Kawhi is not a “top-5” player. He is, in fact, THE top ONE player in the NBA when healthy. Now, you could complain that he is not healthy often enough. Fair enough. But Kawhi prioritizes the playoffs. And in the playoffs he has been the best player in the NBA for the past 6 or 7 years (when healthy).

Even in the regular season (which Kawhi mostly treats as the preseason), even this year, Kawhi has been arguably the best player in the league since he ramped it up, starting against Boston (and, not coincidentally, Jason Tatum), on December 12. Go ahead and look it up – Kawhi’s numbers since then have been better than they ever were in his MVP level years with San Antonio, and better than anyone in the NBA this year not named Jokic.

This season looks lost because 1) Ty Lue has completely gone off the rails in his rotations. 2) Maybe we are overall a bit old and slow. 3) Ty Lue has completely gone off the rails in his rotations.

Midget ball
Marcus Morris
John Wall

Anyone. And I do mean anyone could have done a better job than TL with this roster. I have no idea if he has simply lost his mind, is in some ego battle with the front office, or has misplaced loyalties. But the job that TL has done with this team is beyond horrible. And frankly, I can’t imagine how anyone considers TL a “player’s coach”. Does a player’s coach literally throw away the best year of his best player?

I read Tomer Azarly’s article on WHY Morris is playing. “He fits” is Lue’s answer. What horse crap. The article seemed to be a puff piece on why it’s such a great idea to play him. While reading it I thought it was written by Lue.

I don’t think Lue wants to coach the Clips. Lue bailed on the Cavaliers when he said he had a headache or something. The Lakers offered him a 3-year contract. Not 5. The Lakers didn’t cave. LeBron didn’t fight for an extra 2 years. Why not? There’s something off with Lue.

I’m happy for Kennard. Lue totally misused him. I don’t think he wanted him and made it difficult for him to succeed. Coffey, Boston, and maybe Preston are wasting away. What is the point of having young players if you aren’t going to play them? I guarantee that if Coffey and Boston were free agents, they would be signed by someone else.

Frank and West have a vision for the Clippers. Lue has fought them all the way.

Lue is just like Doc. Doc had to be brought kicking and screaming to play SGA. It was only due to injuries that he begrudgingly played him.

This year’s debacle starts and ends with Ty Lue.

It’s also another matchup vs a lethal mid-range shooter at the 3 who’s too fast for Morris. And because of the matchup and the spacing that the starters need, I’d either go small here once again, starting Mann as the third guard or – to possibly gain a rebounding edge and because apart from one game he has spaced the floor – start RoCo which has the additional advantage of simplifying rotations and keeping continuity for the second unit.

Either one is fine to me. I’m also rooting for Morris to find his shot again, not against that guy personally one bit. Just think you can’t ignore both performance and matchup and create a lack of accountability as well as frustration, for some bench players, the entire team and the fan base through unnecessary losses.

Zu did a fantastic job vs JV.
Russ stayed attached to CJ as he did to Dame. CJ didn’t take a single shot vs Russ, neither did he blow by and score a ton vs Zu. Second unit was also solid vs CJ.

But how about the major issues?

Trey Murphy was defended for the vast majority of the game by… Eric Gordon. 27.2 possessions. The guys we would want on Murphy in contrast: Kawhi 3.5 possessions. RoCo 5.1. Batum 9.8. Maybe, maybe Morris: 6.7.

Not hard to see what went wrong here, Pels got what they wanted on offense all game long.

Brandon Ingram was mostly guarded by Kawhi, reasonable. Scored 6 points on 5 shots with 1 assist. The team could live with that. So what went wrong?

BI scored 10 points vs Zu on 6 shots. 2 vs Plumlee on 1 shot. Had another two assists vs Plumlee. This tells me his primary defenders got blown by a lot more so the bigs had to step up and the paint got exposed. Further confirmed by a ton of assists that Ingram had. I would have to re-watch the game but my feeling is that Morris was on Ingram a lot, especially at the start of the game. And it never made sense and killed them, in addition to having Eric Gordon on Trey Murphy smh.

A third factor: Kawhi spend 12.9 possessions guarding Herb Jones. Why? Was the idea that he can be a free safety that way? Looks like a waste when Ingram and Murphy go off. Covington spent as much time on Marshall as on Murphy. Again, why?

Fourth factor: Plumlee did well vs Nance but kinda struggled vs JV.

Fifth: Josh Richardson. My guess is Bones was his primary defender. That didn’t work great either. Bones was solid vs CJ though.

Don’t know whether switches or on-ball defense is more to blame here. Fact is the Pels couldn’t have asked for a lot more mismatches, they got exactly what they wanted on offense.

And finally: Kawhi faced mostly Herb Jones, secondly Ingram, third Marshall, NOT the mismatches we were looking for.

Also: Naz Reid looks better than Rudy Gobert, six 1sts for Reid? 😉

Nonetheless, it is moot. Luke is on the Griz, and we’ll need to defend him and the rest of his new team.

About the Griz, about these really fast point guards that we have trouble slowing down, would it just be easier to make sure that we have Zu and Plums to patrol the paint, even if means that Ja to get his 30+ points, but make sure that Bane, Kennard and their other players do not kill us with 25+.

Is doubling Ja worth it?

One player is not enough, but if you get two more to score 20+, that is tough to beat.