- Tim Thomas has always been regarded as a good fit for Mike D’Antoni’s offensive system. Unfortunately, that good fit looks like a tight fit right now:
“[Thomas] might be a few pounds overweight,” D’Antoni said.
Thomas, who came with Mobley from the Clippers, did not argue with D’Antoni’s assessment. He said it has been three years since he played D’Antoni’s speedball system.
“It’s going to be difficult for Cuttino also,” Thomas said. “I have to continue to get in shape for this system. It’s up and down, and in L.A., it was run when you have the opportunity. The last couple of years, it’s been that way. I know how to get myself right. I’ve played it before. It will take me a week and I’ll be ready.”
- Injuries sustained by Marcus Camby and Eric Gordon on Saturday night appear to be minor, and shouldn’t result in any time on the shelf for either player.
- Despite being banished to the end of the Bench, Jason Hart has been nothing but professional, according to Ramona Shelburne.
- Smart breakdown from Clips Nation of that nutty play Saturday night with :07.6 remaining. With Tom Ziller, Steve gets to the heart of the matter: “If Wade has the ball and comes into contact with Kirkland out of bounds, then he is out of bounds – LA ball. And it’s not open to interpretation.” Oddly, the Miami Herald did no such examination in crafting its recap or its headline.
- Interesting piece from Caryl Kauffman on Elton Brand and the Sixers’ struggles. She notes that Brand “has a tendency to get a bit defensive when the topic turns to the lack of offensive flow and how difficult the team’s adaptation to his style has been…”
Morning Roundup
on December 1, 2008 at 8:39 am
9 Responses
“Smart breakdown from Clips Nation of that nutty play Saturday night with :07.6 remaining. With Tom Ziller, Steve gets to the heart of the matter: “If Wade has the ball and comes into contact with Kirkland out of bounds, then he is out of bounds – LA ball. And it’s not open to interpretation.”
Meh.
Neither ClipperSteve nor Ziller gets to the heart of the matter in the least, IMHO.
Wade got rid of the ball at almost the exact same time that he collided with the ref. There are two possible “accurate” calls here:
1) If Wade still had the ball when he touched the ref, then it’s Clippers ball.
2) If Wade had gotten rid of the ball before he touched the ref, and the ref not realizing/seeing that Wade had passed it blew his whistle and then realized he shouldn’t have, then it’s Heat ball.
I can’t tell for sure via the replays which of the two scenarios would be the “accurate” one. My guess is that #1 was what happened, but it’s pretty damn close, and impossible to tell for sure via those angles.
Importantly, it seems that none of the three refs had a good view of whether Wade made contact with the out-of-bounds ref before unloading the ball, which is why the huddle took so long. The ref who blew the whistle almost definitely couldn’t see the play.
At that point, the refs can pick scenario 1 or 2 and still have it “correct”, if not necessarily “accurate”.
In retrospect, saying that no ref had a view and then having a jump ball would probably have been the best idea, but as stated, what they ended up doing was perfectly “correct” as a call.
Posted on December 1st, 2008 at 9:25 am
How dare does any question Tim Thomas’s fitness?!!!
Posted on December 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I love it when Dwayne Wade cries like a baby. He is a spectacular player, but he has gotten nothing BUT the benefit of the doubt since he burst onto the scene … especially in the 2006 Finals.
Another 50 bad calls shouldnt make up for those couple of foul calls he got in the finals that year. Even thoguh they’re not deceased, Dirk, Barkely, Ewing, Stockton and Malone are all turning over in their graves over those calls.
I actually liked him before the league served that title up on a silver platter for him and the insufferable Shaquille O’Neal.
Posted on December 1st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
“He is a spectacular player, but he has gotten nothing BUT the benefit of the doubt since he burst onto the scene … especially in the 2006 Finals.”
I know everyone hates on the refereeing of that series because of the raw number of FT’s Wade had, but I think most of it was called absolutely correctly.
Blame the loss on Dallas stupidly refusing to single-cover Shaquille, when Dampier could’ve done the job well enough for them to win a title. The Dwyane Wade of 2006 was actually good enough to single-handedly beat the Mavs playing 4 on 3.
Posted on December 1st, 2008 at 1:54 pm
After 82 games, Brand and Miller didn’t work for the Clips the first time around. Why did Philly think it would this time? Sometimes, players just don’t play well together. No matter how talented they are
Posted on December 1st, 2008 at 7:17 pm
The problem with Brand and Andre Miller is that their game aren’t complimentary. EB needs a point guard that can hit the mid-range jumper consistently to loosen up the defense. Andre can’t do that with any regularity so the defense sags on EB. Meanwhile EB needs to work in the low block which clogs the lane for Andre Miller to drive. It’s actually kind of painful to see the two of them trying to work together.
It will be interesting if Zach has monster numbers this year with plays that were ran for EB. As Dunleavy said after the Miami game; they just called a bunch of EB plays and Zach delivered big time on Saturday. Perhaps EB’s all-star season with the Clips has more to do with Dunleavy’s plodding half court system than what he can do by himself.
Adding EB to Philly’s run and gun offense have slowed it down considerably…and Mo Cheeks isn’t a good enough X and O’s guy to script an effective half court set. We should have won that game against them. They’re just not a very good team and were painfully bad in the half court. Unfortunately, we were worse. But things might be looking up a bit if we can win 3 out of 4 on this road trip.
Posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 12:51 am
“1) If Wade still had the ball when he touched the ref, then it’s Clippers ball.
2) If Wade had gotten rid of the ball before he touched the ref, and the ref not realizing/seeing that Wade had passed it blew his whistle and then realized he shouldn’t have, then it’s Heat ball.”
FWIW, the plot thickens. The Heat claims option 2 is correct, and Stu Jackson of the NBA league office claims that option 1 is correct, and that the call on the court was wrong.
Shawn H. Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:57 am
I watched the Prime Ticket telecast, and they showed the replay of Wade falling out of bounds at least three times…to me, he was CLEARLY out of bounds, which meant it would be Clipper ball, game over. I know in the rules, anytime the ball touches the referee regardless of the referee’s location on the floor, it’s a turnover period. Plus, Wade said he called timeout as he was falling out of bounds…in the same Prime Ticket replays, I never saw him signal timeout, and they showed it from a couple of different viewpoints.
As I’m of course happy for the win on Saturday, the final sequence should have never came about if the Clips had tighten up on defense, especially with Haslem’s WIDE-OPEN jumper.
As far as this road trip coming up, I can see the Clips going 3-1, if not 4-0. Dallas is decent, but it’s a winniable game because they’re still a soft team. Houston is the one that can give the Clippers trouble, because their role players always burn us with their outside shooting. T-Mac is out (surprise surprise) for this game, and he didn’t much of anything in the last matchup last month. They should run Memphis and Minnesota off the floor, although I wouldn’t be surprise if they look past either one of these teams, and get embarassed again. The perimeter defense (well, defense period) needs to show up to make this a winning road trip.
Posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 5:56 am
ESPN zone opened next to Staples. Went there last night, pretty good.
Posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 9:22 am
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