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Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM

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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#41 » by esqtvd » Fri Nov 8, 2019 6:24 am

UKClipperfan wrote: if u give us a tough b2b against 2 strong playoff teams then u obviously choose the 1 thats in ur conference for better seeding



good point

head-to-head as well
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#42 » by esqtvd » Fri Nov 8, 2019 7:02 am

UKClipperfan wrote:wow beverley balls of steel to play that kind of D with 5 fouls


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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#43 » by esqtvd » Fri Nov 8, 2019 7:10 am

LAST ADD ["D" edition]:

The Kawhi Effect


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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#44 » by Akklaim1 » Fri Nov 8, 2019 9:14 am

I just love Lou Williams. So clutch. Not only is he a beast off the bench but he makes me feel young lol. I was born in June 1987 so he's the only Clipper that I'm younger than. Bruhhh I remember when I started to feel old at 18 when we drafted Yaroslav Korolev (also born in 1987) in 2005 lol
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#45 » by QRich3 » Fri Nov 8, 2019 11:00 am

We got a bit lucky at the end there, but good end to the game. Attacking Whiteside in the p'n'r at the end there was key, he just gives you free floaters and 12 feet open jumpers all night long. When Stotts subbed him out I got nervous, but then Lou hit a timely three right as I was yelling at him for taking that bad a shot lol

We got away with a win but there are several things that worry me about this team.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#46 » by Yogatti » Fri Nov 8, 2019 5:10 pm

QRich3 wrote:
We got away with a win but there are several things that worry me about this team.


Like what?
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#47 » by clipperlover » Fri Nov 8, 2019 5:16 pm

Really bad 3rd quarter defensively, but holding Portland to 101 pts on 104 shots is pretty sound. Clips didn't shoot great, but took 89 shots. Maybe the old school uniforms with that horrible court design just threw people off.

Portland can't be felling too good. They needed a career game from a bench player in the 4th to not get blown out while also needing Lillard in McCollum to play 38+ minutes. Clips didn't have a single player over 33.5 minutes. Imagine what happens when PG starts playing.

In the 3rd, Kawhi looked like he was doing self-imposed load management. Exerting little effort on either end. It is like he knows he can turn it on at any time he wants. Would much rather see him turn it on in the 3rd and rest for the night in the 4th. Saving up to do it all in the 4th can allow a team to hang around and surprise you. Kawhi's foul on Whiteside that created the and1 to tie the game with 1:16 to go was disappointing to see. We scored on our previous 5 possessions, so giving up just the 2 allows us to go back up 3 with a made basket.

People may have overlooked the last 13 seconds, but PB was battling with Dame on the FT, then goes down on the other end and lays Dame out. The guy just battles.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#48 » by clipperlover » Fri Nov 8, 2019 5:18 pm

Yogatti wrote:
QRich3 wrote:
We got away with a win but there are several things that worry me about this team.


Like what?


They display a body language that they can just turn it on whenever they want. Overconfidence can come back to bite you.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#49 » by nickhx2 » Fri Nov 8, 2019 5:27 pm

kawhi had a minor awkward fall and it looked to me like he was feeling it still. so not surprised he had a bad time for most of the game. imo he's just not as healthy as presented and the NBA notice is consistent with that.

I also have a lot of concerns about this team and I'm sure George's return addresses a lot, but not all.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#50 » by Akklaim1 » Fri Nov 8, 2019 5:51 pm

Okay, if we have a throwback jersey night, why don't we change the court design for that night? The Jazz do it all the time so that the jerseys and court match each other.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#51 » by madmaxmedia » Fri Nov 8, 2019 6:14 pm

esqtvd wrote:
UKClipperfan wrote: if u give us a tough b2b against 2 strong playoff teams then u obviously choose the 1 thats in ur conference for better seeding


good point

head-to-head as well


I didn't think of that myself, needed someone from the UK to break it down. :lol:
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#52 » by madmaxmedia » Fri Nov 8, 2019 6:16 pm

nickhx2 wrote:kawhi had a minor awkward fall and it looked to me like he was feeling it still. so not surprised he had a bad time for most of the game. imo he's just not as healthy as presented and the NBA notice is consistent with that.

I also have a lot of concerns about this team and I'm sure George's return addresses a lot, but not all.


I guess it's gonna be, will our strengths with George outweigh the weak spots against the better teams in the playoffs?

I do think Jerry West and our FO will make a couple of smaller tweaks during the season, he seems to always surprise us in a good way.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#53 » by nickhx2 » Fri Nov 8, 2019 7:46 pm

madmaxmedia wrote:
nickhx2 wrote:kawhi had a minor awkward fall and it looked to me like he was feeling it still. so not surprised he had a bad time for most of the game. imo he's just not as healthy as presented and the NBA notice is consistent with that.

I also have a lot of concerns about this team and I'm sure George's return addresses a lot, but not all.


I guess it's gonna be, will our strengths with George outweigh the weak spots against the better teams in the playoffs?

I do think Jerry West and our FO will make a couple of smaller tweaks during the season, he seems to always surprise us in a good way.


yeah, but i think that's how it's always been, and prob what most of us expected at least.

basically my issues are our inconsistent perimeter defense, play at the 4-spot, and scoring when kawhi is off. and so it makes sense that pg fixes basically all of that, but currently just watching game to game? it feels really tenuous until kawhi takes over and the team pulls away. and that's not the hallmark of a great team. a great team is the one that showed up on opening night. a great team obliterates opponents in the third and makes you start thinking about the next game.

i expect george to get patterson out of the lineup (big shift for obvious reasons), and that should hopefully have a domino effect on offense with guys feeling much less of a burden to score, kawhi included. and guys like jmg/harkless, who've been spotty from game to game, i hope will also pick up just by virtue of having less pressure to make things happen off the bench.

additionally, you can tell the team's a bit all over the place on defense, and pg's return should fix a lot of that just by having guys in the right places. but that won't fix shamet from dying on screens, or lou williams from standing still staring blankly at them, and those are things that are pretty important.

so my concern is that the team's just so, so dependent on this one guy to fix everything, but i guess that's just how it goes when a top 10 player is out of the lineup.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#54 » by madmaxmedia » Fri Nov 8, 2019 10:28 pm

Yeah I see a lot of the same things you do. Obviously our expectations are a lot higher than last year, so perhaps the strengths of last year don't seem as strong this year, and the okay aspects seem more like weaknesses now.

Shamet has gotten off to a slow start this year, I was probably expecting progress from last season and it hasn't happened yet. Then take away Danilo and and Shai from the first unit, and it's not surprising we can be very dependent on Kawhi right now.

I mean the big deal was that we landed BOTH Kawhi and PG, 2 of the best 2-way players in the NBA. Had we say only signed Kawhi, then we'd still have Danilo and SGA to at least give us more offense.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#55 » by nickhx2 » Fri Nov 8, 2019 11:52 pm

agree. sometimes i wonder what this team would be like with gallo and sga in tow. would be super, duper solid, especially with how well sga's been playing his second year.

but i guess at the end of the day, kawhi understood that superstars raise your ceiling more than really good players.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#56 » by esqtvd » Sat Nov 9, 2019 1:31 am

an even awesomer angle

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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#57 » by QRich3 » Sat Nov 9, 2019 12:09 pm

Yogatti wrote:
QRich3 wrote:
We got away with a win but there are several things that worry me about this team.


Like what?

Stuff that’s fixable but I don’t see it going in the right direction, everything about our defense, except a play here and there where one guy plays individual defense, just expecting Kawhi and Lou to create all of our offense out of nothing, not getting the role players more involved in the offense so they’re more engaged on the other side, etc

It’s very early and we don’t have our full squad yet, but there’s a few things that point to be a problem all season long imo
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#58 » by esqtvd » Sat Nov 9, 2019 9:21 pm

QRich3 wrote:
Yogatti wrote:
QRich3 wrote:
We got away with a win but there are several things that worry me about this team.


Like what?

Stuff that’s fixable but I don’t see it going in the right direction, everything about our defense, except a play here and there where one guy plays individual defense, just expecting Kawhi and Lou to create all of our offense out of nothing, not getting the role players more involved in the offense so they’re more engaged on the other side, etc

It’s very early and we don’t have our full squad yet, but there’s a few things that point to be a problem all season long imo




Shamet as 3rd scorer will help a lot. Out of 9 games, Shamet had 3 lousy games, which is why his stats suck, but 2 of them were losses without Kawhi. [The third was the win against the Spurs.] Shamet had a good game against the Bucks [also without Kawhi] and we almost pulled it out.

https://www.espn.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/3914044/landry-shamet


Except for a 20-point game, Pat Bev has been brutal on offense. But scuffled early last year too. By the playoffs, he was incredible.

10 ppg, 43%/43%, 8 rebs 4.7 apg


You have to think PG on the floor is going to make life a lot easier for both of them.
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Re: Game 9: Portland Trail Blazers (3-4) @ Los Angeles Clippers (5-3) - 10:30 PM 

Post#59 » by nickhx2 » Sat Nov 9, 2019 9:30 pm

QRich3 wrote:
Yogatti wrote:
QRich3 wrote:
We got away with a win but there are several things that worry me about this team.


Like what?

Stuff that’s fixable but I don’t see it going in the right direction, everything about our defense, except a play here and there where one guy plays individual defense, just expecting Kawhi and Lou to create all of our offense out of nothing, not getting the role players more involved in the offense so they’re more engaged on the other side, etc

It’s very early and we don’t have our full squad yet, but there’s a few things that point to be a problem all season long imo


my whole concern is that the team relying on one guy to be the magic elixir for all the team's woes is just way too much to ask, no matter how good he is.

ideally:
- he sends patterson to the end of the bench
- creates better spacing in every single lineup as the best 3pt shooter on the team
- which opens up lanes for kawhi/harrell/lou/zubac
- becomes the key defensive cog on the team which gets all the other guys in the right spots
- improves the defense so much that the team just generates a lot more deflections and turnovers which help to amp up guys like jmg/harkless/mcg
- gives us a legit guy to carry the offense when kawhi's on the bench and lou/harrell aren't bringing it

i mean, those are the main things to me but yeah, i feel like that's just a lot to worry about.

iguess we'll see how it all works out, all we can really do.

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