GAME #42: fLAKERS (22-22) @ LAC (27-14) TUES 1/23—7PM, TNT

[ERClips]

Not comparing him to Mann so this is just about Coffey.
He plays great straight up defense. Excellent on close outs without fouling. Keeps his body straight, moves his feet & active with his hands.
Very rarely almost never makes mistakes. A real asset on this team who can come in and competently replace anyone

[esqtvd]

Not comparing him to Mann so this is just about Coffey.
He plays great straight up defense. Excellent on close outs without fouling. Keeps his body straight, moves his feet & active with his hands.
Very rarely almost never makes mistakes. A real asset on this team who can come in and competently replace anyone

And I've been noting that Ty has been giving Coffey a lot of minutes that could have gone to Mann. Amir isn't quite as good, but Mann has trade value and Coffey really doesn't.

We still need a young athletic PF. Stay tuned.

[Dynamix]

[Kelphus]

I would have liked to see Lebozo play so the win would even be more satisfying. But I'll take it... and about to sleep like a baby knowing the fLakers are below .500 and the Clippers are 1.5 games out of first in the West

[Dynamix]

Read on Twitter

[esqtvd]

TNT crew deserves an Emmy for capturing all of this in real time, not just replay. Cameraman zoomed in, director for switching to the camera.

[PeteyPablo]

Great game. great team win. Kawhi came to play.

Lakers are a good team. I can see their pieces being a factor and I can now see why they made it to the WCF.

They are a playoff team not so much an 82 regular games team.

Westbrook also came to play. Zubac is sorely missed.

Paul George played pretty good but can’t seem to avoid his typical brain fart ( jump in the air and throw the ball to an opponent causing the turnover and a bucket on the other end).

On to the next game.

[MartinToVaught]

Lakers are a good team. I can see their pieces being a factor and I can now see why they made it to the WCF.

They are a playoff team not so much an 82 regular games team.

They're quietly a bad matchup for us this year. I don't know if they'll get their crap together enough to make the playoffs, but I'd like to avoid them if they do.

I also still don't get why everyone insists Ham is such a terrible coach. He clearly overperformed in the playoffs last year and, at least in their games against us this year, he's had a solid defensive gameplan and adjustments. Not sure what I'm missing. I blame their erratic roller-coaster ride performance more on Jeannie Buss and the media than Ham. I didn't think it was Vogel's fault either, it's a tough environment to coach in.

[Clemenza]

No rebounding whatsoever and sloppy as hell in the 2nd half. Still got the win. Good game from Kawhi and Russ and Coffey knocking down a few threes. Need Zu back in the worst way. This game would've been over early with some rebounding, rim protection, and less turnovers (come on PG)

[Clemenza]

double post

[Clemenza]

Not comparing him to Mann so this is just about Coffey.
He plays great straight up defense. Excellent on close outs without fouling. Keeps his body straight, moves his feet & active with his hands.
Very rarely almost never makes mistakes. A real asset on this team who can come in and competently replace anyone

And I've been noting that Ty has been giving Coffey a lot of minutes that could have gone to Mann. Amir isn't quite as good, but Mann has trade value and Coffey really doesn't.

We still need a young athletic PF. Stay tuned.

That narrative can easily switch to Coffey having more trade value. It only takes a couple of hot takes from a ESPN or TNT loudmouth or a Shams or Woj Tweet to switch the narrative on the two players. Even the "TMann is untouchable" campaign sort of came about out of thin air so anything is possible

[nickhx2]

Not comparing him to Mann so this is just about Coffey.
He plays great straight up defense. Excellent on close outs without fouling. Keeps his body straight, moves his feet & active with his hands.
Very rarely almost never makes mistakes. A real asset on this team who can come in and competently replace anyone

yeah i don't really scour advanced stats but my guess would be that he's at the very least a net neutral replacement level player for someone in his limited role - and shocked if not positive

kinda funny because it wasn't all that long ago he carried this team for several weeks mostly by himself, got relegated to emergency reserve for pretty much forever, and now is back playing an impactful role.

gotta give some credit to the FO for continuing to find players that come from the fringes!

[ERClips]

We definitely aren’t the same team without Zu. Funny how the tv commentators barely mention his absence and focus entirely on who’s missing from other teams.
Zu is crucial against teams with real centers. Whether he scores a lot or not. Plum & Theis had bad games last night but they’re still usually good enough to prop up the middle.
I thought going small last night in the 4th won us the game. Good decision considering how our bigs were playing.
Amped up the defensive rotations.
And that Kawhi guy was pretty good too

[nickhx2]

We definitely aren’t the same team without Zu. Funny how the tv commentators barely mention his absence and focus entirely on who’s missing from other teams.
Zu is crucial against teams with real centers. Whether he scores a lot or not. Plum & Theis had bad games last night but they’re still usually good enough to prop up the middle.
I thought going small last night in the 4th won us the game. Good decision considering how our bigs were playing.
Amped up the defensive rotations.
And that Kawhi guy was pretty good too

yeah, and not that it's surprising but sometimes even this team's own fans get caught up in what zu doesn't do vs what he actually does do. he's very unlikely to ever be some 20/10 all-star center (and honestly, when's the last time that was even a thing that mattered?), but boy is his presence felt when he's on the court - as well as off.

[nickhx2]

Whew, you kind of knew that LAL was gonna give a spirited effort with Lebozo out. I don't like that small ball is back to being the order of the day. Hopefully it only lasts as long as Zu is out.

The last few games I’ve seen, small ball has worked well for them.

They clamped down on the lakers the final half of the fourth today, stormed back against the nets last game, and and nearly did the same to the t wolves before that. Cant recall any other times recently where the team went small, so I may be wrong here lol

I’d like to see some more games, but I think some of those bigger/lengthier teams cause this version of the clippers some problems… theis and plumlee are definitely serviceable players, but I think against certain teams (lakers, t wolves, maybe Denver) Lue probably won’t play them as much.

unlike in years past where small-ball was leading to some pretty bad outcomes, i think this year lue has more or less figured out how to make it work for us - granted, having james harden and russell westbrook playing well will help you by some unquantifiable margin on that front lol.

it's not the kind of thing that's ever gonna be more than a bad parlor trick if you're utilizing the pitiful, three small guard lineups (a doc rivers specialty), or whatever micro-ball insanity lue was experimenting with last year. but when you have two big forwards (one of whom is incredibly strong) and two very strong guards (one of whom is possibly the greatest athlete the NBA has ever seen), the results should ostensibly be better - though i wonder, is it really even small-ball at that point? lol

at any rate, any time you can experiment with a game-changing strategy while at the same time both optimizing and winning games with said strategy is invaluable and that's where we are now. i don't quite much like russ shooting this many threes, still, but i do think lue's on to something and the more we put this stuff into practice, the more he'll be able to parse out how to make it better and better.

[Vae Victus]

PG13 is hurt again? Damnit.

As long as the rest of the team is healthy, just sit him out for a week land re-evaluate. Team is deep enough to keep winning. It's a marathon and not a sprint and we dont need PG13 risking further injury. Dude gets injured pretty easily these days, so lets not chance it.

C - Plumlee, Theis
PF- Mann, Brown, Coffey
SF- Kawhi, Coffey
SG- Powell, Harden, Boston Jr
PG- Harden, Westy, Bones

Being down 2 starters sucks ass, but it can be a good opportunity to see if the deep bench players can step up. Coffey was given a chacne a few years back and he's been a great bench player and cheap too, so why not try to find the next gem in the rouch.

[Roscoe Sheed]

Great game. great team win. Kawhi came to play.

Lakers are a good team. I can see their pieces being a factor and I can now see why they made it to the WCF.

They are a playoff team not so much an 82 regular games team.

Westbrook also came to play. Zubac is sorely missed.

Paul George played pretty good but can’t seem to avoid his typical brain fart ( jump in the air and throw the ball to an opponent causing the turnover and a bucket on the other end).

On to the next game.

they cleaned up their act when they needed to, but it shouldn't have been so close- way too many turnovers and unfocused play, but a W is a W

[esqtvd]

Whew, you kind of knew that LAL was gonna give a spirited effort with Lebozo out. I don't like that small ball is back to being the order of the day. Hopefully it only lasts as long as Zu is out.

The last few games I’ve seen, small ball has worked well for them.

They clamped down on the lakers the final half of the fourth today, stormed back against the nets last game, and and nearly did the same to the t wolves before that. Cant recall any other times recently where the team went small, so I may be wrong here lol

I’d like to see some more games, but I think some of those bigger/lengthier teams cause this version of the clippers some problems… theis and plumlee are definitely serviceable players, but I think against certain teams (lakers, t wolves, maybe Denver) Lue probably won’t play them as much.

unlike in years past where small-ball was leading to some pretty bad outcomes, i think this year lue has more or less figured out how to make it work for us - granted, having james harden and russell westbrook playing well will help you by some unquantifiable margin on that front lol.

it's not the kind of thing that's ever gonna be more than a bad parlor trick if you're utilizing the pitiful, three small guard lineups (a doc rivers specialty), or whatever micro-ball insanity lue was experimenting with last year. but when you have two big forwards (one of whom is incredibly strong) and two very strong guards (one of whom is possibly the greatest athlete the NBA has ever seen), the results should ostensibly be better - though i wonder, is it really even small-ball at that point? lol

at any rate, any time you can experiment with a game-changing strategy while at the same time both optimizing and winning games with said strategy is invaluable and that's where we are now. i don't quite much like russ shooting this many threes, still, but i do think lue's on to something and the more we put this stuff into practice, the more he'll be able to parse out how to make it better and better.

I don't think any coach goes small if the bigs are working. It's a panic button move.

This year, Ty is filthy with options--3 centers and two of the best rebounding guards in the league in Beard and Russ--and T-Mann is above average too. In fact, Russ still remains the best rebounding guard [rpm] in the league.

https://www.espn.com/nba/stats/player/_/table/general/sort/avgRebounds/dir/desc

[nickhx2]

Great game. great team win. Kawhi came to play.

Lakers are a good team. I can see their pieces being a factor and I can now see why they made it to the WCF.

They are a playoff team not so much an 82 regular games team.

Westbrook also came to play. Zubac is sorely missed.

Paul George played pretty good but can’t seem to avoid his typical brain fart ( jump in the air and throw the ball to an opponent causing the turnover and a bucket on the other end).

On to the next game.

they cleaned up their act when they needed to, but it shouldn't have been so close- way too many turnovers and unfocused play, but a W is a W

definitely shouldn't have been so close and this is kind of why i won't quite say a win is a win. does it count? sure. but does it also maybe underline a systemic issue of meh play going up against trash can teams? i think it might, given how the team has been slow to take care of business in these situations.

ironically, despite me never having faith in any doc Rivers led clipper teams to advance in the playoffs, i had 1000 percent faith in them to crush dumpster trash like the Lakers night in and night out.

anyway, hard to judge or come to any real conclusions with zu out while going up against an all time big, but i also won't say there's nothing to drill down into and explore.

[ERClips]

Great game. great team win. Kawhi came to play.

Lakers are a good team. I can see their pieces being a factor and I can now see why they made it to the WCF.

They are a playoff team not so much an 82 regular games team.

Westbrook also came to play. Zubac is sorely missed.

Paul George played pretty good but can’t seem to avoid his typical brain fart ( jump in the air and throw the ball to an opponent causing the turnover and a bucket on the other end).

On to the next game.

they cleaned up their act when they needed to, but it shouldn't have been so close- way too many turnovers and unfocused play, but a W is a W

definitely shouldn't have been so close and this is kind of why i won't quite say a win is a win. does it count? sure. but does it also maybe underline a systemic issue of meh play going up against trash can teams? i think it might, given how the team has been slow to take care of business in these situations.

ironically, despite me never having faith in any doc Rivers led clipper teams to advance in the playoffs, i had 1000 percent faith in them to crush dumpster trash like the Lakers night in and night out.

anyway, hard to judge or come to any real conclusions with zu out while going up against an all time big, but i also won't say there's nothing to drill down into and explore.

We definitely should have won this game without any drama but giving up all those offensive rebounds and the bad turnovers made it close. However I wouldn’t claim the Lakers are a trash can team. Their fans…yes but they’re around .500 & can win games on any night.