Can they, but will they? Many here, e.g. Coach K, Chog, recognize Rox are a bad match up for us–very bad–too young, too talented and too bouncy for us. For tomorrow, both teams are rested and Norm should be back strong–if not, we got a bigger problem than the Rox. But having him back together with HCA and prep time will help. We need to at least show that we can compete with those guys. Hitting some shots and limiting TOs will get us there. I’m sure the guys will be motivated to come out strong and with the right mindset.

I don’t know that the bobblehead issue has anything to do with it. It’s an Xmas-themed bobblehead, so the only home game when they could give them away turned out to be the non-Cup game, and they had to wait for that to be set. They made up the “dolls,” or whatever you call them, lots of lead time on that, and obviously they waited as long as possible, not wanting to do it without Kawhi playing.

More significant is this long quiet period, 3 games in 13 days, coming after the jammed November schedule. Without being able to participate in training camp or play in Sept-Oct., it would have been easy to look at things and do the math and say that a good approach would be to skip November, shorten the schedule, and try to play 50 games. The most active Clips all need a good bit rest, but there are plenty of players and lots of gym and practice time now, which would be the steps for Kawhi to come back. The Utah bobblehead night is actually a really good target–the message of delivering Kawhi at Intuit in time for Xmas would be pretty powerful.

It’s extremely interesting to think about what this team could be like and what they might do with Kawhi. That’s a different session for me, and it would be nice to have just a little more evidence that it’s going to happen before spending the time and thought on it.

Right now just expecting that Norm is back tomorrow, and that the rested Clippers can make a better showing against highly competitive Houston than they did in those mid-November games.

If you look at the starting 5 you have 4 elite scorers at their positions: Harden, Norm, Kawhi, Zu. The 5th guy is an interchangeable role player like Mann, Dunn, KPJ, Batum, Coffey who can give you some valuable minutes and impact either the offensive/defensive ends or both. The bench also looks solid.

In the West, the only team that complete is a healthy Denver with Murray at PG, MPJ at SF, Gordon at PF and Jokic at Center. We can argue that Murray has declined a bit, but I’d still put money on them being very good by the time the playoffs come around.

In the East, the only team that complete is Boston, but they’re actually positionless at every role except Center.

Last year’s Knicks team was that complete for the few weeks they had Brunson, DiVincenzo, Randle, Anunoby, Hartenstein together. Had that team stayed healthy they were probably the 1st or 2nd best team in the league. It was either them or Boston. I’d argue this Clipper core 4 is better than that Knicks team.

All this is to say is if we get a healthy Kawhi back, we should be right there with OKC, Dallas, Denver in the 2nd round with a legit shot to make it to the conference finals or finals. I don’t believe in Houston, LAL, Minnesota, Sac or GSW. Based on the high efficiency of Norm/Kawhi/Zu and the gravity of Harden to go with our top ranked defense (no small feat given the modern game) Clips might have those intangibles to make a deep playoff run.