team, at the same time was shooting only 36%. I think more than anything the rest of the team besides Paul still needs to learn how to WIN. They already know how to PLAY (most of them!), but to be able to manage a game, stay in control, do the right thing when it is needed, etc. So a guy like Nick Young will have no problems filling in for Chauncey's stats, but he has not played on consistent winner yet in the NBA either, so he's unfortunately not a substitute for Chauncey in the other areas.

The short verision of all this is that adding both CP3 and Billups gave us 2 head coaches on the floor, which along with our talent made up for: many team changes, short offseason, little practice time, head coach(?). Now it's just Paul out there in terms of managing the floor.

This team can still come together no matter what in the postseason, because the talent is there. And I think next year we will develop and become a consistent winner again and play to a better playoff seed.