Game 7: Los Angeles Clippers (4-2) @ Phoenix Suns (5-1) l Sunday l 6:00pm l FSNAZ

[Slim Charless]

Are they both dating Kardashians?

We havent had a rivalry in 10 years, I'd love to elevate the stakes against a contender to have games like this.

George too? I know Booker is smashing Kendall. Don't know about PG13

Really?

One of them. Whichever one that hasn't had a kid yet.

[Hesh]

2:27 to go in the 4th, Suns down by 7 and needed a bucket. CP trusted his big man and he didn't disappoint, converts on the play and makes it a 5 point game. Clippers take a time out. I was surprised with the confidence CP had in Ayton, especially at a moment like this one and that Ayton took the challenge and ran with it. Wow! A minute later Ayton gets a huge board and scores again, making it a 3 point game with 1:37 left on the clock.

That was just ONE of the things that stood out in this game. So many positive takeaways from this game and it was really fun to watch. I was happy to see us down in the first (though not in the fashion in how it took place), because I wanted to see if this team could pull themselves out from under and claw their way back to a win against a top tier team. They got so close.

[Bogyo]

Game title: regression to the mean. Book did, opposing 3pt% did,Ayton did (again! great job!) our bench did, heck, even our FT differential did, altough it did not help much this game.
I never thought we were better team than the Clippers, although I think we could go 7 games against them in a PO series.
Fought back nice, nothing to be ashamed of - especially taking our schedule into consideration.

I'd rather have these games against the really good teams, who could beat us anyways than have a Charlotte or OKC catch fire against us and shoot 60% from 3 and beat us. Those come back to bite you in the äss seeding time, when there will be a 1 game difference between the 3rd and the 5th place in the west. These (loss against one of the best team in the NBA) are "expected".

Shrug, learn from some of the mistakes, take pride in some of the things done right, move on.

[Saberestar]

This one was the first game against a true contender (to me those are LA, Nets, Bucks and Clippers) and we showed that we are there with them.

We could have win this game, no doubt about it. Batum and Ibaka scored a couple of threes in a big momentum.

Booker played a monster game. He gave his all on the court and played the full second half. He is fearless and supermegahypertalented.

It was nice to see him in front of PG when he talked **** to Cam Payne.

PG is a ****, and you know that he in the playoffs will not play like yesterday AT ALL.

Nice game again from Ayton. Very good finishing everything around the rim and he created a couple of times. Really happy with his last two performances.

I loved CP3 defense. He is tough as nails.

We will see against the Raptors. They are worse than last season, but solid team yet. We need to win

[Mulhollanddrive]

Starting unit has been slow to start games, would like Chris Paul to get a wriggle on with improving our ball movement and shot quality to open games, was still very stagnant at the point of attack.

11-20 5:24 left in Q1 - Clippers
14-21 5:36 left in Q1 - Denver
15-19 2:39 left in Q1 - Utah
14-18 6:06 left in Q1 - New Orleans
12-18 5:15 left in Q1 - Sacramento
2-15 8:18 left in Q1 - Sacramento

Paul George made shots against: Booker 5, Ayton 4, Johnson 2, Paul 1, Crowder 1, Galloway 1, Carter 1.

On the plus side Bridges (with some Crowder) locked up Leonard.

First sighting of the 2 PG lineup with Paul and Payne in the 4th given Carter and Galloway went -19 each in the 1st half.

Best takeaway for us apart from the resiliance of the comeback was our big 3 scoring 64 points on 37 FGAs and 21 FTAs.

[Revived]

This was a really good L. The team they showed they can hang with a team like the Clippers, who at full health, are one of the favorites to win it all.

Ayton showed some good stuff that he hasn't showed all pre season or reg season thus far. I thought he had some bad luck because George kept isoing him and drilling 3s on Ayton's head even though Ayton was actually in good position and contested the 3s very well.

Glad to see Booker play 45 mins in this game. He is working himself back into shape and needs all the mins he can get to get back in rhythm.

Not winning this game is in a way really good too in the sense that the players are gonna know that they can't just afford to get into a huge deficit in the 1st qtr and then expect to climb back from it for a W. It's not a good habit to have and the players will know now that they can't do that. Of course if this becomes a trend then it's a different story but a game like this every now and then is to be expected and all 30 teams in the league will have it.

Just glad that we came out it without any injuries.

[King4Day]

Watch on YouTube

[DroughtsOverPHX]

What is worse: Falling 31 points behind or blowing a 31 point lead? I'd feel worse about blowing the lead.

Ayton had 6 put backs that Amare would have dunked. I'm caring less about that all the time. He was aggressive going after the board and he finished. I'll take that all day long.

[Fo-Real]

Clippers have devastating wing defense and are a top notch team in this league. Better than we are. I liked what I saw out of this game tonight from everyone for the most part. Cam Johnson or Mikal hit a couple of those wide open 3s and we win this game despite being down 31. Good to see Booker play the whole second half, I like that Monty went all in like that.

We can be good playing a .5 offense, but we’re probably better when Booker is an aggressive scorer/playmaker and the offense around him runs .5. That’s what we’ll need in the playoffs. We got somewhat of a preview of that tonight but the shots didn’t fall. Lots to be positive about as a fan after this game.

Yeah, in crunch time late in the 4th, the Clips line-up was Beverly, Kawhi, George, Batum, and Ibaka. That is a defensive death lineup. We had a slow start while they were on fire, we had several guys have off nights shooting in Bridges, Crowder, Cam until the late 3rd and we still came back and made it a contest. They played well and got the win fair and square, no crazy ref calls or anything. Good game, who's next?!

[King4Day]

What is worse: Falling 31 points behind or blowing a 31 point lead? I'd feel worse about blowing the lead.

Ayton had 6 put backs that Amare would have dunked. I'm caring less about that all the time. He was aggressive going after the board and he finished. I'll take that all day long.

Blowing the lead is worst IMO. Mainly because of how they got there. They were making everything (our D did struggle early on) and we missed everything. including our open shots.
I don't care how early it is, when you are up 31, you keep your foot on the throat but we didn't let them. The fact Booker could have tied it with that 3 attempt with around 30 seconds left tells you something.
Batum and Kennard made big shots for them but outside of George, the Clips didn't have much going on.

[King4Day]

My biggest negative from this game is that they constantly switched Ayton on George and he scored at will. His defense wasn't terrible but this is the first time I can recall us having to take out DA because he was being exposed like that.

[Bogyo]

Also: our first game where we lost the 2nd quarter. Shows how important and how good the bench was this year so far.
Suns win 2nd quarter has been my go-to bet since the begining of the season, if anyone asked.

[bwgood77]

My biggest negative from this game is that they constantly switched Ayton on George and he scored at will. His defense wasn't terrible but this is the first time I can recall us having to take out DA because he was being exposed like that.

He was scoring on everyone. Ayton didn't play bad defense on him, but Paul was just making tough shots. Same happened with whoever was guarding him. Ayton can get that length on him though but I didn't think anything was exposed..no one did better on him. Some shots may fall despite good D and others may not all despite bad D. No one shoots perfectly even if open. Look at Cam starting 0-5...those were all wide open shots, but you can't say his defender did a great job

[King4Day]

My biggest negative from this game is that they constantly switched Ayton on George and he scored at will. His defense wasn't terrible but this is the first time I can recall us having to take out DA because he was being exposed like that.

He was scoring on everyone. Ayton didn't play bad defense on him, but Paul was just making tough shots. Same happened with whoever was guarding him. Ayton can get that length on him though but I didn't think anything was exposed..no one did better on him. Some shots may fall despite good D and others may not all despite bad D. No one shoots perfectly even if open. Look at Cam starting 0-5...those were all wide open shots, but you can't say his defender did a great job

I'm curious what made Monty take him out in favor of Crowder then. Maybe so they'd stop picking on him. Who knows

[Jdiddy701]

My biggest negative from this game is that they constantly switched Ayton on George and he scored at will. His defense wasn't terrible but this is the first time I can recall us having to take out DA because he was being exposed like that.

I thought the opposite.. Ayton can switch on smaller players and guard them very well without fouling. Paul George was making unbelievable shots.


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[bwgood77]

My biggest negative from this game is that they constantly switched Ayton on George and he scored at will. His defense wasn't terrible but this is the first time I can recall us having to take out DA because he was being exposed like that.

He was scoring on everyone. Ayton didn't play bad defense on him, but Paul was just making tough shots. Same happened with whoever was guarding him. Ayton can get that length on him though but I didn't think anything was exposed..no one did better on him. Some shots may fall despite good D and others may not all despite bad D. No one shoots perfectly even if open. Look at Cam starting 0-5...those were all wide open shots, but you can't say his defender did a great job

I'm curious what made Monty take him out in favor of Crowder then. Maybe so they'd stop picking on him. Who knows

More foul trouble. Jae could be a bit more aggressive and body him up a little more risking a foul.

[dremill24]

My biggest negative from this game is that they constantly switched Ayton on George and he scored at will. His defense wasn't terrible but this is the first time I can recall us having to take out DA because he was being exposed like that.

He was scoring on everyone. Ayton didn't play bad defense on him, but Paul was just making tough shots. Same happened with whoever was guarding him. Ayton can get that length on him though but I didn't think anything was exposed..no one did better on him. Some shots may fall despite good D and others may not all despite bad D. No one shoots perfectly even if open. Look at Cam starting 0-5...those were all wide open shots, but you can't say his defender did a great job

I'm curious what made Monty take him out in favor of Crowder then. Maybe so they'd stop picking on him. Who knows

If youre referring to Ayton, i believe the instance youre referencing was when Ayton picked up a 5th foul.

[Jarlaxle0204]

Booker was a +14 in 45 minutes played. We were -19 in the 3 minutes he was off the floor. lol

[King4Day]

He was scoring on everyone. Ayton didn't play bad defense on him, but Paul was just making tough shots. Same happened with whoever was guarding him. Ayton can get that length on him though but I didn't think anything was exposed..no one did better on him. Some shots may fall despite good D and others may not all despite bad D. No one shoots perfectly even if open. Look at Cam starting 0-5...those were all wide open shots, but you can't say his defender did a great job

I'm curious what made Monty take him out in favor of Crowder then. Maybe so they'd stop picking on him. Who knows

More foul trouble. Jae could be a bit more aggressive and body him up a little more risking a foul.

That's right! I forgot he had I think 4 fouls and eventually 5 during that stretch.

If I recall, EJ made it sound like they took him out to go small for a better matchup with George. This makes me feel better

[lilfishi22]

My biggest negative from this game is that they constantly switched Ayton on George and he scored at will. His defense wasn't terrible but this is the first time I can recall us having to take out DA because he was being exposed like that.

It wasn't because we couldn't play DA out there, it was because DA got into foul trouble