Give Houston credit. They played a good defensive game against Kawhi. Everything was tough. He never got those 3-4-5 possessions in a row where he got shots off and takes the team with him. We had no screener to get the primary defender off him or play PnR. Had no low or high post threat to make Houston pay for overplay. Kawhi was 7/19, so they dropped his shot attempts and it felt like he could never string 2-3 buckets in a row.

The other thing Houston did well is take high elbow area 3s early and make them. Jabari Smith scored 9 points off of those 3 attempts. Tari Eason, Sengun, Durant and even Amen Thompson got into the act. They gave up 4 3s to Reed Sheppard. So despite what looked like scrappy play in live action, LAC was actually pretty sloppy defensively, allowing Houston to shoot 50% from the 3 pt line.

As for the individual players:

Mathurin – commented on him below. Good player, but not a 20M+ per year guy. Needs to work on his off the dribble game to be an effective shot maker/shot creator and a guy who can elevate a team.

Collins – very effective scorer on the downward flight of his hang time. Did what he could to keep the team in the game, including getting 8 rebs, but it’s tough to score inside against Houston.

Dunn – Did a lot of great things on the court but undercut his impact with a lot of bad ball handling decisions on fast break opportunities. He did have 7 assists and 4 steals so one can’t fault the effort, but given his lack of scoring, the team really can’t afford for him to give possessions away.

Lopez – If you want to know why Lue begged Zu to get back on the court early from his ankle injury it was because he didn’t think Lopez would be able to sustain strong play against first units. We saw that today. He has very limited range as a defensive rebounder. 2 rebs in 29 mins. He’s not a screener. You can’t play PnR with him. His shooting often shows more promise than results. Brook Lopez has more 3PAs than rebounds. He currently has more missed 3PAs than actual rebounds.

YKN – Wanted to see more mins. Thought he competed well. I felt like with 24 mins, he would’ve laid a few gloves on Houston, helped Kawhi out with some PnR action and gotten more FTAs or finishes at the rim. With Kawhi being swarmed, Lue really needed to go longer with YKN to establish some threat in the high post and a high screen and roll.

Jordan Miller – Made some mistakes in his decision making, but I liked how he competed. 2/5 from 3 is good. He needs to continue to shoot and get that percentage up to be credible. If he does make 3s at a 40% clip he can be a 15-5-5 player in the league.
He’s going through some growing pains, but as long as he’s competing and figuring out how to get better, I’m good.

Kobe Sanders – Liked some of his takes and looks but he was a rough watch shooting the basketball. Still, 4 assist and 4 rebs against that swarming defense with no threat in the post to throw to isn’t bad.

Isaiah Jackson – Kinda looks like a player? Let’s see more of him vs Houston tomorrow.

Dalano Banton – There wasn’t much not to like in his 5 minutes. Looked productive.

I hope everyone can go tomorrow for the scrimmage if nothing else. I know we were kind of hoping to make that 500 mark for symbolic reasons but we are securely in the 10th seed and if we pull something together can make a serious run at the 7/8.

• Good floor vision and passer.
• High level finisher at the rim on direct drives to the basket
• Willingness to shoot; good attitude on the court.
• Limited handle to create (and make) shots off the bounce in the mid range/3 pt area
• 3 pt shot takes a while to arm and launch
• Midrange shot form looks bad….
• Not a 20M+ year player. Good role player in the 10M-15M range, 18M tops.
• Needs to go into the lab to work on his handle and develop and off the bounce game as a shooter. Go to Kawhi school and learn how it’s done.

Honestly, Kevin Porter Jr. would be a better fit for what LAC needs off that bench than Mathurin.

If you thought of Mathurin as a 6th man scorer in the mold of Jamal Crawford, Lou Will, and Cam Thomas, he isn’t that type of player.

Honestly I’d be a little concerned about this win if I were Houston. If they fancy themselves contenders they shouldn’t be struggling against this version of the Clippers. Ah well, onto the next one.

But yesterday the Nets and Jazz didn’t get the message and foolishly won their games. I thought we were all on the same page about pushing the Pacers out of the cellar and netting a good draft pick for LAC.

Kobe Sanders lost the game with horrid shooting; YCN basically had a bad game; Mathurin’s bad shooting didn’t help–he looks like a lil larger version of KDunn; looks strong and rebounds, passes well — need to see some better shooting; alongside the sculpted Kawhi, Math looks chubby and needs to slim down a bit; looks like he can help the cause.
So IJack is a center? Looks undersized—but looks like a skilled player. Try him out at center? Yeah, baby. Can’t hurt. Brook just hurts us.