He’s perfectly fine is the word from team sources.  Taylor injured his knee Saturday night at Houston and had to be helped off the court, though he returned to the game in the third quarter.

Taylor has been a dynamic, dizzying force for the Clips in the dregs of spring basketball.  His size will continue to present challenges defensively, and he’s not a natural distributor — but he’s also only 22 years old.  There’s no reason to believe that more minutes, a little time at guard camp, and a productive summer league won’t improve those skills.  More...

• First off, tremendous thanks to D.J. Foster for holding down the fort this weekend.
• The Associated Press’ Jeff Latzke has a profile of Shaun Livingston, making his way back with the Tulsa 66ers: “Livingston has no intention of ever watching the replay of that fateful night, believing that doing so would do nothing to help him make the kind of plays he’s making now. At times, he looks like the same Livingston as before — his white socks pulled up to the knees of his toothpick-thin legs — except now there’s a black brace on his left knee and his stringy dreadlocks have been replaced by a close-cut hairdo. On Saturday night, he had the blow-by for a dunk in the first quarter and another dunk in the third quarter — the first time he’d had two dunks in a game since he started playing again. He also had a behind-the-back assist on a basket by D.J. White and a nifty handoff after getting into the lane and jumping to fake a shot. And he can still find his way through a crowd to get to the hoop in transition.”
• Inside Hoops has an interview with Ralph Lawler. The highlight of his broadcasting career with the Clippers? “Without question, it goes back to 1992. Larry Brown was the ballclub’s coach and in the middle of the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, LA was hit with the Rodney King riots and shut down the city for four days, postponed the playoffs and the Jazz were kind of stranded in Los Angeles. They couldn’t even get home, curfew at night and they finally revived the series, moved the game to Anaheim, which is about 40 miles south of LA.  On a Sunday afternoon, all of a sudden a cloud lifted over the city. People could go out and have fun and the Clippers defeated the Jazz in an exciting game and forced the fifth and final game of the playoffs the following day in Salt Lake City.”
• Crackers and bananas for Baron. If he plays this right, he could lose 10-15 pounds.
• Did you know that at every Hornets’ home game, there’s a religious benediction before the national anthem?

This is the Clippers last game of a 6 game road trip, and as a reward they get a well rested Rockets team that hasn’t played in 4 days. Vegas has set the spread at 15.5, a relatively outrageous number for an NBA game. For all of you innocent cherubs out there who have never gambled, this means that Vegas expects the Rockets to win by 15.5 points. Comically, (or perhaps depressingly) the Rockets nearly cover this spread in the first quarter, jumping out to a 30-17 lead.

Baron Davis sits out tonight for the second straight game. Before the tip, my league pass companions for the night, Matt Bullard, Clyde Drexler and Bill Worrell inform me that they spoke with some of the Clippers players before the game. According to these unnamed sources, Baron is out due to an ulcer. After this is said, Matt Bullard deadpans “Isn’t he a little young to have an ulcer?”  Uncomfortable silence ensues.

Let’s bring you up to date with Baron’s injury status. Depending upon who you ask, Baron has, or has a combination of, the flu, cramps, a stomach virus and an ulcer. It’s no secret around the league that when bad teams are way out of the playoff race, players sit out the rest of the year with relatively ambiguous injuries like pulled muscles. If this is the case with Baron, I don’t put it past the Clippers medical staff to struggle with the simple task of naming one injury or ailment, and then sticking to it. I truly do hope that Baron is okay and it isn’t too serious. Remember, different people have different levels of pain tolerance, so it’s impossible to know just how Baron is feeling right now. Extremely ill or just barely under the weather, the Clippers should shelve Baron for the year anyways to get Mike Taylor as much playing time as possible.

Speaking of Taylor, he’s matched up tonight with a dead ringer for The Simpsons character version of Ken Griffey Jr., Aaron Brooks. Besides Tony Parker, Aaron Brooks is probably the fastest point guard in the league, so it’s another tough match up for Taylor. Defensively, Taylor is still very raw. He hasn’t quite learned how to positively harness all his energy and athleticism yet, but he has all the potential to one day be a good defensive player. As it is right now he gets caught standing straight up and not in a defensive stance too often, and against quick guards like Brooks you just can’t get away with that. Tonight Brooks gets the best of Taylor, going 9 for 17 with 21 points. Taylor finishes with 11 points and a phenomenal 6 to 1 ast/to ratio, and is pretty good offensively all night despite playing the game with a knee bruise he suffered at the end of the 2nd quarter. A few days ago there was a post in the comments section comparing Taylor to a young Rajon Rondo, and I agree that there are some striking similarities between the two. Taylor isn’t half the defender Rondo is right now, but offensively they are very similar in their unpredictable nature. Taylor still has a long way to go to before he’s a legitimate starting point guard, but this has been a promising rookie campaign.

With Marcus Camby (ankle) also out, Chris Kaman got 27 minutes of work tonight against one of the league’s best in Yao Ming. Yao absolutely took it to Chris to start the game. Check out the stat lines from the first 6 minutes of play:

-Yao Ming – 7 points, 6 rebounds (3 offensive)

-Chris Kaman – 2 points, 0 rebounds, 1/4 shooting

This isn’t exactly fair to Chris because of the small sample size, but Yao pretty much dominates him all night. When matched up directly against Kaman, Yao went 5 for 6 from the field and 5 for 6 from the line for 15 of his total 21 points. Kaman scores down low a few times to start the 2nd half, but he spends most of the evening missing uncontested 15 footers.

After Kaman gets abused in that first 6 minute stretch, Dunleavy curiously decides to bring in Brian Skinner, who hasn’t seen action since March 4th against Memphis. Skinner didn’t produce much in his time on the floor, so Dunleavy thankfully brought in DeAndre Jordan. Jordan came in and immediately made his presence felt, scoring 5 points and gathering an offensive rebound in 4 minutes of play. Jordan also finished the half with a team best +/- mark of +7. Jordan played tough in the second half as well, and ended up finishing a perfect 4/4 from the field for 9 points.

It’s hard to be too mad at Kaman for his performance tonight. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I actually rarely ever get upset with Chris. He’s just too much like a loveable St. Bernard; Giant, hairy, clumsy, and generally destructive. For some giggles, quickly flip back and forth between Chris and the St. Bernard. They’re one in the same!

Al Thornton plays really well defensively tonight, forcing Artest to shoot a horrible percentage from the field. He also takes it right to Artest a few times on the offensive end with decent success. Despite not burning up the box score, Thornton plays one of the better games we’ve seen from him in a while.

Eric Gordon struggles slightly against the much taller Shane Battier, but he still does a great job of putting the ball on the ground and getting to the rim. Part of what makes Houston so tough defensively is that their perimeter defenders can play really tight and take away jumpers because they have a great shotblocker in Yao to back them up. The Clippers guards technically should have this luxury as well with Kaman and Camby behind them, but the help D is so poor that one extra pass almost always leads to an open look.

Enough doom and gloom though. I think at this point in the season it’s healthy to allow your mind to wonder and have some quality self introspection time. The question I regularly ask myself is, “Why am I a Clippers fan?”

It’s a complex question that doesn’t have one answer. I do, however, think that all Clippers fans share some of the same basic qualities. I believe we are all extremely loyal people, sometimes to a fault. I believe that we are all obviously extremely patient people as well. But most of all, I believe that ALL of us crave to be a part of something truly special. Hopping on a bandwagon? Not special. Rooting for the Lakers? Easy. But backing the Clippers during one of their worst seasons? Painfully difficult. I know things look awful right now, but I can promise you one thing. If on one fine day we do get to taste the championship champagne, our prior suffering will make that swig the sweetest of our lives.

Thanks for reading fellow masochists Clipper fans.

Game 74

5:30p PT

KTLA 5

It’s very rare to see a game swing so dramatically in the very first minutes. The Clippers come out and hit their first two shots, and it’s easy to find yourself hoping that the positive momentum from the New York win is carrying over. This hope ends quickly though when Marcus Camby goes down with a nasty looking ankle injury. When this happens you can visibly notice the entire teams body language change dramatically, and as shoulders slump and heads tilt downwards, you realize any hope of an already improbable upset is basically gone.

After Marcus goes down, the Spurs smell blood and relentlessly attack the Clippers interior defense with high screen and rolls. Zach Randolph’s defense is predictably poor, but his guards do him no favors by continually getting hung up on screens. Zach needs to either hedge, show, or switch, but on multiple occasions he chooses to do none of these things, and instead sits indecisively in no man’s land.  Parker’s easy 8 points in 2 minutes in the first quarter are all a direct result of horrific team defense. Yes, Zach Randolph needs to decide how he’s going to defend the pick and roll, but the weakside defenders need to collapse to the paint to help out. You can literally count on one hand the number of contested shots the Spurs have to take in the first period.  Everything comes entirely too easy, and the Spurs nearly tie their season high for first quarter points with 39.

There are things we have come to learn this season about the Clippers defensive deficiencies, and they are on full display again tonight. The team simply can not defend high pick and rolls, and perhaps even more disconcerting is that the coaching staff seemingly doesn’t have a plan on how they would like to defend them. Defensive rotations continue to be slow at best. Just about every NBA player can hit an open jump shot with consistency (Hide your eyes Quentin Ross), yet the Clippers continue to lackadaisically close out on everyone. The effort just isn’t there. They don’t show up tonight, and it’s evidenced by the Spurs only turning over the ball 3 times all game.

Even the most optimistic of Clippers fans shouldn’t have expected a win tonight though. A Spurs team at home and at full strength is near impossible to beat.  Baron Davis may have been able to help the cause, but he was sidelined tonight with a combination of the cramps and the flu. The good side to this was that we got to see what Mike Taylor could do running the team, and the results were overwhelmingly positive.  In a season where wins and losses have ceased to matter, it’s important that we get a good long look at our young talent.

Mike Taylor is the best Clipper tonight, going 10 for 13 for 23 points and only turning the ball over once against one of the best defensive teams in the league. Time after time he makes the Spurs pay for not respecting his jumper. The way he motors around the court at a frantic pace is a joy to watch. Taylor plays with a passion that’s evident in both close games and in blowouts. He’s a competitor, and it’s evident when he gets upset when things go wrong, and plenty goes wrong tonight. In most situations in basketball, throwing your hands to your sides in disgust is a bad thing. It’s considered bad body language, and it usually has a negative effect on the team. Clippers fans, however, should embrace this type of reaction. Mike Taylor getting upset about his team giving up an easy bucket means he cares. Baron Davis has alienated a lot of fans by playing poorly in losses, and then smiling and hamming it up on the bench or at the end of games. Losing doesn’t sit as well with Mike Taylor, and that in itself is refreshing.

With Mike Taylor playing so well in his increased role the last two games, it’s easy to wonder why DeAndre Jordan is still sitting at the end of the bench during games. Playing Marcus Camby 35 minutes a game is not going to increase or decrease his trade value at this point in the season. Bringing Chris Kaman in for major minutes while he’s recovering from an injury is also a bad idea. Zach Randolph doesn’t need to play 40 minutes under any circumstances. Why not let DeAndre get some more burn? Tonight is a perfect example of why he should be getting more time. He might be a mess offensively, but he’s an excellent rebounder and shot blocker. Right now is the best time to let him go out and make mistakes and learn from them. If he is going to be a piece of our future, and I believe that he is, why not let him learn the ropes right now? He’s not developing by hanging out with Ricky Davis on the bench. Put him in for about 8 minutes in the first half, and if he plays well, leave him in the game. If DeAndre’s draft stock plummeted because he dealt poorly with pressure at A&M, why not let him gain some confidence that will better equip him to handle those pressure situations? Blocking a Tim Duncan shot can do wonders for your confidence. It’s beneficial for everyone to play him; DeAndre gets to learn on the job and the coaching staff gets a glimpse of what might be the not so distant future. What’s the worst thing that can happen from playing our young guys? We gain a few extra lottery balls.

Eric Gordon has played well all year, and Mike Taylor and DeAndre Jordan have looked great in flashes. From top to bottom, this draft class is one of the better ones the Clippers have ever had.

This rookie class is promising. One day, hopefully sometime before we are all hooked up to respirators, the Clippers will be contenders again.

Keep the faith.