One thing I always do is before I assign or cast any blame, I look at myself first. Yet, you moved on to a new scapegoat; after Blake Griffin’s ascent in the Playoffs last season, it seems like he is truly unstoppable, that he can merely will the team to victory atop his mighty shoulders.
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– At 7-8, it’s the worst record the Clippers have had in the Chris Paul era. But then…the reserves started to trickle in.
The teams were tied at 45 at the break. He hit two more shots and fed Jordan for a dunk to give the Clippers a 73-62 lead. It may sound improbable, but a DeAndre Jordan trade is on the cards. Smith was a menace on the boards and served as the catalyst for the bench’s nice stint. Following the first week of the season, they’ve gone 3-11 and are stuck looking for answers after their most recent loss on Wednesday to the Utah Jazz.
Danilo Gallinari predictably proved to be a handful for L.A., as well. You know, I thought Austin (Rivers) did a great job on Hayward; I think he scored four points on him. Johnson scored 11 points, but foul trouble impacted his night late.
Through six games, he was averaging 29.3 points, 9.7 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game, but over the last two-plus weeks, Griffin has seen his numbers decline. It didn’t matter considering Redick and Wesley Johnson combined for three points. “And there’s got to be more individual effort, second and third effort, to be better with that”. He’s a heady player that won’t force the action, which is exactly what the Clippers need out of their starting small forward.
The other two candidates are Lance Stephenson and Paul Pierce, both of whom were brought in during the offseason. The Nuggets don’t have that interior player.
That was … the combo breaker: The Clippers had won 13 in a row against the Jazz, with many of those wins close or as a result of furious comebacks from large deficits. LAC scored on nine consecutive possessions over a span of five minutes, with Denver helpless to stop them.
Los Angeles (7-8) has been veering in the opposite direction.
Jordan ended up with 16 free-throw attempts in that fourth quarter, making seven of them and finished 12-25 from the free-throw line on the night. “After a while, you don’t win”.
Changing DeAndre Jordan’s mind to stay with the team cemented that promise, but 14 games into the season they sit 7-7 at the seventh spot in the stacked Western Conference, showing no signs that they could compete to this year’s West elite of Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, and Oklahoma City.
It is at this time where we remind you that the Clippers’ 4th quarter defense is in the bottom-five in efficiency through 1 month of the season. The Nuggets never mounted a huge surge, due in large part to the disciplined Clipper offense.
Finally, a team from Los Angeles found a way to get a win. First, the Jazz worked well on the glass: the Jazz got 23 second-chance points tonight, while the Clippers only got 11. Malone appeared to get into it with rookie point guard Emmanuel Mudiay during a timeout. He’d finish with seven points and four assists in 24 nondescript minutes of action.
I’m very thankful that the Jazz beat the Clippers.
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When Mudiay was asked about the incident, he took the majority of the blame, a standup, mature answer from a 19-year-old who was thrown into the fire at the start of this season for a team destined to struggle.
