PG was shooting from 3, but they only gave him 2 FTs. The replay announcement said “he did not have control of the ball so it was a loose ball foul”. But he didn’t have control BECAUSE he was fouled going up for the shot. So it doesn’t make sense.

I was at the arena, so maybe I’ll watch the replay.

But a lot of things went poorly:
* After going to Zu early, that just disappeared after Q1. He was dominant and the best thing the Clips had going.
* Could have taken more advantage of Portlands bigs. Moses Brown does not cover the PnR well; they needed to draw him out from under the basket and either feed the roll man or a cutter. But they never did.
* That string of fouls in Q2, yeech. I think at half time Portland had 17 FTS to LA’s 3. If you discount the 6 FTs on intentional fouls in the last minute, it was still very unbalanced.
*Way too many open 3 pt shots for them. Kept getting sucked into the same misdirection play.

Fix any of one or two those things and it’s an easy win.

Third time this season LAC underperformed against a depleted roster. That’s not acceptable. Think about how rested they could have been against SAC tonight!

Isos. All isos all the time.

Seriously though, I’m not gonna complain too much about a win, especially after how awful things looked during that long losing streak. Any win is a good win.

Re-watched the game late last night. Our defense started falling off in a major way with about 4 mins left in Q1. Our offensive efficiency somewhat obscured how bad we were defensively. Just gave up way too many wide open corner 3s and high elbow 3s to get the Blazers going to the point where they were making a lot of tough shots in the 2nd half. We really didn’t get it back defensively until the last 5 minutes of Q4.

It felt like a Russ game to me as I was watching it in real time because of the pace that the Blazers play with and our overall lack of physicality for much of the game. Russ came in midway through Q3 and did a good job attacking the rim, grabbing loose balls and outrunning the Blazers to help get us up to a 6 point working margin. Then, Lue made a mistake by sticking with the Harden-Russ lineup for about 4 mins in Q4 and we lost the momentum and it became a see saw game. Lue, imho, missed an opportunity to drive that lead up to double digits early in Q4 and killed the vibe.

My view is if Russ is playing well in his 2nd half segment, just keep him on the floor with Harden on the bench until it’s closing time at the 5 min mark. There was no reason to play Harden 37 minutes and Russ only 16 when the feel of the game was more suited to Russ. The balance of minutes should’ve been closer to Harden 30-32; Russ 18-20, with no more than a 1-2 min Russ/Harden overlap (preferably none).

I thought Lue made the right move with under 3 min to get T-Mann in the game and sit Norm. Norm wasn’t effective in Q4, got a tech, and couldn’t give us the defensive pressure we needed. With Mann on the floor, the defense tightened up right away as his willingness to chase folks closed down the Blazers ability to look for that corner 3 as he forced them inside and then he made that very important push off a Kawhi steal to get the 2 FTs to get us a 1 point lead late.

Kawhi and PG are elite offensive players who are thriving in the System. Zu has been phenomenal, not just with the finishing and defense, but also as a high screen setter. He’s getting Kawhi more open for the mid range game with the way he catches the ball, takes a dribble to create more room for Kawhi to curl on the screen, wiping out the screener and positioning himself on the roll.

We got to 34 3PAs yesterday. Blazers made 19 3s. If they had made closer to their average, the game would’ve been a blowout.

I think the Clips will be fine in terms of energy for the Sac game tonight. The Portland game was not a physically taxing game. It was a lot of cardio and a good rhythm shooting. No one can stop Fox, but if T-Mann can chase him around we might be able to make the Kings stagnate a bit offensively. The key is containing Sabonis. Zu did a good job with that last game. I don’t think Sac is going to be able to stop Kawhi/PG. This is a game where Harden has to have a higher usage rate in order to control tempo. Fox is probably going to blow past him so he needs to be active offensively to win that match up.

This 4 game streak includes a revenge game against and ok warriors team where we eeked out a win in a close game, a well played game against a mostly healthy defending champ where we played our best and pulled out a strong win, a game where we mostly stomped an inferior team on the road and a game where we were messed around a bunch, but made sure we didn’t lose to one of the worst teams in the league.

It would be great to be crushing everyone on a nightly basis, but that wouldn’t help this team develop character, something this team has been lacking for its entire existence.

More than anything, I’m super excited that we’ve had 17 straight games of Harden/Kawhi/PG playing together. That alone makes this seasons very watchable as a clippers fan, even when the basketball itself isn’t pretty.

We are efficient at DHOs – but we simply don’t run them. What we run are Isos, pick’n’rolls and we get out in transition.

–> this is yet another game where we should adjust to the matchup, yet another game where Zu should take center-stage (especially because he’s been terrific lately and the drop-off should Sabonis get in foul trouble is steep), an occasional DHO could provide a nice offensive boost and yet another matchup where sticking to a lot of isolations could get us in trouble. And because they run so many DHOs, help defense, pursuing plays and active hands (fortunately a strength) are extremely important