ClutchFans Game Thread: Clippers @ Rockets 3/5/2020

Was it the worst game of the season?

 

So now you think D'Antoni missed all those 3's too?

MDA does not need me to stick up for him.

2 Coach of the Year awards, most winning season for 2 different franchises, developed 2 MVP level players for 2 different franchises, revolutionized game in 2 different eras, another Coach of the Month award.

LOL - Your hate must be personal because it is irrational.

 

wins a lot of regular season games, flames out in the playoffs b/c he runs his players into the ground

also i don't hate the guy, i actually had zero criticism of him prior to game 5 @ SAS, and really not much the season after that. he's an above-average coach imo. but will never win a title because of his flaws, ie stubborness

but just to piss you off, i'll say i do hate him anyways

 

So who is better?

Cutting off your nose to spite your face is a LOUSY solution.

 

you are better. tilfuk should hire you, and your whole g-league g-unit as well. we'll have one of each species of scrub on our roster, we can even call it Jonah's Ark! tilfuk's gonna make so much on t-shirts and other merch!

 

LOL

You are getting skull fvcked right now, and you are doing it to yourself.

 

maybe you could also hire d'antoni back as your defensive coordinator

 

Pointless quote. They've done the same thing like 20 times this season. Nothing's going to change.

 

Sounds like a better coach than Dantoni.

 

Yes, it's not a basketball thing. It's a personality thing. I'm matchmaking if you can't tell. With Harden, he's got all the tools. The only thing missing is a coach who can get him in the right frame of mind every game. MDA too often becomes idle with his lack of decision making, whereas Doc has always given us fits since CP was there. Doc clearly studies the scouting reports tries to come up with ideas for attacking Harden or whoever he's got. He's creative and that shows effort. Harden needs someone who doesn't enable whatever he's got going up there.

 

The clippers loss wasn't close. I don't just mean the final result. It wasn't like the game was manageable at the half, and then opponent started to pull away in Q3. Beat down started in Q1.

A two game losing streak. No Russ for the next game. We've yet to see the bottom.

 

Missing that many 3s when open WILL COST YOU A GAME. That happened.
Was it defense or was it just dump luck.

These are NBA players who historically can make 3s but decided last night was good time to reenact that last playoff game of 0 for 27....

The can go all the way, if they make their OPEN 3s or get kick out 1st round.

Nothing new under the sun.

Question is which team will show up, or rather, which Harden?

Hungry one or one that's ok with letting his career be "great player but never could win the big one".

 

D-rock, take your L because you got bukkaked no offense. Nobody likes brainless cheerleaders

 

Rockets lost ONE game, I have not lost to either of you.

Go back to your sinking ship you rat.

Quitters stick together.

 

Predictable, losing on your points (shitty as they were) so now resorting to tangential stupidity.

Typical loser mentality.

 

When was the last time Doc & Clippers beat the Rockets in postseason?

And he has for the most part, always had the most stacked teams, especially compared to Rockets?

He did nothing with all that talent.

 

HOUSTON — Doc Rivers has often said that the Clippers prefer to dictate the terms of engagement with their opponents.

Heading into Thursday’s matchup with the Houston Rockets, that theory was put to the test with the Rockets’ new small-ball roster — perhaps the most aggressive strategy the modern NBA has ever seen. Rivers, asked pregame for his thoughts on Houston’s experiment, was outright dismissive of the premise of the question.

“I haven’t given it much thought, to be honest,” Rivers said.

Rivers stuck to his word, deploying the Clippers’ typical starting lineup of Ivica Zubac, Marcus Morris Sr., Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Patrick Beverley and the team’s normal 10-man rotation en route to a 120-105 win over the Rockets at the Toyota Center. Houston trailed by as many as 30 points in what might have been L.A.’s most impressive win of the season.

The rout marked the Clippers’ sixth consecutive victory, their second-longest win streak of the season, and maintained their position as the West’s No. 2 seed. L.A. is now 10-0 when fully healthy this season. Following the game, the Clippers were adamant that their strategy was always to make the Rockets adapt to them rather than the other way around.

“We the Clippers,” George said. “We the Clippers. They’re the Rockets. We the Clippers. They’re going to play their game, we’re going to play ours. That’s the same way Doc saw it. We’re going to play our game and they’re going to have to try to guard us instead of us trying to guard them. That’s what we stuck with.”

The biggest question for the Clippers involved how their centers, Zubac and Montrezl Harrell, would fare against the Rockets’ five-out offense that challenges bigs to rotate, defend the 3-point arc and contain dribble penetration. The Clippers discussed going smaller, including playing JaMychal Green or Morris at center, as they occasionally have in recent games. It was on the table if Zubac or Harrell struggled.

But Zubac (season-high 17 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks) and Harrell (19 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks) both held their own defensively, hanging in the corners and rotating to the protect the paint and rim, and punished the Rockets on the interior with timely slips, rolls and rim-runs in transition.

“Zu and Trezz, they were great,” Rivers said. “Listen, what (the Rockets) do is smart for what they do. It really is. But we couldn’t get caught in trying to play that way and I thought we didn’t. I thought we stayed calm, moved the ball, found the open guy and our bigs were big. Going into the game we were telling them, ‘You have to be big tonight. You can’t be small.’ I thought they did a great job.”

For Zubac, in particular, Thursday’s tilt was a point of pride and a sign of how far he has come since the 2019 playoffs, when the Warriors’ 3-point shooting and spacing and ball movement played him off of the floor. As Zubac told The Athletic over the summer, he wasn’t going to be the weak link in the starting lineup again.

“Next time, I have to be more ready to play against small ball or whatever they got,” Zubac said then. “That’s what I’ve been working on all offseason. Getting in better shape and being faster and more explosive. Trying to get stronger so I can help my team when somebody’s playing small ball.”

Zubac has dramatically progressed since then, reshaping his body, improving his conditioning and refining his catching and finishing abilities. Defensively, he’s grown into one of the game’s best young rim protectors. A performance like Thursday’s validates his growth and his value to the Clippers in the postseason.

“We just played our way,” Zubac said. “We knew they were playing smaller and we knew they were trying to switch everything on defense. So I was slipping out of a lot of pick-and-rolls. They made a lot of mistakes in that area. They didn’t know if they were going to switch or if they were going to stay, because I was slipping out, and that left me wide open a few times under the basket.”

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As Zubac noted, the Rockets either miscommunicated (first clip), didn’t put a body on him in transition (second clip) or botched their rotations (third clip). It was an all-around defensive mess from Houston.

Rivers revealed the Clippers spent two days communicating to Zubac and Harrell where they had to be offensively and defensively — both the locations on the floor and the timing of actions and rotations — for the Clippers to properly exploit the Rockets’ interior defense.

“It has to give him confidence,” Rivers said. “If you’re going to be big against a small team, the big has to be in the right spot. … I thought he slipped when he was supposed to slip to get dunks. I thought he set picks when he was supposed to set picks. I just thought he had a great feel of what he was supposed to do with his size tonight.”

Afterward, Zubac was awarded the game ball by Beverley.

“Zu was huge, especially in a game like this where there’s literally no one on that roster that can guard him,” George said. “He stepped up to the plate. He made himself available and he was physical with those guys.”

“He played well,” Leonard said. “He got some offensive rebounds, ran the floor, contested a lot of shots when those guys came into the paint. … His presence was felt tonight. He was a huge factor for us — being a big target, rolling to the basket, getting rebounds.”

Overall, the Clippers pitched as close to a shutout as is possible defensively against an offensive team of the Rockets’ caliber.

Through three quarters, the Clippers held the Rockets to 30.1 percent shooting, including 3 of 34 from beyond the arc. Russell Westbrook and James Harden combined to shoot 15 of 44 from the floor. Houston finished just 7 of 42 on 3s (16.7 percent). According to NBA.com, 25 of those 42 attempts were contested. The Rockets certainly missed some good looks, but the Clippers operated on a string, rotating and scrambling all over the floor to try to run Houston off of the 3-point line.

“It starts with stopping dribble penetration,” Rivers said. “I thought we did that overall. I thought we positioned our guys in the right place, so even when we got beat, we had either Trezz or Zub back there. When they swung it out — I thought our rotations tonight were absolutely wonderful. When you do that and you make guys take contested 3s, it’s a little harder.”

Outside of the Sixers game — also known as The Shake Milton Game — which was a defensive anomaly during their win streak, the Clippers are holding their opponents to 98.2 points per game on 40.7 percent shooting and 26.3 percent 3-point shooting. In four of the six contests, they’ve posted a 98.8 defensive rating or better — a ridiculous figure.

The Clippers are beginning to jell defensively and go on “defensive runs,” as Rivers called them after Tuesday’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

“We have one-on-one defenders,” George said. “We didn’t rely on doubles and traps. We just sat down and we guarded. Our help defense was incredible. We flew around on the perimeter. But I think the biggest thing was we just stayed in front of people.”

The Clippers are hitting their stride at the optimal time. Over their past six games, they’re posting a plus-17.0 point differential and a plus-16.0 net rating (120.5 offensive rating and 104.5 defensive rating). They’re healthy and finally reeling off wins as their defense, which has been scrutinized because of the hype it received this past offseason, actualizes its potential.

“We have a ways to go,” Rivers said. “And we’re going to get there.”

 

Paul George has horrific grammar....