So you're a Clippers fan? I don't think McHale will employ the hack-a-Jordan unless Howard is sitting early in the 4th and Josh Smith/Jones are in the game. Crawford is going to play a few less minutes than Brewer I imagine. I'll take his impact over Crawford's. The bigs are going to get in foul trouble for the Clippers in one of these games. I'll take Smith and Capela over the Big Baby.
Valid point; also valid is the flow-disruption that occurs. IMO Clips are more susceptible than Rox to attention wandering from Hack-a's (and I am so glad I so believe that this is a tough mentally tough team!).
LoL. Suffice to say I'm thrilled that >20 yrs ago a package centered around Dream for Stanley Roberts in a 3-way didn't come to fruition. Even though a bunch of talking heads at the time from Russ Small to Dan Patrick (the local pre-congressman version) preached otherwise. Ah "740 Sportsbeat", how sweet it was. I think the Clips would take that bet. If one of JC or CB will tilt this particular series it's going to be Crawford IMHO. I wouldn't say the same but for a few other specific 6th man matchups (Lou Williams, etc). At least, as Rockets fan, that's a legit concern I have.
Pretty lopsided. Crawford is now 34 years old. Although he's always played well against us, he's no Brewer in terms of pushing the ball or defense. Playoff comparison from round one: Per Game <PRE> Rk Player Season Age G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% 2P 2PA 2P% eFG% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS 1 Corey Brewer 2014-15 28 5 0 25.8 5.8 11.2 .518 1.6 3.0 .533 4.2 8.2 .512 .589 1.2 1.8 .667 0.6 2.6 3.2 0.8 0.4 0.2 1.2 2.8 14.4 2 Jamal Crawford 2014-15 34 7 0 25.9 4.7 12.3 .384 0.9 4.3 .200 3.9 8.0 .482 .419 1.4 1.4 1.000 0.0 1.6 1.6 1.7 0.1 0.1 1.0 1.7 11.7 </PRE> Advanced <PRE> Rk Player Season Age G MP PER TS% 3PAr FTr ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% OWS DWS WS WS/48 OBPM DBPM BPM VORP 1 Corey Brewer 2014-15 28 5 129 14.8 .600 .268 .161 2.5 10.0 6.4 5.1 0.7 0.6 9.1 21.1 0.2 0.0 0.2 .092 2 Jamal Crawford 2014-15 34 7 181 8.8 .454 .349 .116 0.0 6.3 3.2 10.8 0.3 0.5 7.2 24.3 -0.1 0.0 -0.2 -0.040 </PRE>
5 games renders that largely void vis-a-vis how I view this matchup. Moreover, suffice to say going up against Kawhi Leonard for a fair amount of his usage vs Monta, Berrea, or Villanueva as Brewer was able to do further skews the stats from a 'normalized' level. There's also the bit about the Clippers beating the Spurs while their 6th man played like the inside of a dumpster fire. I'll take the under on JC playing like that again. And dear-god just look at Brewer's 3pt%. I mean if there are a few subsets of individual stats which appear unsustainable - from the selection you c/pasted - then I those reside much more with CB than JC. The (impending) negative regression anoms are strong with that one. Seriously, if I tell you one of JC or CB averages 22 ppg on > 55% EFG in this series can you - with a straight face - tell me it's going to be CB? The fact that I consider the above outcome w/in JC's normal distribution against us (and I'm not happy about admitting that) tells me all I need to know.
I don't think Leonard was guarding Crawford for the majority of his minutes. Do you have any statistics? I would tell you straight faced that Brewer has a much better chance. Crawford averages 45% EFG in the playoffs and he's getting old. He's never posted above 47% in a playoff year. Check out his playoff stats.
Our bench advantage only works if they are forced to play their bench or their starters are so exhausted from playing so many minutes. If healthy (starting Bev and DMo), I think our starting lineup is on par with theirs but they appear to have the advantage right now. It is imperative that we get their starters in foul trouble and force the bench to play. That's where Harden and Howard come in with their foul drawing capabilities. I'm talking about getting guys like Redick, Barnes, and Jordan out of the game because they'll never put princesses like CP3 or Griffin in foul trouble.
Watching the Clips, no wide open looks, must get hand in face. Force them to hit contested jump shots. Force Reddick left and hope Crawford doesn't get hot. Make Reddick and Crawford play PnR D. The bumping by D12, Smoove, or Tjones should tire them out by the 4th Quarter. JSmoove must dominate Big Baby
Think we have an interpretation issue. I wrote "fair amount" which you read as "majority". I wrote "this particular series" which you read as "career playoff average". Anyways, my own visual observations of the LAC/SAS series plus the following site which shows Danny Green and Kawhi as JC's primary defenders (on shot attempts during the reg. season) were my source: http://nbasavant.com/player.php?player_id=2037 Too, JC averaged 17 ppg on 54% EFG just last year in a 7-gamer vs GSW all the way back when he was a spry 34 vs his current 35. Lets just agree to disagree so we don't keep cluttering this thread. I'm thrilled for you that you think CB is a bigger threat to LAC than JC is to us. And I sincerely hope you are right. And more importantly.....seriously.....all of this talk is detracting from the point of the post. THE PIC BRUH.
It's true but like someone above said benches are overrated. They just played the spurs who have one of the best benches in the league and beat them. They also have a mismatch at the 4 because Blake always kills us. Won't be easy. If we can contain paul rockets in 7
Thing is, their starters are not noticeably better and are a bit injured. It could get aggravated for all we know, in which case, their thin bench is a real liability. Stars are played a lot in playoffs, but it is still usually a 7-8 man rotation. Starters play a lot, but you NEED bench players. Also, they are an offensive team, and being weak on the big man front (in terms of who they can rotate through)...our Jones/Smith/Dwight group will run their bigman frontline down ragged! I think it will play a bit part. It is just sometimes hard to tell apart because you can say, oh this person on the bench did not have a lights out game, but the fact of having the deeper bench allowed us to wear down the other star players, and they play worse (making it seem like it came down to just the starters not performing, etc.).
With Beverly Hurt their starting 5 is better than ours IMO. With Bev there I would say its more of a toss up. The bench does matter though and while I really wish we still had DMo the Rockets bench of Brewer, Pablo and JSmoove is better than Crawford, Rivers and Davis. Now I am not sure exactly the status of Davis to be honest. If he isn't there then you have Hawes who has not played well at all this season. Crawford is older and has the ability to pretty much still take over games if he gets hot but lately he tends to have less and less of those type of games. Rivers is so wildly inconsistent - and this is where the problem lies --- the way that offense is built with Paul -- so much revolves around PG play. When Paul sits if you don't have a competent backup PG (see: Collsion, Darren) the offense just goes to complete crap and became an iso fest. Crawford isn't a true PG but a scorer and Rivers is more of a scoring PG if anything. The Rockets bench does become a strength despite being depleted (missing DMo and essentially Terry since he is now a starter) because it allows their starters to get some rest and have a fresh body on the clippers stars majority of the time. With the series now going every other day - rest will become a factor and playing so many minutes is going to take its toll -- especially with the clippers coming off a 7 game series. The Rockets play the same number of guys essentially of the bench as the clippers do (Capela does play more actually though than Hawes) but ourbench contributes far more significantly and was responsible for the first two wins in the dallas series (brewer's 4th in g1, JSmoove's 4th in g2). If the Rockets win this series it will be because of their bench. if the rockets do advance to play GSW then thats where missing Bev and Dmo really really hurt.
Austin only plays cus his Daddy puts him in. Scrub. Spencer H? Pshhh let the carnage in the paint ensue. Large child Davis? Too slow for our guys. Redick is still looking for a career. Barnes is just a thug, can see him getting 2 techs during a game. The only two guys I'm "worried" about is Jordan and CP3. Griffin never really returned to form since being out so long.
i didnt realie how terrble their bench is till this weekend looking at their season/playoff stats. thats gonna hurt them big in this series
anyone here remember which playoff game it was, that the bulls were down 20 in the 4th, phil jackson called in the dogs off the bench, and they actually brought them all the way back to win?
