I’ve only got a few minutes to recap this one, and frankly I don’t have much to say. I attended the game last night. The Clippers once again sunk into their disturbing habit of playing the first three quarters as if they didn’t matter. Luckily, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin went into beast mode and the Nuggets had no answer for either superstar. Paul and Griffin combined for 63 points on 22-34 shooting. The rest of the Clippers shot 16-52 (30.8%). Mo Williams had a terrible night, shooting 2-16 on a variety of wide open looks.
I’ve said it a million times already. This year’s Clipper team will live by the three and die by the three. Lately, the threes have not been falling, and we’ve seen how ugly the offense becomes. Even Chris Paul scores almost exclusively on long jumpers; when he has an off-night from outside (see: second half Monday against Golden State), the Clippers are at a loss as to how to generate offense. Call me old-fashioned, but my gameplan against last night’s Nuggets would have been to dump it in to Blake in the post on every single possession. Al Harrington simply can’t guard him.
The defensive rotations were also unbelievably bad. Every pick and roll seems to send us into utter chaos, and inevitably leaves one of the opposing players completely unguarded. Also, there is no need to send a triple team at Andre Miller in the post, leaving two shooters wide open.
Quite honestly, this team has not played well since Chauncey went down. The Clips are 5-4 since Billups’ injury, and haven’t had a game in which their offense has looked crisp. The positive takeaway is that they are still able to post a winning record despite not even scratching the surface of their potential.
The Clippers get some much-needed rest this weekend before embarking on a grueling 20-games-in-30-nights stretch in March.
This was a much needed win for the Clippers as they go into the all star break. I have noticed since the addition of K-Mart the defense seems to have picked up a bit, it might be hard to notice at first glance, but when you look at the before/after in regards to K-Mart on the team the difference is easy to see. I think the Clippers have some tools that need to be sharpened, but they have been able to compensate for some of their misfortunes. I am looking forward to the all star game and hopefully I will get to see some Lob City in the sunshine state over the weekend!
The two man game will be Chris Paul and Blake Griffin bringing Lob City into Orlando for the All-Star weekend! It will be great to see Griffin play in the Rising Stars game I am looking forward to watching that. Let’s show our support for Clipper Nation over All-Star break this weekend!