Game #5: LAC (3-1) @ LAL (2-2) WED 11/1 7PM—ESPN

[wakelaunch1]

Lue is a terrible coach. His system is to stand around and play one on one basketball. Zubac is not a starting center in high level basketball. They absolutely destroyed him with pick and roll basketball. PJ aint the starter. This team will be bounced in the first or second round. Its literally the same team with the same coaching.

[Max Headrom]

I can't stand Austin Reaves flopping all over the place. Doesn't deserve that kind of whistle

That flopping is ridiculous. It's not basketball and it's chicken sh+t basketball and he does it on every play

[Scoundreldays]

I can't stand Austin Reaves flopping all over the place. Doesn't deserve that kind of whistle

That flopping is ridiculous. It's not basketball and it's chicken sh+t basketball and he does it on every play

Literally going at the rim and shoulders Powell on the side.

This is probably why I'm not a pro coach but if some guy was flopping around I'd sub someone in and flagrant foul them. You want to get fouled you'll see what a foul is.

[ERClips]

Any game after a big trade can be tough. Agreed about Norm being mostly a non factor tonight. Reeves was ref baiting so hard on that last possession. PJ played solid D on him & was visibly frustrated by Reeves flailing.
Free throws killed us and the only scorers were our big 3.
Great game though and when we add Harden this wouldn’t happen

[esqtvd]

Lue is a terrible coach. His system is to stand around and play one on one basketball. Zubac is not a starting center in high level basketball. They absolutely destroyed him with pick and roll basketball. PJ aint the starter. This team will be bounced in the first or second round. Its literally the same team with the same coaching.

Is this a joke quote? First game?

Spoiler:

A sock puppet for MarvinToVomit?

A parody account? Do you know what a sock puppet is? Surely nobody agrees with the board troll.


Do we have a moderator here? Please clean up the garbage?

[esqtvd]

Any game after a big trade can be tough. Agreed about Norm being mostly a non factor tonight. Reeves was ref baiting so hard on that last possession. PJ played solid D on him & was visibly frustrated by Reeves flailing.
Free throws killed us and the only scorers were our big 3.
Great game though and when we add Harden this wouldn’t happen

Yes. Everyone was auditioning for Harden. Even Kawhi.

Say what you want about Beard but he's a first-ballot HOFer who still can average 20/5/10 in his sleep. Of course everyone wants to impress him.

[Bobbymcgee]

Tough loss. But, the Lakers needed OT and a monster game from LeBron to beat a short handed Clippers team on a b2b. Thankfully the Clippers get a nice break and will hopefully have Harden and Mann starting Monday.

[og15]

Lue is a terrible coach. His system is to stand around and play one on one basketball. Zubac is not a starting center in high level basketball. They absolutely destroyed him with pick and roll basketball. PJ aint the starter. This team will be bounced in the first or second round. Its literally the same team with the same coaching.

This is too much crying for one game, there are 77 more to go for just the regular season, you're not going to make it if you're already here.

Maybe at least wait till we've crossed like 30 or 40 games before firing up the doom and gloom let's cry together train, so it doesn't have to be the same basically copied and pasted post idea for another 5-6 months.

[KL2]

The good thing about Harden playing soon is that Lue won’t be able to get away with Leonard, PG, Harden, and even Westbrook all on the bench at the same time. Other than the Laker game he has not staggered Leonard and PG like he said he would. Those all bench minutes have not been fun.

Bad thing is that we’re about to play a lot of small ball. Either Tucker or Mann will be playing center.

[clipperlover]

Any game after a big trade can be tough. Agreed about Norm being mostly a non factor tonight. Reeves was ref baiting so hard on that last possession. PJ played solid D on him & was visibly frustrated by Reeves flailing.
Free throws killed us and the only scorers were our big 3.
Great game though and when we add Harden this wouldn’t happen

Yes. Everyone was auditioning for Harden. Even Kawhi.

Say what you want about Beard but he's a first-ballot HOFer who still can average 20/5/10 in his sleep. Of course everyone wants to impress him.

Give me a break. Kawhi isn't auditioning for anyone let alone a regular season stat monger MVP. Kawhi is a 2 time FINALS MVP and a DPOY. Kawhi is a UNANIMOUS consent 1st ballot HoF. Kawhi will still be given the toughest defensive assignments while Lue schemes to hide Harden on the defensive end.

[Scoundreldays]

Also our bigs have to be better, Zu and Plumblee were pretty trash last night. I still say we should have gone after a legit center instead

[Kelphus]

Super entertaining game. I hate losing to the fLakers but let's maybe keep a few things in perspective:

Four Clipper players gone, Harden not ready to play, Tucker barely had unpacked. fLakers were at full (despicable) strength.

Ty turned a worthless fLaker Westbrook into the Clippers team leader and a huge contributor.
Kawhi and PG13 were at different times in full beast mode. But for PG13 fouling out we had this game in those last couple minutes.

I'm very bullish on this team. If Ty can get a turnaround from Harden like he did with Russ, woohoo babee this is gonna be fun. [This is about fun, right guys?]

Those of you already giving up on the season after 5 games should do just that - give up and stop torturing us with rants, find another hobby, another board - some of us want to have fun.

[og15]

Any game after a big trade can be tough. Agreed about Norm being mostly a non factor tonight. Reeves was ref baiting so hard on that last possession. PJ played solid D on him & was visibly frustrated by Reeves flailing.
Free throws killed us and the only scorers were our big 3.
Great game though and when we add Harden this wouldn’t happen

Yes. Everyone was auditioning for Harden. Even Kawhi.

Say what you want about Beard but he's a first-ballot HOFer who still can average 20/5/10 in his sleep. Of course everyone wants to impress him.

Auditioning for what exactly? For Harden to pass them the ball? These aren't rookies, there's no reason for them to be auditioning for him, Harden is the third best player on the team, no one is auditioning for him.

Harden is going to be the one that has to "audition" by picking up his defense and actually having ready hands and shooting when he gets catch and shoot shots, and moving into space when off ball on the perimeter and others are attacking, even if he doesn't want to cut.

[madmaxmedia]

Guys this one is on me. I turned the game on about 3 times last night only to watch the Clippers bleed lead every single time- It started with the 37-18 lead and 2 quick Laker 3's, and my last watch I saw the Lakers take their first lead since 2-0.

My +/- was probably -30 last night.

[og15]

Also our bigs have to be better, Zu and Plumblee were pretty trash last night. I still say we should have gone after a legit center instead

What do you mean by legit C?

They are both legit C's. The issue in the NBA is that if you don't have a star/superstar C (Jokic, Embiid, Davis, Bam, etc), the upgrade you get from C's like Zubac and Plumlee to C's like Ayton, etc is not nearly enough to justify the massively increased cost for many teams, but definitely not for the Clippers.

Zubac makes $11 million, Plumlee makes $5 million. Combined they make $16 million. Nurkic makes $17 million to be injury prone and only give you 27-28 mpg, meaning you still need a pretty solid backup. Ayton makes $32.5M to be unmotivated half the time, want to get more shots when he can't create much, and be afraid of contact. Vucevic makes $18.5M, but he's not really a rim protector. Neither Nurk or Vuc are mobile to be able to guard in space, and neither can contain Jokic. Ayton can guard better in space, but he doesn't want to be a rebound/defense/finisher C anyways, and he does nothing on Jokic. Luka was posting him up and backing him down two playoffs ago.

The only team so far that seems to bother Jokic is Minnesota with twin towers Towns ($36M) and Gobert ($41M) together.

The whole point of the salary cap is that teams are generally not going to be able to make perfect rosters and plug every holes. So you have to be weak somewhere and find a way to overcome it.

Clippers don't need to spend more money at C. They actually need a "big" mobile and solidly athletic forward who can guard multiple positions, help protect the rim, and finish.

Oh yea, I make it sound like it is super easy to just find those guys, lol. Of course, it's not. I don't see how a "real C", whatever we mean by that changes anything. Maybe another C just to have options to throw out, but the Clippers aren't getting a C better than Zu without paying, but then who wants to give up their better enough C for Zu and whatever else, that's the problem.

[The High Cyde]

Way too early in the season to make anything out of this single game, but I still like the energy the team is playing with to start the season. Harden and Mann back in the lineup starting Monday is when the season will really start. If we gel we can absolutely grab a top 3 seed which we will need. That’s all I’m hoping for this regular season, a top 3 seed.

[madmaxmedia]

Way too early in the season to make anything out of this single game, but I still like the energy the team is playing with to start the season. Harden and Mann back in the lineup starting Monday is when the season will really start. If we gel we can absolutely grab a top 3 seed which we will need. That’s all I’m hoping for this regular season, a top 3 seed.

With or without Harden, we need an easier first round opponent to have any chance of lasting in the playoffs. And assuming some downtime (regardless of what Kawhi said about playing 82) I don’t think we were gonna get that without Harden.

[wakelaunch1]

Lue is a terrible coach. His system is to stand around and play one on one basketball. Zubac is not a starting center in high level basketball. They absolutely destroyed him with pick and roll basketball. PJ aint the starter. This team will be bounced in the first or second round. Its literally the same team with the same coaching.

This is too much crying for one game, there are 77 more to go for just the regular season, you're not going to make it if you're already here.

Maybe at least wait till we've crossed like 30 or 40 games before firing up the doom and gloom let's cry together train, so it doesn't have to be the same basically copied and pasted post idea for another 5-6 months.

What are you talking about. This is the same offense and same defense run in playoff series and any close game over the Lue coaching experience. They dont go out and get a legit defensive center. Either Lue leaves Zubac in and he gets cooked in the pick and roll or Lue puts in some small forward and we get overpowered. Every good team with a half brained coach does the same thing. Our players dont fight over screens leaving Zubac slack guarding their best player.

And on offense we stand around and take turns with PG, Kawhi going on on one with a stagnant offense where everyone else stands around.

This off season sounds like all we did was run to get in better shape. No new offense. Well running doesnt work at the end of the game where it comes down to creating easier shots and solid defense.

[Scoundreldays]

Also our bigs have to be better, Zu and Plumblee were pretty trash last night. I still say we should have gone after a legit center instead

What do you mean by legit C?

They are both legit C's. The issue in the NBA is that if you don't have a star/superstar C (Jokic, Embiid, Davis, Bam, etc), the upgrade you get from C's like Zubac and Plumlee to C's like Ayton, etc is not nearly enough to justify the massively increased cost for many teams, but definitely not for the Clippers.

Zubac makes $11 million, Plumlee makes $5 million. Combined they make $16 million. Nurkic makes $17 million to be injury prone and only give you 27-28 mpg, meaning you still need a pretty solid backup. Ayton makes $32.5M to be unmotivated half the time, want to get more shots when he can't create much, and be afraid of contact. Vucevic makes $18.5M, but he's not really a rim protector. Neither Nurk or Vuc are mobile to be able to guard in space, and neither can contain Jokic. Ayton can guard better in space, but he doesn't want to be a rebound/defense/finisher C anyways, and he does nothing on Jokic. Luka was posting him up and backing him down two playoffs ago.

The only team so far that seems to bother Jokic is Minnesota with twin towers Towns ($36M) and Gobert ($41M) together.

The whole point of the salary cap is that teams are generally not going to be able to make perfect rosters and plug every holes. So you have to be weak somewhere and find a way to overcome it.

Clippers don't need to spend more money at C. They actually need a "big" mobile and solidly athletic forward who can guard multiple positions, help protect the rim, and finish.

Oh yea, I make it sound like it is super easy to just find those guys, lol. Of course, it's not. I don't see how a "real C", whatever we mean by that changes anything. Maybe another C just to have options to throw out, but the Clippers aren't getting a C better than Zu without paying, but then who wants to give up their better enough C for Zu and whatever else, that's the problem.

Perhaps I'm getting a C mixed up with a mobile big like you said. Having a stretch C would also be nice to have as an option. I say stretch Big because having him and Westbrook playing at the same time allows the defense to shrink the floor. Ibaka would have been perfect if he was like 5 years younger lol

[og15]

Lue is a terrible coach. His system is to stand around and play one on one basketball. Zubac is not a starting center in high level basketball. They absolutely destroyed him with pick and roll basketball. PJ aint the starter. This team will be bounced in the first or second round. Its literally the same team with the same coaching.

This is too much crying for one game, there are 77 more to go for just the regular season, you're not going to make it if you're already here.

Maybe at least wait till we've crossed like 30 or 40 games before firing up the doom and gloom let's cry together train, so it doesn't have to be the same basically copied and pasted post idea for another 5-6 months.

What are you talking about. This is the same offense and same defense run in playoff series and any close game over the Lue coaching experience. They dont go out and get a legit defensive center. Either Lue leaves Zubac in and he gets cooked in the pick and roll or Lue puts in some small forward and we get overpowered. Every good team with a half brained coach does the same thing. Our players dont fight over screens leaving Zubac slack guarding their best player.

And on offense we stand around and take turns with PG, Kawhi going on on one with a stagnant offense where everyone else stands around.

This off season sounds like all we did was run to get in better shape. No new offense. Well running doesnt work at the end of the game where it comes down to creating easier shots and solid defense.

Who is the legit defensive C you wanted and how was the team going to get him?

There are a lot of players that could make the roster even better, most are out of the Clippers price range trade wise (based on who/what people actually want to trade) and/or the team they are on also wants to keep that player.

There is always a hypothetical thing teams could or should do, but hypothetical doesn't equal realistic.