Are the Clippers better than Any of the GS from 2015 to 2019? Clippers beat 100% healthy GS two times on the road in Playoffs in April. last night bench had average 15 points each. 4 bench players scored 60 points.
If Kawhi and Paul George are able to match Harden and Westbrook's production during the playoffs, then yes, the rest of the Rockets rotation looks significantly weaker than the Clippers. Who's guarding the Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell PnR? 37 year old Tyson Chandler? Is Danuel House playing starter minutes deep into the playoffs? Who do we have that's a playoff-seasoned veteran backing up PJ so he doesn't play 40+ minutes? Can we trust any one of Austin Rivers/Chris Clemons/Ben McLemore in the WCF? Yes, Clippers are a better team today.
Above average supporting players Williams Harrell Beverley Zubac Green Gordon Capela Tucker House Rivers Sefolosha significantly weaker? wtf are you talking about clippers have no primary ball handlers, whereas we have two of the best all time. who is going to run their offense and get the ball to players while harden and westbrook are playing the passing lanes? nobody...
Two all stars are easier opponent than four all stars and an ex Finals MVP. I see an evenly matched up WCF between Rockets and Rockets West.
Not really. Defensively Clippers match-up very well against the Rockets and that will be the biggest difference. Most of our offense gets initiated or runs through Harden. They have four defenders to throw at him in Kawhi, PG, Green, and Beverley to make life miserable for him. Out of those four, PG and Kawhi have given Harden a very hard time and have historically defended him the best. These are elite defenders. The other two are good to excellent. Beverley in particular will get under Harden's skin and we all know Harden can get frustrated Rocket's other alternative would be to run the offense through Westbrook. Clippers will gladly take that because of WB's inefficiency. Clippers will blanket Harden and clog the lane for WB to drive. They will gladly let WB take perimeter shots and none of the other Rockets are good enough creators to run the offense. Gordon handling the ball against this defense is a guaranteed turnover as well. Clippers are a nightmarish defensive match-up for us and that will be the decider.
You are talking on paper. Lou Williams can be primary ball handler. Also they got shamet and harkless as well. Sefolosha house and rivers aren’t better than them.
It seems they are not just better than the Rockets but the best team in the league. Offensively we know what Leonard, George and Lou can bring but defensively they are scary as hell. They play aggressively and are tough on defense. Bench is quite strong too. Russ needs to step up big and mesh well with Harden in order for Rockets to have a chance against this Clipper team because I see them defensively make Harden earn every single point, and we all know that when Harden struggles, team will have a difficult time to carve out a W.
Sure, but I rather see this team than the past seasons of stack ass Warriors taking a sht on everybody
** Williams and Gordon are a wash. As are Beverley and Tucker. Every other rotation player from 6-10 is weaker. 1. I'd take Harrell/Patterson over Chandler/Nene 2. I'd take Harkless/Green over Sefolosha/House (just imagine House playing starter minutes against Clippers defense) 3. Heck, I'd trust Landry Shamet to knock down open threes in the playoffs over Austin Rivers. The litmus test is: would you do the above three trades? Absolutely to all of the above. Seriously, we're talking Austin effing Rivers as our 2nd most important player off the bench? In the WCF? Austin Rivers: Championship Guard? What are YOU talking about?
We created this Clippers mess by trading 5 first rounders for CP3 when he preferred to come here and play with us as a free agent. Instead he opted in and had a wink wink super max 4 year deal lined up. Doing it this way crippled us due to gutting our entire team and financially by adding another year to his contract (he would only have 1 year left after this one). 5 Firsts: PatBev (Could have been traded for a first - great contract) SweetLou (Obtained via first round pick) Montrezl (Could have been traded for a first - great contract) Dekker (was a first round pick) Future first (could have had Josh Hart or traded up 1 spot for Kuzma) And then you trade 2 future firsts and 2 future swaps and CP3 for RW (whom I love). That makes 9 first round picks/swaps for 1 player. Not even AD/PG13/LBJ was traded for this amount of draft capital. We now have old scrubs/G-leaguers/players that could be sitting at home/China level players on our bench instead of young and upcoming players (like the Clippers) so yes the Clippers are far better than us on paper. Our greatest asset currently to upgrade our bench is our 2020 first which won't even get you the Clippers 10th man.
I saw the second half of the Clippers game. They are really good even without Paul George. The quality of the bench surprised me. PPatt is going to play huge for them.
You need to stop thinking for yourself and take a drink of the Rocket’s KoolAid. It’s all good. Everything you said is fact and hard to recover from. Westbrook is far more physically stable than Paul long term but the over pay for Paul coming and going will take years to pay back and longer to repair.
The strength is their bench because outside of Kawhi's 30 pts, everyone in their starting unit was scoring in lower single digits.
clippers have filled in their roster much better than we have. stole harkless for nothing. signed patpat when we could have had him included in the westbrook trade for free (F U tilman). re-signed jamychal green while we left a big chunk of our MLE unused (F U tilman). rodney macgruder hasn't even played yet. meanwhile we've got unplayables like nene/harty, dinosaurs like chandler/thabo, and michael frazier.
The problem I had with the Rockets last year is that they didn't play with intensity in the playoffs, especially that last game against the warriors with no Durant. Clippers have players like Beverly who never let up . We can beat them if we match their intensity.
Clippers are better/deeper but... There's some Austin Rivers slander on this thread. Trust Landry Shanet to knock down 3's in the playoffs over Rivers? Shamet shot 32% from deep in the last playoffs, Rivers shot 47%! Also who is guarding Lou Williams? Easy, Eric Gordon or Rivers, remember Eric shutting down Donovan Mitchell? Also, flip the question, who is Lou Will guarding? He's one of the worst defenders in the league. If Gordon has a hot series, he can win it for us.
