Game 46: Clippers (29-16) @ Atlanta (27-19)

[Forte IV]

The Atlanta Hawks were a third seed today. This is the first time Clippers have been able to defeat an elite team (top 3 teams per conference). Clippers are now 1-8.

However, this record can change. If the Hawks drop out of 3rd, Clips will be 0-8 again. Chicago Bulls are at 4th place right now, and have one of their wins that included a Griffin ejection.

Clips are also 2-0 since the scandal broke. If they can win one more game by defeating the Lakers this Friday to make it 3-0, then I can safely say the Clippers are back.

I don't think that's how it works.

[mkwest]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MrMichaelLee/status/692551955521085442[/tweet]
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[Wammy Giveaway]

Unfortunately, this is how it works. Sports analyst prefer talking about a team in terms of a season. Their concern is of strengths, weaknesses, habits, match-ups, and in the case of the Clippers, off-court distractions; and how all those things will carry over into the playoffs.

The only way the 1-8 record stands is if the Hawks maintain the 3rd seed for the rest of the season. If the Bulls reclaim the 3rd seed, Clippers be 0-8 again. It's more an indicator on how the Clippers would fare in the NBA Finals.

For example, if Cavs swept the Clippers, they'll use the 2-0 and say something in the lines of "Cavs have this in the bag." They'll also discuss if the wins were easy or if any grinding was necessary. The grinding part may give the Clippers a bit of a silver lining, if any were to exist. Same with Hawks. Tonight, Clips won on a Hawks mistake. If Clips were to sweep Atlanta, they'll have the "cakewalk" treatment. If the season series is split, they'll say that the teams are even. The devil is in the details.

[thanumba2clippersfan]

I'm glad that we come out on top. I got nervous towards the end. While neither team really played that well we finally got a quality win. This is a good way of ending the road trip.

[BlzMwt]

The Atlanta Hawks were a third seed today. This is the first time Clippers have been able to defeat an elite team (top 3 teams per conference). Clippers are now 1-8.

However, this record can change. If the Hawks drop out of 3rd, Clips will be 0-8 again. Chicago Bulls are at 4th place right now, and have one of their wins that included a Griffin ejection.

Clips are also 2-0 since the scandal broke. If they can win one more game by defeating the Lakers this Friday to make it 3-0, then I can safely say the Clippers are back.

Wammy, if you're going to keep track of these sorts of records, I don't think it makes much sense to have the numbers subject to change. The Clippers beat the Hawks today who are a 3rd seed, whether the Hawks move up or down in the standings is irrelevant to this.

Say if the Thunder had Westbrook AND Durant out in November and December. Clippers beat them 3 times during that stretch. Later on in the season, the Thunder get healthy and come the end of the season, the Thunder are the 2 seed. Would you still count the 3 wins when the Thunder were depleted as part of the record of "Clippers against top 3 seeds"? I don't think it makes much sense.

Context is key. If Clippers beat a team that's in the 1-3 seed at the time, then count it as a win in your record and don't change it. The Clippers beat that team WHILE they were situated in that spot in the standings, which makes some sort of an assumption that they were playing close to or at the level of a 1-3 seed.

Hopefully you get what I mean, kind of hard to illustrate this

[Ranma]

The Atlanta Hawks were a third seed today. This is the first time Clippers have been able to defeat an elite team (top 3 teams per conference). Clippers are now 1-8.

However, this record can change. If the Hawks drop out of 3rd, Clips will be 0-8 again. Chicago Bulls are at 4th place right now, and have one of their wins that included a Griffin ejection.

Clips are also 2-0 since the scandal broke. If they can win one more game by defeating the Lakers this Friday to make it 3-0, then I can safely say the Clippers are back.

Wammy, if you're going to keep track of these sorts of records, I don't think it makes much sense to have the numbers subject to change. The Clippers beat the Hawks today who are a 3rd seed, whether the Hawks move up or down in the standings is irrelevant to this.

Say if the Thunder had Westbrook AND Durant out in November and December. Clippers beat them 3 times during that stretch. Later on in the season, the Thunder get healthy and come the end of the season, the Thunder are the 2 seed. Would you still count the 3 wins when the Thunder were depleted as part of the record of "Clippers against top 3 seeds"? I don't think it makes much sense.

Context is key. If Clippers beat a team that's in the 1-3 seed at the time, then count it as a win in your record and don't change it. The Clippers beat that team WHILE they were situated in that spot in the standings, which makes some sort of an assumption that they were playing close to or at the level of a 1-3 seed.

Hopefully you get what I mean, kind of hard to illustrate this

I totally agree about context, but to be fair to Wammy as he also said as much, NBA observers and talking heads pretty much cite the records after-the-fact. They generally won't say "this is the Clippers' record against the top 3 teams in the Western Conference at the time they played them". Instead, they'll just go with whoever has the top 3 records in the Western Conference at a later date.

Just look and listen to what the media is spewing now in the wake of the Blake Griffen incident. We're getting any and every idiot coming out of the woodwork calling for the Clippers to trade Griffin and citing our record without him while ignoring our mostly creampuff schedule.

[Dynamix]

Not really sure how we managed to get this win, but I'll gladly take it. Now let's stay focused and take care of the Lakers, prefferably with a blowout.

[QRich3]

What a weird two games man. Love that we're winning b2b on an East road trip against two solid teams in that way, playing solid defense. Luc is the sh*t and although it looked like Millsap missed a gimme, JJ played really solid defense on him on that switch at the end.

On the other end it was a weird game too, one of those where Jamal's shots are going in and everyone else is cold. The end was silly too, we get one of those rare Redick open shots that teams never give us at the end of games but he misses, then we run a simple Paul/DJ pick'n'roll and its candy.

Love the way the team is responding.

[Quake Griffin]

Guys.

I've been under the gun lately.
Haven't been able to watch much if at all since the new year.

13-3 without Griff?
Doc's a bad coach?
Q-Rich? Thoughts?

[nickhx2]

combination of mostly bad/average teams and the bench stabilizing around the cole aldrich/pablo prigioni pick and roll. cp3 and jj going god mode, pierce actually hitting shots now and starters feeling more comfortable in general with luc in the group.

doc is doing his usual thing, whatever you think that is worth. though, he legit called two horrid games though with the cavs and toronto, the cavs game one in which you would question his sanity. other than his standard lineup gripes he's done what he's needed to do.

[QRich3]

Guys.

I've been under the gun lately.
Haven't been able to watch much if at all since the new year.

13-3 without Griff?
Doc's a bad coach?
Q-Rich? Thoughts?

I mean, we have a good team. Whatever the beehive says we are clearly a top 5 team, maybe more than that. So even without Griffin we are gonna win games, we showed that last year too. And the schedule has been mostly soft, but we've won a few games that would be really hard even with everyone healthy. We've been playing really well on both ends, closing tough games well and getting into a rhythm like we're supposed to at this stage of the season.

Doc is what he always was, I think you put it better than I will on the other Doc thread. He's stubborn, he overplays his guys and sometimes does a thing here and there that you don't understand what he was thinking. But he's a really good coach, not only X's & O's but he usually has a good pulse on what the team needs in certain moments, although most people here can only seem to focus on the bad. He's doing what seemed impossible to this team for half a decade which is being an elite defensive team, since the addition of Luc to the starting line up. It has given a lot of stability to the team, and though we'll have to see if he's playable in the playoffs against elite teams, things are working really well. If this was not a team in LA that people is tired of hearing about, if you put this exact roster in Charlotte or Indiana without the last few postseasons baggage, Doc would be in the COY conversation with this record, I'm sure of that.

All in all, if Blake doesn't come too late and everyone's healthy, we're gonna give a lot more of fight than people think we will.

[og15]

Guys.

I've been under the gun lately.
Haven't been able to watch much if at all since the new year.

13-3 without Griff?
Doc's a bad coach?
Q-Rich? Thoughts?

I mean, we have a good team. Whatever the beehive says we are clearly a top 5 team, maybe more than that. So even without Griffin we are gonna win games, we showed that last year too. And the schedule has been mostly soft, but we've won a few games that would be really hard even with everyone healthy. We've been playing really well on both ends, closing tough games well and getting into a rhythm like we're supposed to at this stage of the season.

Doc is what he always was, I think you put it better than I will on the other Doc thread. He's stubborn, he overplays his guys and sometimes does a thing here and there that you don't understand what he was thinking. But he's a really good coach, not only X's & O's but he usually has a good pulse on what the team needs in certain moments, although most people here can only seem to focus on the bad. He's doing what seemed impossible to this team for half a decade which is being an elite defensive team, since the addition of Luc to the starting line up. It has given a lot of stability to the team, and though we'll have to see if he's playable in the playoffs against elite teams, things are working really well. If this was not a team in LA that people is tired of hearing about, if you put this exact roster in Charlotte or Indiana without the last few postseasons baggage, Doc would be in the COY conversation with this record, I'm sure of that.

All in all, if Blake doesn't come too late and everyone's healthy, we're gonna give a lot more of fight than people think we will.

Ugh, I hadn't actually thought about this, and you just gave me flashbacks of GS ignoring Tony Allen on offense. Yea, I suppose he could pose a strategic problem in a playoff matchup vs a really good team.

[nickhx2]

it's why you heard me complaining about his lack of offense not too long ago. it was never an issue about wanting a 3 and D player or someone who could give us 15ppg. it was about an elite playoff team like GS or SA gameplanning us to hell via adjustments because you absolutely know they will.

that said we've seen him gradually become more aggressive and throw in some cuts which is nice. but he's gonna have to doing a little more than that in order not to be a really big liability against the best coaches in the league.

[QRich3]

Eh, we are not Memphis though. Blake and Paul can thread passes between a bunch of hands like they always do and JJ and Pierce can still make shots with just a tiny bit of space. DJ can still finish lobs in a crowd, etc. Spacing is important of course, but we're a team that can still thrive on offense when the spacing is not as great. It's what's always made us so great an offense.

We'll see how important it is when the time comes, but I'm not that worried.

[nickhx2]

no, not memphis. but i also don't want to see two of the best defenses in the league go from god mode into super god mode against us because luc is too passive. yes, the team has been excellent with poor spacing but it can definitely still stall out and look unimpressive against certain tactics (spurs 1st round for example until pop inexplicably took kawhi off of jj). imo, the last thing we want to see are stunted possessions with cp3 and crawford having to take awful bailout 3's at the end of the clock, which i think will be an oft-occurring thing by teams aggressively leaving luc wide open.

[QRich3]

Yeah but you're not thinking that having Luc out there also helps a lot in forcing the other team into a lot of those stunted possessions with bail out shots. If you can balance one with another and still have our great 4-man core make the offense stay afloat you can have a chance to beat those elite teams. It's all about balance, I have zero problems to turn the game into an ugly slugfest like in Atlanta the other day if it improves our odds of winning.

[nickhx2]

well that's not true and that's not the scope of my discussion. i'm speaking from just the offensive side of the ball as my concern. the defensive side i'm not really worried about.

certainly it's all about balance but again, we were just speaking about the one aspect anyway. if we're talking about both sides then that's a different discussion, really.

[QRich3]

But there's no sense in discussing only offense and no defense like they're not related. I get the offensive problems of having Luc at the 3, I was the one who brought it up, but you have to balance it with what he improves on the other side or you're missing the big picture, or why he plays.

If the discussion is about being able to play him in the post season against elite teams, all I'm saying is you can get away with it if the defense is good.

Sorry if the "you're not thinking" bit came across as confrontational or anything, that was not the point.

[Ranma]

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