The insideNBA guys are clueless. CP is the best passer in the league and doubling him means open shots for Foye, Mo, Butler, and Young. That's how he Clppers blew out Dallas, OKC, SA, and others this year. I respect the heck out of Hollins for not resorting to the hackashaq farce, although if he did, the Grizz would probably be up. There was a good twelve min in the 2nd half where the Gizz could have sent any of the Clipper 40% shooters to the stripe for easy turnovers. Pop will do it next round for sure.
not a good day to be a grizz fan....game one was right there.... right when you thought the grizzlies could claw there way back in the series paul clipped em one shot at a time. paul wouldn't have done that to the rockets, but he would have got some open shots for his teammates. the grizzlies need to learn man defense may work during the regular season against super stars and against teams like the spurs, but when cp3 is in the game during the playoffs you have to double.
so much about the hype of the grizllies, just another sad story, if their team remain as it is right now, they will never make it to the finals, not to mention a champion..... look at the clipper's team, except CP3 and Blake, there are only a bunch of douchbags..... they can't even beat this team......
No, CP3 has a light gravity field around him which leads to incoming body contact blowing him away more than as if with earth gravity. Do your research before cursing the guy, he carries a burden.
not to mention he has some kind of disease that makes his neck and back movement jerky whenever he is close to an opposing player.
Man, I'm calling a new penalty on flops. That player won't get fouls called for him for an entire game. Opposing players can hack the heck out of him as they like.
Grizzlies are what Sam and I said they were after the playoffs last season; a team that like the Warriors in the past and others, a team that got hot last year. Most years this Grizz team is first round fodder and a championship pretender. They have no superstar, and a few good but over payed #2 type players.
Don't know about all that. You may indeed be right. However, they are not going to Zach like they did a year ago. I don't know if it is the fact that he is still recovering from injury or perhaps he's turning into the same dog he was in Portland since he's got another big contract for the next 3 years. (I was one that felt like Memphis was making a mistake re-signing him to that deal but the first season, it looked pretty good for them.) This team with last year's Zach would be blowing the Clippers away. And really they are not playing very smart against the Clippers at all. What they should be doing is denying Paul the basketball with the stiff double at halfcourt, force him to give it up out high to Blake and then let Blake try to either shoot or dribble-drive with it and turn Paul into a spot up shooter on the perimeter. Paul is the one guy that is killing them because they let him catch it and go wherever he wants to go and they are playing the PnR so soft. You can't let him get to PnR. You gotta double him at halfcourt and get the ball out of his hands, then play him for the passing lane and make it difficult for them to get the ball back to him. Memphis could play the Clippers better 3 on 4 by doubling Paul out of the play than they could playing 5 on 5 with Paul getting whatever he wants.
That means both of you are clueless. They have outplayed the clips for all but 1 game. Its obvious zach isn't 100% by his movement. Hell, even his fts are off. They can still win this series because of the way they have played and the clippers. I think its coming back to memphis for game 7.
So in your opinion, if the Grizzlies coach was smarter, less honorable, or strategically different, you would respect him less, but the Grizzlies would be winning the series. Looks like Hollins has his coaching priorities right: being liked by Clippers fans > winning the series. :grin: I kid...not sure if the strategy would even work, but would like to see it tried.
Randolph isn't 100%, but the other thing is that Marc Gasol is coming up small. He's doing squat on the glass and can't score for crap. Someone needs to light a fire under him if they want to extend this series.
is it wrong for me to believe that even though the Grizz are down 3-1, that they are still the better team? Does that make sense
I respect him because Hack-a-Shaq is a bogus strategy that shouldn't be legal (a simple solution would be to let the offense select the FT shooter on intentional off-ball fouls). The way it is setup now, it effectively penalizes an offensive team for playing well (putting the other team into the penalty early). It is usually unsuccessful because 1) It shows no confidence in your defense, which is just bad psychologically, 2) it allows the hacked team time to adjust on defense, and 3) the hacked team can just pull their guy if he's that bad, and then they have the advantage of being in an early penalty. However, in the case of the Clippers it is an ideal strategy because they don't really have the option of pulling their bad FT shooters because literally every big they have is awful. And the guys you would pull-- Evans & Martin-- are the ones absolutely frustrating the Grizzlies interior. Also, the Grizz are getting into the penalty early not by any design so they may as well take advantage of it. And even if they have enough confidence in their set defense, for god sakes they should at least try it when the Clippers are in transition. As a Clipper fan, I hate it when Blake draws a foul while the Clippers are in the penalty because half the time it's a turnover. I much prefer the Clippers inbound it with a new clock.
Sure, some teams just don't match up as well with others. I wouldn't say the Clippers are a better team or even a better team this series-- they are basically an even team. They just perform better in tight games because they have a hierarchy that they respect, whereas the Grizzlies don't have a leader. This series isn't even over; it's really just one upset (game 6) away from going back in the Grizzlies favor. I don't think that will happen, but crazier things have. In the long run, it doesn't make a huge difference because both teams are going to get slaughtered by the Spurs. I wish the Clippers had a chance in the 2nd round-- and they certainly played the Spurs tough the last two games-- but right now the Spurs are firing on all cylinders and I just don't see it happening.