Key to the game, imho, was Reggie. After an early deficit, he got control of the tempo, used his dribble penetration to set up teammates and take advantage of defensive overplays, competed well on defense and made his share of shots. When he went to the bench in Q1, I thought it was a little too early b/c the Clips lost control of the tempo and the lead. When he got back into the game in Q2, he started to lead the half court offense instead of PG and the results were much better. Same in Q3.

Kawhi being on the floor immediately improves the team basketball IQ. He shows good judgment on when to take it to the rim, take the makable midrange or kick it out for the 3. PG doesn’t always have that kind of judgment. One of his biggest contributions was leading Zu with passes while he was on the move to encourage him to score at the rim. Zu got the hint early and showed the type of aggressiveness we needed that made the game a lot of easier.

PG is just a lot better when he plays more as a wing instead of leading the offense as a point forward. He has a lower error rate. PG going coast to coast with his dribble is better often times than PG trying to pass at the top of the key. Him becoming this team’s James Worthy and Kawhi being the Magic Johnson would be a good development. Kawhi just has better basketball IQ while PG has uncommon shot making ability at his size. He’s as unguardable as KD at times.

Norm Powell had a good revenge game. It was a perfect match up for him. No solid #5 for Toronto and the Raptors insist on doubling/tripling Kawhi. Norm can thrive in that situation with that much space and no shot blocker. The Norm-Kennard lineup didn’t work well in the first half. In a 10 minute stint, Powell and Batum got 9 shots before Kennard got even 1, and Luke didn’t have touches on several possessions (ahem, PG. Get you man some touches!). During that stretch, the Clips were -5. Lue figured that out and re-inserted Norm while leaving Luke on the bench in the last few minutes of the first half and the Clips had a nice run to go up by +4.

When Norm/Luke came in again, it was with Kawhi, who got both players multiple touches and it worked a little better. Then Norm just kept calling his own number, but he was revenge game hot so it didn’t matter for today.

In Luke’s case, the team has to both make a conscious effort to run plays for him AND he has to have that Morris like willingness to let the shot go with a hand in the face at times. The latter is what Ty Lue means when he says he has to hunt shots. Shoot in tight spaces. Rise up. Draw contact.

Lue did a good job of coaching to the match up. This rotation might not work vs Boston. We’ll need Luke to get more action early and we’ll need more T-Mann on the floor against players like Smart, Brown etc. That said, the Cs don’t really have great bigs at the 5 so if he gets on the floor with Kawhi/PG, he might get the space to get some buckets. We’ll see.

Well done Clips!