Comments on: Clippers vs. Pelicans Game Preview

By: John Maclean

John Maclean — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 06:17:50 +0000

A few weeks ago I mentioned the possibility that Kawhi might find a way out of this season. I won’t fault him a bit if that’s how this injury manifests. This shit show is so beneath his greatness. Both he and PG are injured because they’ve been forcing things to compensate for the desperate position this idiot coach has placed them in. Infuriating.

By: WhyNotTyler

WhyNotTyler — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:56:05 +0000

Tough to get those results. Both Utah and Portland are tanking. Pacers kind of. Charlotte beating Dallas wouldn’t shock me right now otoh. Minny got KAT back. What Chicago does on any given night is a mystery to me

By: WhyNotTyler

WhyNotTyler — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:53:02 +0000

5.9% usage rate for Morris. Which translates to: a non-factor on offense, in a game where Kawhi was doubled all the time and struggled against it.

Worst defensive rebounding percentage, worst rebounding percentage. A mere 6.2% turnover percentage for opponents. His primary matchup cooking him 4 times in the first two minutes of the game and ending up with an efficient 32 and 13 assists, generating more than 60 points of offensive production efficiently.

Was it all Morris’ fault? No, others lost shooters too and messed up on either end. But Morris clearly was dragging down both the offense and defense of teammates in this matchup with this performance, the same can’t be said for the other starters. And yet he was the LAST guy to be subbed, are you blind, coach or just trying to prove a non-existent point? Guess the latter.

Curious how his matchup data looks. Any data that sheds a direct light on Murphy’s 3-point shooting, how open his shots were and who the closest defender was?

By: John Maclean

John Maclean — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:51:33 +0000

Too late for said changes. It’s so easy for some to pick at the low hanging fruit of Russ or Bones or whoever but when coach fails produce a stable foundation then that rattles through the team and guys come into the game trying too hard and forcing things and this is the result. Kawhi’s variance is of some concern too. How could the guy we saw Thursday be this hideous two days later? Harkens back to that abysmal performance against Denver in the bubble. This is star player that needs the table to be set for him. He’s not LeBron or Magic or Steph. Ty is dumbest most overrated coach I’ve ever seen. All the smoke about him wanting out is cover for the fact that his ass is on the line. God I hope Ballmer fires him.

By: khyber jones

khyber jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:45:24 +0000

Assuming that the goal is to protect a top 6 seeding, I think the Clippers would like the following outcomes from Sunday’s and Monday’s games:

Sunday 3/26

Charlotte over Dallas
Chicago over LAL
Portland over OKC
GSW over Minnesota – This one is tough b/c we’ll drop to #6 if GSW wins, but I don’t think we can afford for another team to get above .500 that has a tiebreaker over us. I think we would benefit more from GSW winning that game and dropping Minnesota to 37-38.

Monday 3/27

Indiana over Dallas
Utah over Phoenix
Portland over New Orleans
Sacramento over Minnesota
LAC over Chicago.

Tuesday 3/28

Charlotte over OKC
GSW over N.O.

By: WhyNotTyler

WhyNotTyler — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:24:56 +0000

Yes. I don’t think Morris is per se a bad fit and Lue is not a bad coach at all. But Morris has to be played situationally, according to matchup. In addition to that – like every player – his minutes have to be distributed based on both performance and fit. Same goes for RoCo. Other decisions are at least debatable, what he’s doing with Morris and Covington isn’t. Lue is killing the positives of his coaching in the matchups where Morris IS a bad fit and in the games where he plays heavy minutes but can’t fulfil one of his two main responsibilities: being a floor-spacer. Even more so when we have non-shooting bigs, Russ on the court AND Paul George out which necessitates additional shooting and scoring punch to replace that, neither of which Morris is providing right now.

WHO is the replacement in those games is also situational. Tonight, Batum would have been a good call on offense, solid on defense. Mann would have been the call defensively and possibly as a floor-spacer. RoCo if you play him on Murphy and switch Kawhi onto Ingram. I don’t think Bones works with the starters defensively but it was possible to try that vs a guy like Ingram. It’s not that Lue had absolutely no alternatives or just one possible option he didn’t choose, he decided against all of them.

By: khyber jones

khyber jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:04:13 +0000

It took a lot of audacity for Ty Lue to make those comments in a puff piece defending his coaching decision to keep playing Morris heavy minutes. But he won’t claim responsibility for any of it. If Management is interested in winning this year, they should make a bold move and tell him that he must change course now and if he’s non-responsive in such a meeting, fire him on the spot; or, just fire him now.

By: Jpo805

Jpo805 — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:02:55 +0000

Space is key … the clips wouldn’t have had so many turnovers tonite if they had better spacing in the starting unit. I don’t care what Westbrook’s stats were tonite but he was bad.

By: khyber jones

khyber jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:02:33 +0000

Folks should not overcomplicate the analysis of this game. This is all about Ty Lue
s decision to start Marcus Morris at PF and watch while other teams cook him. N.O. got up to an 8-0 lead b/c they cooked Morris on 3 plays and then caught him not running back on defense. They didn’t look back. Morris can’t provide spacing for Kawhi when he’s on the floor. He took 1 shot in the first half and scored 3 points and got 2 Rebs in 22 mins. When the 2nd unit came in and got the lead down to the 7-10 point range, Lue put Morris in at the #5 and we lost momentum and ended up down double digits.

Roco did more in 2 mins than Morris did the whole game.

This whole season comes down to Ty Lue’s choice of lineups. It’s not more complicated than that. Tough to see how that changes unless management and Ballmer tell him he’ll be fired if he doesn’t make adjustments.

By: Jpo805

Jpo805 — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 05:00:55 +0000

Amen Brother