As a glass half full person, I’ll focus on the positives first:

The defense was actually really good in the first 2 quarters. They met the physical challenge. They had intelligent traps of the 2 bigs. They played Alvarado well and created a number of turnovers when he didn’t have the ball in his hand. Zu handled Zion pretty well. I counted only 2 uncontested 3s in the first 18 min or so of the game. Offensively, Reggie got guys involved. I saw Norm Powell start to figure things out. Initially, he was taking it at Zion, Valanciuanas and anyone who looked a half a foot taller than him, and he wasn’t finishing. Then he hit a mid range, a 3, and suddenly he saw passing angles. It was a much better effort from him. Reggie’s groin is getting better. He looked good moving. His 3 pt shot was flat, but his mid range was good.

Now for the negative: turnovers and uncontested 3s. Zion started getting a deeper spot in the paint and was wearing folks out. When he jumps it feels like he swallows up everyone around him. You just see him rising like a Marvel Superhero and everyone else disappears. He’s also a clever passer and got a lot of open shots for folks. Game plan should’ve been to let him be guarded 1 v1 but to force his starting point further from the block. They should’ve focused on crowding CJ’s space and getting out to shooters. They played CJ for the drive and he was more than happy to step back and knock stuff down. The Clips didn’t really look to be in great physical shape, as they were half hearted running out to guard 3s.

In addition, although 14 turnovers is not as awful as the OKC games, it seemed like every turnover was buzzkill, killing a rally or opportunities for the team to get into rhythm. Just very untimely.

Ultimately though, this comes down to Paul George. He let NOP off the hook on mismatches by settling for jump shots. When he drove, he was diving and putting up weak, high degree of difficulty layups, missed many of them, then dove on the floor to draw a foul and the refs ignored him. He just has to be better. He’s got to get 25-30 a night every game. I don’t see that mentality in him yet (other than the Sac game).

I do think the team is learning the hard way what it takes to win basketball games at this level. I did see incremental improvement, but they are far from a good team right now. I also think they need a 2nd big (Hartenstein, please come back!), and need more athleticism to guard the corner 3, trap guys at the wing and create more turnovers.

Glad PG13 is taking accountability here, but I’d be happier if we actually saw some on-court results.