Comments on: Finding Positives in a Subpar Clippers’ Start to 2022 Season

By: Taiji Miyagawa

Taiji Miyagawa — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 02:21:06 +0000

Cole, thanks for making note of Nard’s improved defense ala LouWill’s improvement in that facet of the game. It has been pretty noticeable.

By: Robert Flom

Robert Flom — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 20:34:23 +0000

I think there have been other issues outside of poor shooting (Zu hasn’t been great, and Winslow and Bledsoe have struggled in larger areas as well), but that is a big part of it.

By: Robert Flom

Robert Flom — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 20:33:35 +0000

Nic is unreal for sure. And I agree with you on the swap still needing to be made.

By: osamu6238

osamu6238 — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 09:37:33 +0000

Basically the “poor start” to the season has been shots not falling, but I do think that’s completely correctable and not that surprising for what still is a pretty small sample size. Damien Lillard and James Harden are off to some of the worst starts in their careers, but do you see anyone writing them off yet? Shots might not fall over a 4 or 5 game sample size. If the offense wasn’t generating good shots, or the defense was a sieve, I think I would be far more worried.

I guess if you wanted to be negative, you could worry guys like Nico and Reggie could regress to their career averages, as the last year was their best shooting seasons of their careers. But Nico is one of the few guys that has been solid all year, and after last night is back to shooting basically the same percentage as last season. All reports have been that Reggie has shots the lights out of the ball all off-season. There’s no reason to doubt him now.

Losing a 40% shooter in PatBev for what Bledsoe has shown us so far isn’t great, but I think Bled still will come around and would still surprise me if PatBev plays like 80% of the games in a season.

By: mlslaw1

mlslaw1 — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 02:29:23 +0000

“As long as this team plays loose’
Should be “as long as this team makes shots” they can win a lot of games

By: chogokin

chogokin — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 23:46:54 +0000

The Wolves are very talented so I’m not going to freak out if they get us tomorrow night in game 2.

Yea, at this early stage of the season it's less about win-loss record than about how the team actually looks. Like sure, I'll take the OKC win and all, but if the the Clips continued to look like....whatever the hell that was supposed to be, then I would be concerned going forward. I feel like 15-20 games worth is probably when we'll actually have a good sample size to celebrate/worry over.

By: John Maclean

John Maclean — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 22:08:28 +0000

I’d rather have Bled struggle now than later in the season. It’s got to be a bit of pressure coming into this situation after Pat. He’ll eventually come up to the mean with his shooting. As long as this team plays loose they can win a lot of games. Terrence is finally going to that mini-Dirk midrange drive/pullup which is great to see from him rather than just running around flinging up random shots. The Wolves are very talented so I’m not going to freak out if they get us tomorrow night in game 2. It’s just nice to see this team’s firepower return for once.

By: chogokin

chogokin — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 20:11:30 +0000

Lue stuck to his gut and saw that the process of the offense was a good one despite the end result. No starting lineup changes were made and neither were any drastically noticeable gameplan changes.

For what it's worth I still think we need to end the Reggie/Bledsoe pairing - Reggie/Mann and Bledsoe/Luke just make so much more sense to me. But then again, wouldn't be the first time Lue and the Clips have proven me wrong. Also one additional positive takeaway I have from these first few games - holy hell am I glad we were able re-sign Nic Batum. Can we swap his minimum deal w/ Justise's contract? Dude has done all the glue-guy stuff you could ever want (i.e. timely 3's, ball movement, rebounding, etc.) and has arguably been the best defender for us this season. I hope the Clips find a way to re-sign him to a feels-good-for-everybody Reggie-type of deal next offseason.