On the bright side, Diabate was a revelation. Props to Lue for playing him. Norm, Nico, Reggie, Dan Craig’s strat on Simons!!!

Norm Powell made me want to pull my hair out in the first half with his bad shots and turnovers that seemed to lead to Blazer 3s and layups at the other end. But then, when he got space after Billups took Nurkic out of the game (really Chauncey, you let Powell get hot and stay hot that long and didn’t recognize it was because there were no big bodies in the middle to slow Norm down?), Norm lit the Moda Center on fire. When he’s playing in space and there are no physical bigs in the area, he can get white hot and just rain buckets.

I don’t really like Ty Lue’s obsession with small ball, but the reason it worked today is because Billups made several bad moves to go small when the Clips couldn’t handle Nurkic, and I have to grudgingly agree with Lue’s implicit assessment that Zu was not winning his matchup with Nurkic, and Diabate’s few minutes against Nurk provided a change of pace that somewhat neutralized the big guy. I still can’t believe the Clips won a small ball game with Terance Mann not really being on the floor in the key stretch.

Diabate provided that burst of athletic presence in a big frame that helped the Clips win a lot of possessions and allowed the guards to play up a bit more on Simons and Grant (who began to tire after shooting the lights out). I think he might have earned the backup center job. He may be a near perfect fit for Ty Lue’s small ball tendencies.

At the end of the day, Reggie and Norm took 39 shots tonight as compared to the Denver game when they each took less than 10. That’s really the difference in the game. Both can have some ragged stretches but the more aggressive they are, the more shots they take, the more the defense is put into scramble mode and the Clips start generating 2nd shots, put backs, and spacing for assists. For example, Batum only made 1 shot but that was a huge late 3 in Q4 after Reggie drove into the paint, lost and regained control of the ball, caused the defense to collapse and scramble and then hit Batum in rhythm for a makable 3. When Reggie’s/Norm’s shots start falling it has a big multiplier effect on overall offensive output.