Game 42: Los Angeles (27-14) vs. Cleveland (29-11)

[nickhx2]

see, i knew you were a shot doctor

[nickhx2]

glad doc finally pulled deandre "i'll try shooting better as a last resort" jordan when opposing team started hacking.

[og15]

This was not a good game for so much small ball and trying to play through hack a DJ. I don't know Doc...

[TheNewEra]

Came in to state the obvious Doc was beyond brutal tonight. His stubborn nature not using Josh and every other small against love was **** stupid.

Not putting in your best defenders if your going to stick with DJ through the hack. Why in the hell would you have JJ and Jamal in during a hack with no offense plays.

[LACtdom]

Gotta feel for CP. He did the hard work, even getting Kyrie to pick up early fouls, but our team looked demotivated on defense in the 2nd half.

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/DanWoikeSports/status/690376520557281280[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/690375722561568773[/tweet]

[Wammy Giveaway]

Clippers are now 0-7 against the top 3 seeded teams in each conference (GSW times 2, SAS, OKC, TOR, CLE).

It's panic time.

[Ranma]

Gotta feel for CP. He did the hard work, even getting Kyrie to pick up early fouls, but our team looked demotivated on defense in the 2nd half.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/vineydelnegro/status/690376735028805633[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/690377001077739520[/tweet]

[mattd13]

I can not believe that playing jamal on LeBron is a game winning idea. that is absolutely not nba coaching. I just do not get this idea with his son and jamal. he needs help.

[TheNewEra]

This was a huge ego play by Doc tonight nothing less. He put his ego before the team which isn't rare.

[TheNewEra]

What a deflating game again I understand no Blake but the strategy tonight was horrible.

[nickhx2]

SMALL BALL WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS

doc's famous last words, clippers 2016

[TheNewEra]

It's sad because we have the length and athletes to be a great physical team. We hope for jumpshots to fall and play undersized ball rather than build a identity based off the players we have with our best depth ever.

Docs system should of had serious tweaks during the offseason when adding all the new players. I don't care how high the offense was ranked it got predictable and stagnant against great teams in the playoffs and will again.

[LACtdom]

For me, the most frustrating part in the entire game was watching JR Smith hit back to back 3's off 2nd chance points from MISSED free throws. Someone box out please! I'm sick of getting slaughtered by 2nd chance points. Our defense may be improving but if you give the opposition that many 2nd chance looks they will eventually score.

[og15]

It's sad because we have the length and athletes to be a great physical team. We hope for jumpshots to fall and play undersized ball rather than build a identity based off the players we have with our best depth ever.

Docs system should of had serious tweaks during the offseason when adding all the new players. I don't care how high the offense was ranked it got predictable and stagnant against great teams in the playoffs and will again.

....still not sure the team can defend properly anyways, especially not when going small. Gave up 51/46 today and a lot of offensive boards. Giving up offensive rebounds hurts your defense as we know, and the small ball lineups are just so bad with that, and Cole as one player can't change that. They only grab about 40% of available rebounds as a unit, it's too bad.

There are a few things that need tweaks, certainly, but they really have to re-evaluate small ball as a coaching staff. The offense, well, I can live with it since almost every offense gets stagnant, even the best ones, but this is also if the team could play fairly consistently high level defense which include grabbing defensive boards.

I don't know what the exact plan was tonight, but all those lineups that caused a ton of size mismatches were pretty awful ideas.

Small ball is not for this team. We saw it not working early, work for a little bit with the Pablo/Cole tweak, but back to not working, and the overall is that it is failing. If Doc doesn't like/want Josh, he needs to find another PF to play and scrap small ball and move one of the current guys out of the rotation.

[mattd13]

i understand small ball but Austin, jamal, and jj is insane ball. jamal on LeBron, really. that is insulting to me as a fan. my 8 year old grandson knows better than that. we were watching the game and he said what is he doing. i had no answer. Austin is marginal at best and my grandson can defend better than jamal. come on doc stop this nonsense.

[Dynamix]

i understand small ball but Austin, jamal, and jj is insane ball. jamal on LeBron, really. that is insulting to me as a fan. my 8 year old grandson knows better than that. we were watching the game and he said what is he doing. i had no answer. Austin is marginal at best and my grandson can defend better than jamal. come on doc stop this nonsense.

But does your grandson have suple wrists?

[og15]

i understand small ball but Austin, jamal, and jj is insane ball. jamal on LeBron, really. that is insulting to me as a fan. my 8 year old grandson knows better than that. we were watching the game and he said what is he doing. i had no answer. Austin is marginal at best and my grandson can defend better than jamal. come on doc stop this nonsense.

I know some people think Doc is an idiot because of some of his decisions, but he's far from that, not even close. Doc knows that the value from small ball comes when you get offensive mis-matches and have the ability to play with pace and space and drive and kick and have shooters; then defensively, making up as much of the height disadvantage with length and athleticism. Doc is not unaware of this.

What the situation seems to be is that based on the roster make-up (not excusing him, he helped shape the roster), Doc so far this season has felt that the team needed to have an effective small ball unit to maximize all those players. The problem is that the guys just don't really fit for that. It's a different situation if you built the roster with the plan of playing small ball, but it was more like they built the roster, then they were like "oh crap, we have to play small ball now to give all our best players minutes".

Now, there is some hope. I know Ayres is nothing special, but maybe this is a sign that the team is planning on going big inside. If Ayres can pick things up and is useful, I would like to see them trot out a lineup like this:

Prigioni / Austin / Crawford / Ayres / Aldrich

Ideally I would actually prefer it without Austin and with Johnson instead, but I don't think that will happen, so I'm being realistic.

This lineup doesn't have the same space feel, but you have much better size and they would compete much better on the glass and benefit defensively due to that.

i understand small ball but Austin, jamal, and jj is insane ball. jamal on LeBron, really. that is insulting to me as a fan. my 8 year old grandson knows better than that. we were watching the game and he said what is he doing. i had no answer. Austin is marginal at best and my grandson can defend better than jamal. come on doc stop this nonsense.

But does your grandson have suple wrists?

I want to double and1 this,

[Wammy Giveaway]

I want to double and1 this,

I've donated my And1 to you, OG.