Game 60: Houston Rockets (42-19) @ Los Angeles Clippers (36-23) - 10:30 PM ET

[nickhx2]

well, the switches worked quite well earlier in the season and contributed to our top tier defense. the problem i think was that we started to over do it, and i think when the team began to first fall off that had a lot to do with it.

if the team can get some good film sessions in and figure out when to switch/stay then we'll be in pretty good shape.

[QRich3]

Yeah it's clear they're way too switch happy nowadays, and teams exploit that. What's the point of putting Luc on Harden if he knows he'll get him off at the first screen attempt.

[Roscoe Sheed]

The switches were bad and made worse by the fact that the bigs didn't really even try to move their feet to stay with Harden. Even Rivers got blown by on one occasion. They played with very poor effort last night. Very disappointing.

[og15]

This was what I was noticing early in the season. They wanted to add the ability to switch, which is great, but then they just became so lazy about even attempting to fight through screens or stay with their man and just started switching, all the time.

Last year their consistent defense and their defense that ranked in the top 3 in Drtg for the last 60+ games did not do that much switching. They pulled the big into the paint on the pick and roll and had the primary defender fight through.

I get that they wanted to be more formidable against the Warriors and switching seemed to be the go to thing for everyone, but you can't plan your night to night team defense on a strategy for guarding the Warriors that one could argue could be as successful as it could fail, and even becomes different in effectiveness now that they have Durant.

[mkwest]

The Spurs are now within 2 games of the Warriors in the loss column (3 back overall). Clippers/Jazz are 5 behind the Rockets in loss column (Clippers are back 6 overall). Memphis and OKC aren't far behind.

[og15]

The Spurs are now within 2 games of the Warriors in the loss column (3 back overall). Clippers/Jazz are 5 behind the Rockets in loss column (Clippers are back 6 overall). Memphis and OKC aren't far behind.

It's possible that the loss of Durant will hurt the Warriors enough on defense and without them having enough time to adjust that the Spurs could overtake them. This would put the Clippers in a position where being 4th is not as bad as the Clippers do match up much better with SA, but the Clippers need to start playing a lot better than they have recently.