A radical tactical change

[janmagn]

So, I was watching Clippers-Pelicans game, and I fell in love with Luc Mbah a Moute. Now that Blake is out, and we are winning games, the Finnish commentator came up with a interesting idea: why not put Blake to Lance Stephenson's Pacers role, where he starts but plays with the 2nd unit. That way Blake would have more room inside, when DeAndre isn't there, and he could use his great athleticism even more. Your thoughts?

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[nickhx2]

i think it's an idea worth trying out, as blake gets a little more time to use the full width of his game. it'd take some creative minute shuffling, but i think it'd be worth it if it worked because it plays to certain strengths and it takes pierce and crawford away from each other a bit.

[QRich3]

You don't do it cause starting a top 10 player from the bench is only gonna create discomfort and ego problems. But Pierce does play a lot better surrounded by Luc and DJ, and Blake does usually drag the bench to playing well as a unit. The alternate solution is to still start Blake but subbing him out early in the 1st and 3rd quarters and play Pierce with the starters a bunch, then sub Blake + the bench at the end of the 1st and 3rd.

Downside to that, as always talked about when trying to stagger Paul/Blake's minutes, is the starting 5 is gonna be less elite than it currently is if you're playing less time with both of them together.

[janmagn]

The alternate solution is to still start Blake but subbing him out early in the 1st and 3rd quarters and play Pierce with the starters a bunch, then sub Blake + the bench at the end of the 1st and 3rd.

That's excatly how the Pacers played Lance. I think atleast worth to try, now that this lineup is playing great

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[QRich3]

Yeah it's definitely worth a try, but it does have some downside. Maybe the starters without Blake can't keep up with teams like the Warriors or the Thunder and then you have your bench playing better but now it's the starters who get into a hole that the bench has to dig us out of, instead of the opposite that happens now. And now you have another ball handler in a bench unit where nearly everyone is a ball stopper. Still, worth trying it to find out.

[nickhx2]

is the early 1st/3rd thing what miami did with lebron/wade/bosh?

[madmaxmedia]

I think if Blake plays better with a certain unit then you make all THOSE guys starters, and move everyone else to 2nd unit.

[og15]

It's something we've suggested before in terms of staggering the lineups, and it is something worth trying out. Like QRich mentioned while it might be benficial in some situations, it might not be so great in some others.

Right now:

CP/Blake 30.2 mpg
Blake/DJ 29.1 mpg
CP/Blake/DJ 27.3 mpg
CP/Redick/Blake 25.7 mpg
CP/Redick/Blake/DJ 24.1 mpg

Blake - 34.9 mpg
CP - 32.3 mpg
DJ - 33.1 mpg

7 games, 104 minutes, competition has not been the greatest, but

CP/Redick/Luc/Pierce/DJ: 118.5 Ortg / 96.3 Drtg

So the goal here becomes how to still keep CP/Redick/Blake/DJ on the court together for 24 mpg, but then seperate CP/Blake for their extra 6 mpg. Not sure if that is truly feasible if you are still trying to maintain those 4 guys on the court together for half the game.

The main 4:

1st Q - 8.1 mpg
2nd Q - 5.2 mpg
3rd Q - 7.3 mpg
4th Q - 5.0 mpg

Blake/CP:

1st Q - 9.0 mpg
2nd Q - 6.6 mpg
3rd Q - 8.6 mpg
4th Q - 6.8 mpg

Addition won't be exactly accurate because they haven't played together in every single quarter of every game they played together. Foul trouble and people getting ejected and such.

Okay, so what bench unit could you use to maximize Blake? I think I would want to leave Pablo with the bench unit because he's done some good things in organizing that unit, and he's the one that you can count on to make sure Blake gets the ball. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to run a unit where Blake is the C, so that means I'd want to keep Aldrich. That not makes things difficult. If we're looking for a lineup to space around Blake, then we're talking about something like:

Pablo/Rivers/Crawford/Johnson/Griffin

if we want to leave that shot blocking and rebounding help, then we're looking at:

Pablo/Rivers/Crawford/Griffin/Aldrich

Not sure I love that second lineup, but I also wouldn't really want to take out Pablo and have Rivers attempting to play PG again. I don't know, what do you guys think?

[og15]

I think if Blake plays better with a certain unit then you make all THOSE guys starters, and move everyone else to 2nd unit.

Well that unit would end up being the current starters

[QRich3]

Yeah once you get to actually think the specifics of those line ups it's not as easy as it seemed, good work og.

Playing Blake with Aldrich wouldn't be the best fit, but with the way Cole's been playing, you have to find some minutes for him. Luc and Pierce should play as many minutes together as possible, and the most you can pair them with DJ the better. Wes is obviously gonna be a staple with any bench line up, since he's the only guy other than Crawford who can space the floor somewhat, and you definitely have to play Pablo cause Rivers/Crawford at PG is a mess. I guess letting Blake be the playmaker kind of mitigates that, but does anyone here trust Jamal and Austin to properly get Blake the ball so he can initiate sets?

The key thing here is how much do you wanna improve the bench minutes as opposed to devaluing the starting line up, and I get the sense that Doc thinks most benches around the league can't really score that well, hence why he's always liked small ball line ups for the bench. And I would mostly agree with him for the most part, but that notion is meaningless if you trot the kind of putridness we've been bringing from the bench in the last few years. Most teams in Europe would probably have their bench compete with that.

Also, apologies to janmagn , I only now realized that what I said is exactly what you suggested in the OP, and I took it as starting Blake from the bench.

[nickhx2]

i think i'd love to consolidate crawford + 1 into someone better and give our team a bit more flexibility.

[nickhx2]

Part of the reason I like blake with the 2nd unit is that he should ostensibly be able to do the small ball thing there more effectively than anywhere else, without getting killed by opposing backup bigs.

But as stated, cole's been playing well so what the heck do you do there? I wouldn't have a problem with phasing cole out if doc was more selective with when he uses SB, but i think by now we've seen he's gonna do it, no matter how vulnerable the team might be. I also think the team's on to something as of late with wes playing well as a SB PF, and if we can keep seeing him more often there I think it's definitely worth experimenting with. Then again, why screw with the cole/pablo thing when it's been a very real and very good thing for us?

It's all tough because there's so many factors pushing and pulling. IMO the easiest thing for us to do is to consolidate crawford + 1 and go from there.

[og15]

In terms of thinking about overall minutes:

1st Q
Paul/Redick/(Luc and Johnson)/Blake/DJ - 5 mins
Paul/Redick/(Luc and Johnson)/Pierce/DJ - 3 mins
Bench unit + Blake - 4 mins

2nd Q
Bench unit no Blake - 2 mins
Paul/Crawford/(Luc and Johnson)/Pierce/Aldrich - 2 mins
Paul/Redick/(Luc and Johnson)/Blake/DJ - 5 mins
Bench unit + Blake + DJ - 3 mins

1st Half: Starters (10 mins), Blake (17 mins), DJ (16 mins), CP (15 mins), Redick (13 mins), Bench without Blake (2 mins)

3rd Q
Paul/Redick/(Luc and Johnson)/Blake/DJ - 6 mins
Paul/Redick/(Luc and Johnson)/Pierce/DJ - 3 mins
Bench unit + no Blake - 2 mins
Bench unit + Blake - 2 mins

4th Q
Bench unit + Blake - 4 mins
Paul/Crawford/(Luc and Johnson)/Pierce/DJ - 3 mins
Paul/Redick/(Luc and Johnson)/Blake/DJ - 5 mins

2nd Half: Starters (11 mins), Blake (17 mins), DJ (17 mins), CP (17 mins), Redick (14 mins), (Bench without Blake (2 mins)

Total: Starters (21 mins), Blake (34 mins), DJ (33 mins), CP (32 mins), Redick (27 mins), Blake with bench (13 mins), Bench without Blake (4 mins)

The biggest hit is not so much in the minutes the main 4 starters are playing together (here they are down only 3 mpg), it is in the minutes that CP/Blake are playing together. They go from about 30 mpg to 20 mpg, that's a huge difference. If we believe that is workable, since they are more aggressive as scorers when the other isn't on the floor, then maybe it is a possible strategy, but if you're currently having your two best players on the floor together for 30 mpg, do you want to decrease that to 20 mpg? If the team had a more dynamic PG / combo guard type player on the bench, then there's some logic to doing it. With Austin and Crawford though, it's not really as enticing.

It's a tough call really...

Of course we can also look at it and say CP is at 32 mins, Blake is at 34 mins, even Redick is <30 mins, and while we don't want him playing 39-40 mpg like last post-season, he can play 30-32 mins, and we can add some minutes to them, and yea, for sure, and in the post-season you would be looking to do that.

[nickhx2]

definitely it's a tough call. and it'd take many regular season games to find out if that 10 minute difference is greater than or less than the effect of blake staggered with the bench unit. but as you said, we've seen in the regular season and in the playoffs that they've performed beyond expectation when one or the other is hurt. i think it's something the team should definitely explore.

[Captain Ballmer]

We will need Blake more than what we think we do now for rest of the season. Those 8 winning streak we have without him looks very indulding by all means but I can't say we won those games because we played like a true contander. Lets take a quick look who we played.

Won vs. Utah - No Favors-Gobert (practically half of them) and no Burks for second half. Not a great team yet anyway.
Won vs. Wizards - No Beal-Nene-Neal (very bad team) not a playoff team on that tough east conf.
Won vs. Hornets(2) - No Al Jeff-Lin-MKG (Started fall from the climb, have 8th losing streak that continuing. Lin played the second game but not Batum on that)
Won vs. Pelicans(2) - very bad lottery team! won aganist Davisless Pelicans on OT!
Won vs. Philly - easy win aganist DLeauge level team. It's out of the equation.
Won vs. Portland - No McCollum and Lillard's first game coming from injury. Probably the best valuable winning among them.

Those teams even with their healthiest squads are barely good teams and only Utah Jazz has a logical chance to make PO. The worst 10 teams in the league right now.

I'm not gonna lie I was so happy for each win.But the way we win those games sparks the idea that without Griffin we have no real choice the compete for any 7 game series aganist western Playoff teams. We should't fool ourselves that Pierce-Austin-Redick-Cole will be a monster like they did the last 2 weeks upon Dallas-Memphis or Houston in the first round of playoffs.

Last 2 weeks we played smart, hard, grit. We moved the ball, keep run on the floor, and make good decision on execution plays(Thanks for Point God)but those all happened because it's aganist the teams that lets us to execute them. When the rivals comes upon our doors we gonna need much more talent from that the create games disrupt the defenses and find execution shots. I'm not even mentioning those teams we beat screwed on offence how many times due to lack of their talent the close out those games(Utah-2nd Pelicans-1st Hornets). For all who watched games, no need for stats, you know on the eye-test we need so more what we do that games to reach the Finals.

[Wammy Giveaway]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/686623666109595649[/tweet]

An excerpt...

Throughout the winning streak, the Clippers have won nine games in a row against zero teams that are presently .500 or better. Every single win the team has racked up during this stretch has come against bad competition, and against teams that were missing several important players, as well. Besides the streak’s opening win against the hilariously putrid Los Angeles Lakers, the other teams that the Clippers have beaten are: the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets (twice), New Orleans Pelicans (twice), Philadelphia 76ers, and Portland Trail Blazers. The best current winning percentage out of that group is a tie between Charlotte and Utah, with each sporting a .459 mark. These are some bad teams; teams the Clippers should beat even with Blake Griffin sidelined.
The hallmark of a great team is, well, beating other great teams.

On top of that, these teams have been without good players when the Clippers have beaten them. When Los Angeles defeated Utah, the Jazz were without both Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors. That’s one of the best frontcourts in basketball. Neither played. Against Washington, the Wizards were missing Bradley Beal, Nene, and a host of other players. Those aren’t insignificant losses. When they played the Hornets, Jeremy Lin, Al Jefferson, and Spencer Hawes – as well as Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, but he’s been injured for the entire season – were unavailable for Charlotte. Against the Trail Blazers in Portland, there was a mistake made by the Portland coaching staff that made C.J. McCollum ineligible to play. That’s hardly the Clippers’ fault, but still a fortunate stroke of luck there. In the second Charlotte meeting, Al Jefferson and Nicolas Batum were out. In the second New Orleans matchup, All-NBA player Anthony Davis was sidelined. In the stretch of nine wins, there were only three times the team played an opponent without their competition missing a highly important player: against the Lakers (second worst record), against the 76ers (worst record), and the first matchup with the Pelicans (fourth worst record). That’s it.

[DLaren]

So the argument against bringing Blake off-the-bench is that we haven't beaten a good team during this 9-game winning streak with Blake out...

Noted.

I'd counter by saying that even when Blake was healthy and in the starting line-up we still hadn't beaten a good team. Go look, Blake was there for every contender we played against...and we lost.

I'm on board with Blake coming off-the-bench for 15-20 games when he gets back so we can see what that looks like. If we keep winning at a high clip with Blake coming off-the-bench, then that should be his permanent role; even if that means he's not on the floor at the end of games...I don't really care about his ego or feelings -- he'll get over it when we're playing in the Western Conference Finals.

[og15]

^The suggestion isn't to bring Blake off the bench, it is to stagger his minutes to that he's playing something like I suggested, which is about 20 mpg with the starters and about 14 mpg with mainly bench players.

[LACtdom]

I've always been for staggering our stars minutes. Previously, I wanted to stagger DJ since our bench was so weak defensively. I think Doc will have to play it by ear and see what the other team is doing instead of having a preset rotation in mind. If we're versing a team like GSW then it's most likely that we will need Blake with the starters to be as strong as possible. However we've all noticed that sometimes our bench lacks offense. Having Blake take advantage of the lesser-talented bench big he would be up against could provide us with a more consistent offense at least for 8 - 10 minutes per game.Obviously Blake has to start and finish with the starters but there is room to work during the middle especially if for instance, JJ is knocking down shots and Blake is getting less touches anyway.

[Neddy]

huh, should have seen this thread first before making my post in trade thread.