Game 75: Clippers @ Suns

[Calvin Klein]

Not giving Bledsoe max!!!

We deserve what we get. Two blown games in a row.........we ain't ready for prime time. I have accepted that.

here's what i would do in the off season.

1) max out bledsoe
2) dump len
3) fire mcdo (not this season, sadly)
4) trade dragic

[TASTIC]

Ugh that is a TOUGH loss.

Watched the condensed game and that didn't work, so did some manual skipping every so often and god-damn that one is tough to swallow after being up so much.

Honestly, this game feels like a vet team beating up on a young team.

So many mental errors, rushing plays, getting flustered and being mentally beaten by a superior team. Sure, we DID have this game in the bag and should have won all things considered, but there isn't one player that this can be blamed on.

You learn from games like this - whether that's this season or next season, but we're a top 5 (I think) young team, was anyone really expecting us to jump from 20 to 50 this season? I know I didn't - but after their run this year it's going to be hard to think about games like this and realise we had it in the bag and blew it completely, especially with Memphis losing.

But remember we've got this very solid foundation and THREE 1st round picks and loads of capspace, it can only get better.

There's my 2 cents. Dr Phil out/

[spanishninja]

Ugh that is a TOUGH loss.

Watched the condensed game and that didn't work, so did some manual skipping every so often and god-damn that one is tough to swallow after being up so much.

Honestly, this game feels like a vet team beating up on a young team.

So many mental errors, rushing plays, getting flustered and being mentally beaten by a superior team. Sure, we DID have this game in the bag and should have won all things considered, but there isn't one player that this can be blamed on.

You learn from games like this - whether that's this season or next season, but we're a top 5 (I think) young team, was anyone really expecting us to jump from 20 to 50 this season? I know I didn't - but after their run this year it's going to be hard to think about games like this and realise we had it in the bag and blew it completely, especially with Memphis losing.

But remember we've got this very solid foundation and THREE 1st round picks and loads of capspace, it can only get better.

There's my 2 cents. Dr Phil out/

It's another case of us not playing the full 48 minutes. Second and third quarters were solid. You gotta think that in the first quarter when we started out with a 12-6 lead, that if we stayed focused we maybe could have had the jump on them much earlier, maybe make them feel bad for the entire half. But no, we didn't do that And we really need to figure out what the hell happened to Dragic last few days. Did he get drugged in LA? Did Kristen Ledlow threaten to leak their sex tape? This season whenever somebody tried to tell me that Mike Conley or Lillard was better than Dragic, I would be able to point out Goran's consistency, how he never really had a terrible game. Now he lays two in a row for us.

[Wannabe MEP]

Start of the third quarter, the Suns were up 2. Our starters went head-to-head with their starters...and we punched them in the mouth. The Clippers starters are one of the best crews in the league: raw stats say that, but just look at the names. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin is probably the best guard-big combo in the league, and the other starters are no scrubs. Experienced, solid starters, most of whom have been playing together for at least a couple years now, and with one of the top five coaches in the league calling the shots.

Our cobbled cast of upstarts and rejects dominated them.

Ok, so why did we lose? Small-ball. DeAndre Jordan didn't play a minute in the 4th: Griffin was the five. Our defense didn't adapt well to their extra spacing, and they added mobility that disrupted our offense. Dudley in particular threw things out of whack for us. I thought Hornacek adjusted lineups reasonably well, but we don't really have a go-to small-ball lineup that we can rely on. Markieff-Frye is a decent small-ball frontcourt, but the Clips were smaller and quicker than that. We can move Tucker to the 4, but then either Marcus or Green has to play the three, and neither one is the savvy, disruptive defender we need in that role.

I think we're missing one more player for small-ball: either a SF/PF 3&D swingman or an ATHLETIC PF/C (or one of each?). That 4th quarter, we needed:

Bledsoe
Dragic
Tucker
????
Frye/Markieff/Plumlee (depending on the matchup & who the other guy is)

[Revived]

I just rewatched the 3rd QTR and even when we went on our run, the Clippers had WIDE open looks that they missed. Dudley, Collison, Barnes and CP3 were all missing wide open shots.

The Suns were daring them to shoot. What the hell made them think that Clippers players would brick wide open shots even in the 4th QTR?

On the other hand, we hardly had any open looks.

[RunDogGun]

Start of the third quarter, the Suns were up 2. Our starters went head-to-head with their starters...and we punched them in the mouth. The Clippers starters are one of the best crews in the league: raw stats say that, but just look at the names. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin is probably the best guard-big combo in the league, and the other starters are no scrubs. Experienced, solid starters, most of whom have been playing together for at least a couple years now, and with one of the top five coaches in the league calling the shots.

Our cobbled cast of upstarts and rejects dominated them.

Ok, so why did we lose? Small-ball. DeAndre Jordan didn't play a minute in the 4th: Griffin was the five. Our defense didn't adapt well to their extra spacing, and they added mobility that disrupted our offense. Dudley in particular threw things out of whack for us. I thought Hornacek adjusted lineups reasonably well, but we don't really have a go-to small-ball lineup that we can rely on. Markieff-Frye is a decent small-ball frontcourt, but the Clips were smaller and quicker than that. We can move Tucker to the 4, but then either Marcus or Green has to play the three, and neither one is the savvy, disruptive defender we need in that role.

I think we're missing one more player for small-ball: either a SF/PF 3&D swingman or an ATHLETIC PF/C (or one of each?). That 4th quarter, we needed:

Bledsoe
Dragic
Tucker
????
Frye/Markieff/Plumlee (depending on the matchup & who the other guy is)

Good analysis. I also feel we take too many threes in games where we are up by more than seven points. It doesn't happen every time, but still too often. It also hurts us when we go small, because often it is Frye taking those threes and when long rebounds happen on a miss, he is just not fast enough to stop a fast break (similar to the first Nets game).

I still can't believe we blew that lead. We became checkers in that fourth quarter, and couldn't stop them.

[NaturalBuns]

I still think if CP3 doesn't launch that deep 3....
The game turns out different.
You can find reasons to how the clippers got back but they are a good team.

Big clipper fan tonight

[TASTIC]

I still think if CP3 doesn't launch that deep 3....
The game turns out different.
You can find reasons to how the clippers got back but they are a good team.

Big clipper fan tonight

Undoubtedly, he got both balls with that punch

[RunDogGun]

Nice, and they screw us again by losing to Dallas. Dudley has twelve against us, and zero against Dallas.