Clippers (2-1) VS Cavs (1-2) Game 4

[thanumba2clippersfan]

What happened to Lamar?

He is over weight and out of shape

[Neddy]

my question is.

are these problems we're having the type of problems that u think can be fixed? problems that are NOT indicative of a larger problem?

I'm sorry...this does not look good...and there is no rust, lay off, it's early excuse that will do.
and I'm hinting at a larger conversation....YES THIS EARLY!

obvious problem #1 is focus. no reason to beat an intense playoff team like grizz and star studded fakers and turn around and lose to teams who won't make the playoffs.
#2 is lack of rebounding. neither of our starting bigs are working hard for rebounds, they just get what lands on them. no effort whatsoever. it must be a status quo thing. griffin needs to be a blue collar player, no excuse for both of our bigs with 6 boards each and no offensive board for blake.
#3. no coaching ability to counter what the other team is doing to kill us. suspect substitutions, no defender on corner 3s all day, prematurely collapsing on penetrator and leaving hot shooters wide open, constantly jumping for a block and either commit foul or no boxout on offensive rebounder. we made tyler zeller look like an allstar.

tonight, kyrie and dion were flatout better than whatever the combination we had out there for our backcourt.

[BennyBeFly]

my question is.

are these problems we're having the type of problems that u think can be fixed? problems that are NOT indicative of a larger problem?

I'm sorry...this does not look good...and there is no rust, lay off, it's early excuse that will do.
and I'm hinting at a larger conversation....YES THIS EARLY!

obvious problem #1 is focus. no reason to beat an intense playoff team like grizz and star studded fakers and turn around and lose to teams who won't make the playoffs.
#2 is lack of rebounding. neither of our starting bigs are working hard for rebounds, they just get what lands on them. no effort whatsoever. it must be a status quo thing. griffin needs to be a blue collar player, no excuse for both of our bigs with 6 boards each and no offensive board for blake.
#3. no coaching ability to counter what the other team is doing to kill us. suspect substitutions, no defender on corner 3s all day, prematurely collapsing on penetrator and leaving hot shooters wide open, constantly jumping for a block and either commit foul or no boxout on offensive rebounder. we made tyler zeller look like an allstar.

tonight, kyrie and dion were flatout better than whatever the combination we had out there for our backcourt.

Hit it right on the head. The Clippers set the pace and what they wanted to do out there against the Grizz and Lakers. The Clippers didn't assert themselves with anything resembling a gameplan the last two nights. I will say, however, that against GSW they started off the game with some great plays and wide open looks that didn't drop and they looked discouraged and the gameplan just fell apart.

What do the Clips want to do, pound the ball inside to DJ and Blake like they usually do at the start of the game or do they want to run like they did against the Lakers? There was no sense of pace out there.

[Quake Griffin]

Neddy...#3

[mike3]

Edit: didn't realise Neddy basically said the exact same thing with point #3, good that it's so obvious to everyone

Main problem is our coach, it's quite simple (I think) or at least this part, a lot of what we do as a team needs to be decided by our coach. I know how stupidly obvious that sounds but who can argue against me? I don't see VDN changing anything to counter what opposing teams are doing. VDN just seems is cruise control and that rubs off on our players I think, tonight it just looked like all of our guys thought he next guy beside him (mostly Crawford and CP3) will get us back into it, none of our guys really looked to spark a win apart from CP3 and Crawford at times. That can't happen, they need help. I said it earlier, we just looked to crawford to iso and score, it wasn't working but nothing changed. Crawford's great one on one yes but if its not working he can also be great just to spread the floor as a spot up shooter as we have seen.

So frustrating tonight.

Other big point is I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY GRIFFIN AND DJ DON'T DOMINATE THE BOARDS. There the most athletic big man duo in the league, not to mention there leaps are off the chart and there's no reason why they shouldn't be dominating opposing teams. urghhh

[mike3]

Taking a minute too relax and watch these highlights back of tonights game.

Cav's didn't do a lot if anything wrong lol. And we did a hell of a lot wrong and didn't look like ourselves out there. A very good night for Cavaliers and we didn't deserve this one tonight with the way we played.

[Quake Griffin]

i guess it's that athleticism....athletic ppl do tend to think they can just walk up to the rim and jump up for the rebound.

my question is...with all the tip ins in the first half....there wasn't an adjustment.
they didn't realize that they needed to hit first, box out and collect the carrom.


there's no adjustments...there's no response.
only a hope that talent and cp3's clutch ability will win us the game in the 4th.

and he didn't....i watched on live stream...if I'm not mistaken he gave up threes 6 and 7 to waiters.


good luck with our San Antonio goals on Wednesday

[og15]

Cleveland did a good job of sucking in the defense, but part of the problem was that the guards should not have been leaving Waiters on the opposite side of the slasher to help out on a drive. It's one of those things in basketball where people instinctively suck in, but should not do so.

Rebounding is an issue, and while we were all happy in pre-season, just like many other teams with the pre-season play of some guys, I was consistently a little worried about how rebounding would play out. Barnes is the best rebounder on the bench, with Lamar out of shape, etc, so there is no big man rebounder on the bench. Hollins (career 6.6 Rebs / 36) is pretty poor of the glass, and Ronny (career 7.7 rebs / 36) is pretty below average himself.

Ronny has been terrible so far, and Hollins has actually been a monster on the offensive glass.

Offensive positives:
-getting to the line / making FT's at a league best rate
-shooting high percentages

Offensive issues:
-poor offensive rebounding
-terrible turnover percentage

Defensive positives:
-holding opponents to okay percentages
-forcing a good amount of turnovers

Defensive issues:
-66.3 defensive rebound%, 27th in the league so far, which means giving up a lot of offensive rebounds
-fouling a lot just like last year and sending teams to the line, fouling is NOT good defense

The turnover issue is why Chris keeps such a tight control on the ball. When anyone and everyone gets to control the ball, it's not a good thing. I don't want Hollins making lead passes or dribbling, Odom has been awful with turnovers, and the funny thing is that Bledsoe has been okay so far.

DJ, Hollins, Odom and Blake are the turnover machines right now.


__________________________________________________

DJ: 4.8 tov/36, 34.5% TOV, which means that over 1/3 times he gets the ball, he's turning it over, yikes, but the 9 turnover game is affecting things. He averaged 1.3 TPG in the other three games, he's adjusting to being posted up.

Hollins: 4.2 tov/36, 47.0% TOV, he just needs to really take it easy, high turnover rate has been an issue for him through his career 19.6%, but this is obviously an outlier and it's been 4 games

Griffin: 3.9 tov/36, 19.2% TOV, again, an outlier, for his career he has an 11.5% TOV, and was at 10.9% last season, he should be fine.

Odom: 4.4 tov/36, 26.1% TOV. Even in Dallas last season he only had 1.8/36 and an 11.7% TOV, so I don't expect this to last.

Too many guys trying to do too many things. I think as guys settle down, things will be better. I think the team should be selective in running. Some of the big, mainly DJ and Hollins should be careful about trying to thrown long passes to ignite a break. Being so eager to run has affected both the defense and the turnover situation. I'd rather be slow and play good defense and keep turnovers down, than be fast and do the opposite. Running is fine, but let Paul or Bledsoe be the ones making those passes and those decisions.

[mkwest]

I haven't been all that impressed with us at all during the regular season. I hate giving up rebounds. There's some technique involved in getting rebounds, but a lot of it is hustle and desire. What's the point in playing 20-24 seconds of good defense (on those rare occasions) and then allowing them to extend their possession by pulling down the o-board. The Lakers only had 7 offensive rebounds, while the Grizzlies, Warriors and Cavs have had 17, 16, and 18 respectively. The Cavs and Warriors had offensive rebounding rates of 38% . The team wants to run and play uptempo, but you have to get stops to do it successfully.

The other thing we need to do is contest shots. Throughout the first 4 games we've given our opponents far too many open looks. If you're leaving Tony Allen open and daring him to shoot, then I'm not that mad. If it's a guy that has already hit 3 in the game or is a known threat then we need to do a better job of sticking with him and knowing where he is at all times. It's just frustrating.

I'm waiting to see how we respond from Saturday's game. We were destroyed on the boards and that just can't happen. Through the first 3 games, we've been in the bottom 3 for rebounding.

this should be a laugher

As long as it's not a crier.

damn, what do you know...