Familiarity is one of the true pleasures of following a pro sports team.  It’s the same comfort you derive from turning on a really good TV series and knowing all the character attributes of Detective Jimmy McNulty, or Coach Eric Taylor, or Don and Betty Draper.  The Clippers team of recent years was instantly recognizable by its principal players and its style, even if the team never achieved more than a conference semifinal berth.

Tonight’s victory is nice, but it’s also a little bit disarming.  In previous years, you had a firm understanding of how and why the Los Angeles Clippers won or lost basketball games.  Tonight, good things happen…but they’re not immediately perceptible, even if you follow the team closely.  It’s the dizzying experience of making good money at the craps table, even though you haven’t quite learned the game yet.

How can we begin to make sense of a team whose most tenured starter is second-year man, Al Thornton?

The Clippers stage this victory with an impressive 13-0 run in the 4th quarter — a sequence during which the Clips capitalize on 5 of their 6 possessions, while denying Miami a single point:

• [4th, 6:06] Mike Taylor is running point for the Clips.  Baron Davis, Al Thornton, Zach Randolph, and Marcus Camby are also out there.  Eric Gordon is having his hamstring attended to on the sideline.   The play call here is familiar — LA-1: A post set for Baron Davis.  Rookie Mario Chalmers is a quick defender, but he’s no match for the stronger Davis on the block.  Baron backs Chalmers down with his left shoulder, then dupes the rookie — and Udonis Haslam, the help defender — with a nifty baseline spin move.  Miami 86, Clippers 82
• [4th, 5:43] With EJ out, Baron Davis has the Wade assignment.   The Heat are slow to move.  Wade eventually gets it over to Michael Beasley on the perimeter against Randolph.  Beasley easily takes Randolph off the dribble, but as he reaches the paint, the Miami rookie runs into Marcus Camby.   He kicks it out to Daequan Cook way out beyond the arc for a contested 3PA that’s no good.  Credit Camby for the help on penetration, and Thornton for not sloughing off the shooter.
• [4th, 5:24] The Clippers have a serious size and strength advantage on Miami, and they’re going to exploit that edge to its fullest.  This time it’s Al Thornton against the smaller Cook at the exact same spot Baron Davis converted just a minute ago.  Al destroys Cook with an explosive dribble-drive and does everything but finish.  Randolph is there to collect the trash on the tip-in.  The Clippers finish the game with a 14-9 advantage on the offensive glass.  Miami 86, Clippers 84
• [4th, 5:04]  Miami has fallen in love with this hand-off/pick set up high with Wade and Beasley.   The Clips double Wade as he receives the ball.  Wade goes hard to the hole, then gives Haslam — wide open underneath because Camby has to help — a perfect pass that deflects out of bounds.  Off the inbounds, Wade tries to create up top against Baron Davis.  He works himself a little space for a 20-footer that doesn’t fall.  Camby rebounds.
• [4th, 4:45]  The Clippers push it up quickly: Taylor to Davis.  Upcourt, Randolph has managed to slip underneath Haslam, and nobody is better at finding his guy underneath in transition than Baron Davis.  In addition, few brutish big men have softer hands than Zach Randolph.  The pass is beautiful, with pinpoint precision.  Randolph converts the easy layup, gets fouled, and sinks the FTA.  Clippers 87, Miami 86. The Clips won’t trail again.
• [4th, 4:25]  Another hand-off for Wade up high, this time with Haslam.  Mike Taylor and Camby do good help work here, and Wade kicks it outside to Cook on the weak side perimeter.  Cook puts it on he floor and drives the gut of the lane, but has his shot swatted away by Camby.   Unfortunately, Camby comes up limping.  Enter Mardy Collins with :07 left on the shot clock.  The Clippers have lost their size advantage and their best interior defender.   Off the inbounds, the ball goes to Wade who, again, is met by a swarm of white jerseys in the paint.  Wade kicks it out again to Cook, who misses a 20-footer with Collins in his face.
• [4th, 3:59] High S/R on the right side with Baron Davis and Zach Randolph.  The Heat trap Davis and Randolph rolls to the hole, where he’s picked up by Beasley.  Davis opts for Mardy Collins on the left-side perimeter.  Collins loses the handle, and the ball squirts into the backcourt where Davis picks it up.  The Clippers are now in improv mode with :08 left on the clock.  It’s a S/R with Davis-Thornton.   As Davis penetrates, Beasley helps, leaving Randolph wide, wide, wide, wide, wide open on the right corner.  Davis finds Randolph, who drains the 3PM.  Clippers 90, Miami 86. Prior to this season, Randolph had hit 53 3PMs in his first seven seasons in the NBA [he hit one in his first 4 seasons].  Power to D’Antoni.
• [4th, 3:47]  This is an electric, why-you-watch-pro-basketball series.  High S/R on the left side with Wade & Shawn Marion.   As Wade moves right of the screen, Thornton gets his hand in, picks Wade’s pocket, and dashes with the ball into the open court.  As Al drives the break, he’s got Chalmers in front of him and Wade in close pursuit.  Al eludes the former, but as he goes up for the layup, Wade closes, then skies at the rim to swat Thornton’s shot out of bounds.  Off the inbounds, Collins finds Taylor alone on the weak side for a good, open look from about 17 feet.  The shot misses.
• [4th, 3:14]  Miami’s offense is lethargic.  Chalmers will lead this possession, and the best the Heat can come up with is Daequan Cook swinging around a screen for an 18-footer on the left side that clanks off the rim.  Randolph is underneath for the rebound.
• [4th, 3:00]  High S/R with Baron and Zach Randolph.  Baron drives right.  As he crosses the foul line, he lasers a short pass to Thornton who initially seems surprised.   Thornton is inside the restricted circle.  All this requires is a Dominique-esque double clutch by Al for the layup and one.  Clippers 93, Miami 86.

Ramona Shelburne had an interesting post on Thanksgiving Day about Baron’s mood since the Randolph acquisition:

Baron Davis’ mood seems to have brightened considerably in the last week. Basically, as soon as the Randolph trade went down, and about the same time Eric Gordon and Mike Taylor have gotten it going. BD seems to really enjoy mentoring the rookies.

That rosier mood is easily detectable tonight.  If you want to draw an optimistic prognosis off this game, it would go something like this:

The stylistic conflict between Baron Davis and Mike Dunleavy has been resolved with a logical — if imperfect — middle-ground.  Each man gets something he wants from the new roster:  Mike Dunleavy gets a big, physical team that can control the block offensively in the halfcourt.   For Dunleavy, that model fits squarely into his comfort zone.  Meanwhile, Baron Davis gets a guy in the post with soft hands who knows how to capitalize on his improvisational whims, and create opportunities with a little less structure [unlike Kaman, who needs a measurable amount of time and space to score].  Eric Gordon represents an appealing overlap of their sensibilities — a physical guard who can spread, slash, and defend.  Marcus Camby can mitigate the defensive liabilities Randolph presents, which should lessen Dunleavy’s agita.

However you feel about the longterm value of the Randolph acquisition, this should make for some fascinating basketball.

Game 16

7:30 pm PT

Fox Sports Prime Ticket

1260 AM

• I agree with Kim Hughes that timeouts tend to be overvalued in last possession situations.  Transition and general chaos always favor the offense, especially when the ball is in the hands of someone as effective in the open court as Baron Davis. As Hughes points out in Ramona Shelburne’s item, “Eric Gordon was wide open up top.”  That would’ve been the right pass, and a far more open look than anything that could’ve been generated by a timeout.  The trick to playing this scenario Sloan-style is having a guerrilla set, of sorts — a loose idea of where guys should be on the court off the push.
• Might as well put the kibosh on those Chris Kaman trade rumors for now.  Kaman played only 12 minutes and says that his ailing left arch is “progressively not getting better,” which is Kamanian for getting worse.  Then again, Jason Richardson’s bum knee hasn’t proven to be an impediment to the speculation.
• DeAndre Jordan’s blog continues to be a fun read.  Jordan recounts this from Monday night’s game against New Orleans: “A fan named Marc asked me what Posey said to me before I took my two shots. He pointed to me and said, ‘I didn’t foul him.’ I said, ‘Yeah you did. It’s right there on the Jumbotron.’ He said, ‘No I fouled Marcus Camby.’”
• PERologists, look whose rating just crossed 16.00 after hovering in the single digits for the first month of the season?  Amazing what a little bump in the “usage” category can do for a player — both for his stat line and for his confidence.  The figure to watch for Gordon is the True Shooting Percentage number [58.4%], not necessarily his regular, old FG% [41.0%].  Gordon will never hit the majority of his FGAs, but he has an instinct for getting to the line and, clearly, can drain the 3PA.
• Finally, an enormous thanks to Jeff Pickett for his stellar post following Wednesday night’s game.  There’s no one more enjoyable to watch, discuss, muse, and mouth off about NBA basketball with than Jeff.  And, as a Portland native and Blazer diehard, his insights on Randolph provided for a far better read than anything I could’ve produced.

Meet the new Zach, same as the old Zach.

Zach Randolph and I have a troubled history together. I first became aware of him when I caught a bit of the 2000 McDonald’s All-America Game on TV. I remember thinking as I watched him dominate the paint (he went on to win MVP), “This guy is big, yet relatively nimble. He looks like he could be good someday.” The next thing I knew, his one year at Michigan State had whizzed by, and he was suddenly a member of my beloved Portland Trail Blazers.

After two unremarkable campaigns, Z-Bo (the nonsensical nickname Zach has had since youth) exploded for a 20-10 season – something the vast majority of big men never achieve in their entire careers – at an age when he could still have been a college senior. Tantalizing thoughts entered the mind: once that baby fat turns to muscle, we could have one of the Association’s dominant post presences on our hands. We could build around this guy. This guy could lead us to a cham– wait, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Cut to five years later: the baby fat has turned to adult fat. Z-Bo became the face of the new, fan-unfriendly Blazers after being spotted at a Portland strip club while supposedly on bereavement leave back in his home state of Indiana. He was shipped to the Knicks. He has continued to put up solid, and occasionally spectacular, offensive numbers, and has in fact improved on his career high in rebounds by a staggering two a game so far this year, but team success has not followed.

So now Zach, at all of 27 years old, is on the Clippers, my adopted hometown team. After a season plus of blissfully ignoring the Blazers’ prodigy-turned-cancer while he plied his trade in the Eastern time zone, I’m now forced to watch and – gasp! – even root for him again. Let’s let bygones be bygones, I say. I’m going to back Z-Bo the Clip with all my heart, I told myself as I walked through the doors of Staples Center earlier tonight.

The first anticlimax of the game came when acting Clippers head coach Kim Hughes got Mardy Collins onto the court before Z-Bo. When Z-Bo finally did get off the bench, it took him all of five seconds to throw up an ill-advised jumper. After that, though, it was hard to tell he was out there at all, much of the time. I don’t know if Z-Bo was deferring or just not getting the ball in his spots, but he was nearly invisible for several minutes. In the second half, Z-Bo started chucking up shots from wherever he was getting the ball, and, although he shot a low percentage, he still didn’t seem to have all that detrimental an effect on the Clippers’ fortunes.

In the last four minutes of the game, though, we got to see what could be a microcosm for the Zach Randolph era in Clipperdom. At the 3:42 mark, Z-Bo hit a critical 16-footer in Kenyon Martin’s face. This was followed 15 seconds later by a defensive board and a nifty, no-hesitation pass upcourt to Eric Gordon for a breakaway dunk.

With just under two minutes left, Z-Bo pulled down a huge defensive rebound. At the other end, Baron ultimately found Eric for his fourth three, completing an 8-0 run to tie the game. After Carmelo hit a jumper and Baron missed a layup, Z-Bo fouled Kenyon Martin. K-Mart had gotten a head of steam, but the play exposed Z-Bo’s defensive issues. His only options when the opposing player attacks the rim are to let the guy go by or foul him – Zach has neither the athleticism nor the desire to really contest the effort. Luckily K-Mart missed one free throw, and at the Clippers’ end, Z-Bo slipped free under the basket for a layup. We were only down one with 35 seconds to go. Thanks in part to Z-Bo’s skill and activity in the final flurry, we had a shot for the win with three seconds left.

But it didn’t go in. (Granted, an unnecessary three-ball by Marcus Camby isn’t exactly what you want when you have plenty of time to run a play, and I must admit I don’t see as how that’s Z-Bo’s fault.) The million-dollar question is, how much does Z-Bo really have to do with the losses his teams keep accumulating wherever he goes, and how much is just coincidence? I’m afraid us Clippers fans will have plenty of opportunities to ponder this over the rest of the season.

Game 15

7:30p PT

Fox Sports Prime Ticket

KSPN 710

Ramona Shelburne has it:

The Clippers’ proposed trade with the New York Knicks has gone through, a source close to the team said Tuesday afternoon. The Clippers traded Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas to the New York Knicks for Zach Randolph and Mardy Collins.

The deal had hit a snag Monday night, when New York raised questions about the condition of Mobley’s heart.

The knicks had Mobley undergo additional testing Tuesday and signed off on the deal shortly thereafter.

So long as the Clippers have a crowded frontcourt, expect those Chris Kaman trade rumors to fester.  There are too many teams in the league desperate for help on the block.