I like what he brings: solid bench scoring.

But … when he drives to the hoop, he rarely looks for other players to dish to when his drive is defended well. So he loses some good scoring opportunities.

That’s the one area I’d like to see him improve.

The way I’m looking at him now is as a decent filler for the Norm Powell 23-24 role, when the core of the team was Kawhi-PG-James, TMann started 71 games, and Norm was coming off the bench. The next year (24-25) PG was gone and there was a question whether Norm could be a starter. Kawhi was still out, slow coming back, and we all remember that Norm was great, showing how he had excellent scoring punch. But he got hurt and dipped in the stretch run and the playoffs. He had a remarkable fast start this season, which came when Kawhi was out again and the Clippers swooned, and looked like dummies for not making him a longterm piece, but Norm’s season has turned out now to be very similar to last year, and he has missed games and dropped off to the same less-stellar level. He’s still very good, of course. But his absence wasn’t the reason the Clips were 6-21–it was Kawhi’s ankle injury.

I focus on Norm because his defense was subpar (Math’s seems to be better at this point), and he didn’t get assists. Math rebounds better, along with getting the nod on defense. Math has shown that getting to the line is one of his primary skills, and he beats Norm on that–and NP was no slouch. His free throw percentage is higher too, which makes a difference. Math has been horrendous on 3s as a Clipper, pushing him to drive (and get fouled), but we have to hope that goes up down the stretch here–he’s 34% career.

The ability of both Math and Jordan Miller to get into the paint is significant. They get fouled more than Norm, but neither of them finishes as well, as quickly and effectively, as he did, or shoots and makes as many 3s. But they both defend and rebound better.
Just a brief overview, with lots of other factors at play.

Once they are both 3 games back with our owning the tie breakers, either would need to go undefeated while we could still afford to drop three. If each takes even one more loss this means we could afford to lose to both San Antonio and OKC and rest all the starters for those last two game. That would be like a week’s rest before the play in game at phoenix.

After Tuesday, the Blazers have AT Spurs and AT Nuggets still, and the Warriors have a b2b against the Spurs/Cavs with Houston and Lakers to follow.

All we should need to do is take care of business against Dallas and Sacramento (both of whom should be sitting guys out by then) and we’re golden for that extra rest. Kawhi won’t want to miss more than 1 game so he can qualify for season awards, but maybe he can play in only one of the last two games to satisfy that requirement.

Whatever the case, we are in great shape to be healthy and well rested heading into the postseason.

BTW, I wouldn’t get overly enthused with the clips beating the also rans. And, from what I see, good 3 ball shooting teams are gonna get us bad unless we turn that part of our game up — are you listening JVG?