Comments on: Clippers 2025 Exit Interviews: Patty Mills

By: Thretch

Thretch — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 19:21:09 +0000

I agree with your assessment of Indy’s interchangeable parts. But to do that, you have to have a strategy and game plan. If you do, then those “interchangeable parts” players know what they need to do when they sub in.

The Clippers can’t do that. Because the game plan is “let the all-stars iso and create points”. Well … Dunn and DJJ can’t do that since they don’t have all-star individual abilities.

By: Oodypkt

Oodypkt — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 04:18:53 +0000

https://www.theringer.com/2025/05/30/nba/nba-playoffs-2025-indiana-pacers-oklahoma-city-thunder-contenders
Good article for spare time.
“It took dozens of moves, spanning nearly a decade, for the Pacers to assemble the group that now sits one win shy of the Finals. One trait arguably encapsulates it all.
“Patience,” said veteran player agent Todd Ramasar, who represents Siakam and Nembhard, and who has a longstanding relationship with Pritchard and Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan. “Patience. That’s the lesson.”
Good bits from them.

By: dhpat

dhpat — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 03:26:12 +0000

Also move on from Ty Lue. Let Ty go to a team of vets. We need another coach that is going to develop young players into great players.

By: dhpat

dhpat — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 03:21:38 +0000

We have great defense, but we fall into iso sets with our top two players.

How to do a culture change with two HOF players?

To adapt, we will need to move on from the Kawhi experiment. It failed.

We should rebuild.

By: Jpo805

Jpo805 — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:06:31 +0000

Speaking of Indy … I think the FO should look to acquire Matherin. He’s on the last year of his rookie deal & I don’t think Indy is going to want to pay him when they have other Wing options.

By: chogokin

chogokin — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 19:58:25 +0000

I mean…are the Celtics sending over a Paul George’s haul worth of 1st rounders to make up for Jrue’s age, injury concerns, and contract?

By: JCplusULTRA

JCplusULTRA — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 18:31:46 +0000

The 3 games vs OKC CP3 played this season say otherwise.

By: khyber jones

khyber jones — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 18:25:32 +0000

I’d give him a look.

By: khyber jones

khyber jones — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 18:24:19 +0000

A lot will depend on decisions of other teams to free up players. Indiana, for example, might re-sign Turner, but then might have to move Obi Toppin go, or vice versa. Similar scenarios exist for several teams. There will be PFs out there to address the need. The question is whether management will actually go out and address the need.

By: khyber jones

khyber jones — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 17:08:31 +0000

Congrats to the Pacers. If it wasn’t clear last season, this season definitely marks a changing of the guard in the NBA and also the approach to putting together winning franchises.

You need deeper, playable rosters more than you need a big 3 or 4 of A-1 guys at the top of the rotation. I wouldn’t call either Siakam or Halliburton top tier players in the league, for example. In OKC, SGA is that guy, but no one else on that team is. Today’s game is about using the whole court, aggressive defense, less iso sets, more intentional swinging of the ball, more pushing pace after made or missed shots to create mismatches and more open 3s or dunks/layups.

There is a half court game, at which the Knicks, Denver, Cleveland and LAC were better than the opponents that ended up defeating them, but all 4 lost b/c of pts off turnovers and more possessions generated by aggressive ball pushes from makes or misses. If there’s an analog it’s to the 1980s when the Showtime Lakers gained the upper hand over the Celtics in their decades long rivalry and the general contrast between the styles of the Western Conference and Eastern Conference back then. LAL added pieces to be credible enough in half court sets to keep the margins reasonable, but where the Lakers made their money was in pushing the pace.

The Knicks got better in their series when they expanded their rotation. Thibs’ issue was that he didn’t trust it enough to win a 2nd game in Indiana. He didn’t see players like Hart and Bridges as sufficiently interchangeable with players like McBride, Wright, Shamet. That was his error and it cost them the series.

The Clippers had the right idea at the beginning of last season, going for more depth at the 2/3 and defense, but they messed up the trading deadline trying to align to an idea of a Kawhi anchored team when in reality they would’ve been better off not trading anyone and letting Lue and the staff decide which combos to plug in. I do think a rotation that featured Mann and KPJ would’ve been more effective against Denver than the one we had. When you see Carlisle doing things like not playing Mathurin a lot early but then giving him heavy minutes late, and how he used people like Toppin, Walker, Bryant, Sheppard as interchangeable parts with their starter counterparts it tells us something about the importance of playable depth.