Injuries could alter this of course but right now that’s what the landscape looks like and it’s not very heartening.

I expect several of our guys to bounce back against the Spurs and give a spirited effort. But not sure there’s much we can do to improve our lot for this postseason. Just too many warts across the roster.

I’ll settle for a +500 winning record, Kawhi making 65 games and All NBA accolades, and no major injuries to wrap things up. Everything will come down to May 10th thereafter.

Ben had a bad game. It happens. Not concerned at all.

We will get them next time.

Defensively, we weren’t willing to put Kawhi on Deni (probably b/c of Kawhi’s wrist injury but also it just doesn’t make practical sense in trying to keep him healthy), and Deni destroyed everyone in front of him. He’s Luka level strong and no one could keep him from getting to his spots. He matched Kawhi offensively.

Lopez made an adjustment to attack the rim more and got some buckets, but what we really needed was for Lopez to be down low and another wing up to be the outlet who could take advantage of the overplay and attack it. That would’ve been Mathurin, Collins, Sanders or Miller, imho. Lue did make some adjustments there, but Mathurin had a poor game. Miller had a really strong game, and I think LAC fans should be really encouraged by what we appear to have with him. Sanders should’ve played in this game. He has real size and strength and can handle his business offensively. I think we should be playing the young guns more. If Miller, Sanders and Christie had played real minutes, I think this could’ve been a 2 possession game going into the last 5 mins and LAC would’ve had a chance to win.

We still probably would’ve lost this game because LAC was very thin at the center position with no IJax or YKN. Still, it really isn’t surprising that we lost this game in retrospect. We’ve not been a good rebounding team since Zu was traded and we don’t have a #5 who commands double teams. We’re a fun team to watch, but not a team that one can picture making a deep playoff run barring injury advantage.

For the remaining games: just get Kawhi’s wrist healthy and play the young guns. If we have a chance in the play in and to make Round 1 respectable, it will be because of big minutes played by Miller/Sanders (and also Christie).

On the positive side, I thought Collins was great (along with Miller).

On the negative side, Garland got too easily rattled and passed up a lot of dribble pull up 3s b/c he heard footsteps. James would’ve welcomed the contact, drawn fouls and got shots up until the defenders were too timid to try that crap on him again. Garland was due for a bad game, but it’s how easily he was forced off his spots that is something that he needs to study up on. He took 8 3PAs. I want him taking 12-14. We know if he gets that many up, he’s going to make 6-8. That’s another 6-12 points in a game we lost by 10.

Kawhi was 0-5 from the 3 pt line and that impacted the game as well. His wrist doesn’t look right and they need to take care with that. Had he made 2 or 3 3PAs it’s a different game.

Still, getting out-rebounded by 18, which seems generous given how badly they got abused on the boards.

Shout out to Scoot Henderson who looked like a completely different player to me. He has a real bag and can play off the ball.