I thought this was more of a Russ game because of the pace that the Blazers were playing with and our overall lack of defense and physicality in Q2/Q3. He came in towards the end of Q3 and helped get us a 6 point lead. Then Ty Lue messed things up by continuing the Harden-Russ lineup and we ended up losing that lead and it became a see saw contest.

I think Lue deserves credit for putting Mann in place of Norm in the latter minutes of Q4. As soon as I saw that, I felt confident that the Clippers could win. Norm was giving up too many fouls, getting into it with the refs and not producing enough offense to justify staying on the court. The defensive intensity picked up and that’s what was needed to get stops and put the Blazers on their heels. T-Mann’s grabbing that pass off the Kawhi steal and powering his way to the rim for 2 FTs was key and it was the type of play that Norm couldn’t make.

The Blazers played well. They made 19 3s and contested us on defense in the 2nd half, forcing us to make 2 to 3 extra passes to get a quality shot. I do think Sharpe and Simons are legit scorers in this league and they hit everything it would seem. Scoot looked much better, like he belonged on the court.

But give the stars credit. Kawhi and PG made important shots throughout the game, and we needed every one of them given how ineffective our defense was for much of this game. We just played very solid defense in the last 5 minutes to win the possession battle and force through enough FGs and FTs to win.

Outside of the last two minutes, I thought Norm played an excellent half. That block was fire!

Bench had a nice inside/out game, found the open man and involved everybody.

However, major issues: our defense sucked. Our on-ball defense and our help defense vs the guards/Sharpe. The Kobe minutes were an issue. Extremely costly and unnecessary fouls. Portland shooting well. Harden dropping off big time in his second stint.

I liked PG’s offensive game, some nice plays, good decisions, versatile.

This is all about better defense without fouling and better ball movement in the second half in my opinion.