Clippers Postgame

From Zack

I'm depressed after coming home from the FedEx Forum with another loss and will try to make this quick.

-- 6th loss in a row and no end in sight.
-- We are not any better than last year really.
-- Kaman owned Darko. Kaman owned the whole Griz team actually. If he doesn't make the All-star team this year, it will be a tragedy.
-- Everyone of our players, all of them, played bad tonight.
-- I like Hak's 1st half, but foul trouble ruined the 2nd half. One observation was in the 2nd Thornton was able to blow by Hak for some huge 2nd half buckets. Thornton's first step is pretty quick, though.
-- Rudy playing PF is a recipe for foul trouble.
-- I like Miller's assertiveness tonight, but the trade off between him shooting more is him handling the rock more and that means lots of bad passes (the jump pass especially). Those 2 4 point plays were cool, I guess.
-- Navarro was not right on offense for the most part. He was abysmal with his ball handling and passing. He fought hard on defense.
-- Damon and Kyle both sucked. Kyle has been regressing lately and I think that dreaded rookie wall (at around 30 games played, right?) that Chip preached last year with Rudy is starting to set in with him too. Other teams are also game planning him better and him and the coaching staff have not adjusted. All in all, our PG's are letting us down.
-- The decision to have our bigs handle the ball so much on the elbows is backfiring. It might work if we had Boris Diaw circa 2005.
-- Our team passing is just pathetic. Not just this game, but for a while. PG's are leading the pack, but whole team is passing bad. Bigs, guards, forwards, everyone.
-- God I hope Micheal Conley is the Hall of Fame, Steve Nash type passing savior he is being billed as by many fans (though i expect the high expectations for his playmaking and passing ability as a NBA rookie are slightly a function of displeasure in our current PG play and not a true reflection of his current ability)
-- Seeing Kaman be the 2nd coming of Wilt, Dwight Howard absolutely scares me to death.

Chipc3's Obvservations:
Good thing a lot of people were at holiday parties instead of this game. The crowd was fitting for the way the team played. For once the team got just what they deserved.

11 turnovers. Not in the game, not in the half but in the 1st quarter! Talk about throwing away the game early. After three days off and 5 days with only 1 game there is no excuse for that. I suppose after the first quarter only having 25 turnovers in the game should be considered an accomplishment.

If anyone wanted to know why the team needs Gasol then just look what happened after Darko started to get tired. Stro took the night off, Hakim focused on scoring early and fouling late and Andre Brown was all Iavaroni was left with. At least Brown seemed like he wanted to play hard on both sides of the court.

Rudy has to learn how to defend slashing players. Rudy got into foul trouble early and stayed there all game. In his defense one call was particularly terrible when he was fighting to get to a lose ball and the refs call him for his fourth foul. At that point of the game the refs seemed intent on being the focus of the game. Warrick got a similiar call for his fourth moments later. It was terrible.

The point guards play has been covered but I will make a short comment to put in perspective. Dan Dickau was the best point guard in the game.

Tarence Kinsey played but didn't look like the player I remember from last season. Navarro played but didn't look like the player I remembered from November. Stromile played and looked just like the player we have seen almost every year in Memphis.

Coach Iavaroni can't escape some second guessing either. When you are down ten points with 5 minutes to play perhaps it would make sense to have some players in the game that can hit a three point shot. Damon, Miller and Navarro have the best 3 pt shooting percentages and only Miller was on the court until the very end of the game. Damon never did play in the 4th. If Lowry isn't going to control the ball at the point and isn't stopping Dan Dickau perhaps Damon and Navarro should get a chance to shoot us back into the game. You know, even Brian Cardinal can hit the three and he will give defensive effort too. Just a thought.

I really expected the team to come out with a strong effort last night. I was very disappointed. Perhaps it was the shock of losing Gasol yesterday and seeing him on crutches tonight but it really was bad against a team ready to lose. We should be ashamed.