The Memphis Grizzlies come into Sunday’s game with brimming confidence. Before the game, Grizzlies’ head coach Lionel Hollins portrays his team as a cohesive group of guys who have taken it upon themselves to have impromptu film sessions and to call out counters on the floor when the first offensive option isn’t working. The manifestation of all this was witnessed the other night when Memphis blew Portland out of the Rose Garden.

For the Clippers, Memphis represents a particularly dangerous challenge because the Grizzlies lead the world on the offensive boards. Coming into Sunday’s game, the Grizzlies had collected over a third of available rebounds off their own misses. Meanwhile, the Clippers rank 29th out of 30th on their defensive glass.

It’s completely counter-intuitive then to look down at the box score at halftime to see that the Clippers have given up only a single offensive board, while grabbing eight of their own.

The only thing that’s stranger?

The Clippers trail by 15.

Marc Gasol and Rudy Gay are the primary assailants. The Clips haven’t had an answer for Gay on the wing in the teams’ previous two meetings. And the Clips, while not a bad defensive team when up against more traditional drive-and-kick schemes, have trouble when offenses swirl around a high post threat like Gasol. Kaman’s head ends up on a swivel, but his reaction time is a beat behind the game, and the entire Clippers’ defense breaks down. Memphis also outperforms its shot selection. In the first half, Baron Davis runs underneath screens for both Mike Conley and Jamaal Tinsley — which seems sensible. Unfortunately, the Memphis point guards burn the Clippers, going 8 for 11 in the first half for 18 points.

Most of all, the Clippers are just plain soft.

“What I told them at halftime was, ‘Look, [the Grizzlies] are just too comfortable out there,’” Mike Dunleavy said after the game. “You’re letting these guys stare the basket in the eye.”

It takes another 13 minutes or so, but the Clippers begin to knock the Grizzlies off their spots. The Clips challenge every screen, outwork the Grizz for defensive position, and display quick feet on every pick-and-roll. They outscore Memphis 33-7 in the fourth quarter and surge to a 10-point victory.

With all due respect to the 33, it’s the 7 that’s most impressive for the Clips.

Here’s how it plays out in the fourth:

Game 18

12:30p PT

Fox Sports Prime Ticket

980 AM

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This sort of thing would happen to the Clippers, wouldn’t it? With nine minutes left to play, the television feed for the game drops out completely. I’m left only with Mike and Ralph giving me a play by play account of what is happening on the court. No big deal – the duo is so good that I’m willing to accept the loss of vision as only a slight hindrance to my overall experience. Of course, as soon as the whole radio bit starts to grow on me, the sound feed dies. Great. Now my only option is the intertubes, but unfortunately I can only find a simple play by play to follow along with. Do not worry though. After following the play by play, I have a pretty good idea of how it (probably) all went down.

[4th Q, 9:27] – The scoreboard, video, and sound feed are all down, but the lighting in the arena miraculously still works. With nothing better to aimlessly stare at, the Clippers all fix their eyes on Dunleavy in the huddle. Confused by all the new found attention, Dunleavy freezes up. Baron urges Dunleavy on, but just as Dunleavy regains his composure the t-shirt cannon guy appears. A renegade t-shirt comes to Kaman, but he bobbles it and drops it.

[4th Q, 9:12] – Out of the timeout Marcus Camby gets his 6th block of the night, and Craig Smith draws an offensive foul. Back on the other end, Smith assists on a Marcus Camby dunk. The two pause momentarily to admire their own awesomeness, then engage in an epic flying high five.

[4th Q, 8:26] – From boxscore: “Rodney Stuckey assists.” I refreshed three times to make sure it was accurate, and yes, this actually did happen. Congratulations are in order.

[4th Q. 7:28] – Jonas Jerebko gets fouled and scores on an acrobatic finish to narrow the deficit to two. Sensing he was close to a double-double “animal style” (double digit total rebounds with double digit offensive rebounds), Ben Wallace checks himself into the game. Lo and behold, Jerebko misses the free throw, Wallace gets the offensive rebound and gives it right back to Jerebko, and he promptly knocks down a three. The 5 point play gives the Pistons the lead, 87-86. Since he didn’t box out, Rhino asks Camby for take backsies on the high five, but Camby declines.

[4th Q, 6:05] – Al Thornton hits his second jumper IN A ROW from beyond 15 feet. Thornton gives the Pistons bench the “Michael Jordan against the Blazers shrug” as he backpedals down the court.

[4th Q, 5:47] – Official timeout. The scoreboard regains power, and the fans collectively exhale. A whole fourth quarter of not knowing when to MAKE SOME NOISE would have been an absolute disaster.

[4th Q, 4:18] – Eric Gordon makes a driving layup that is downright Michael J. Fox-ish. Always aware of the situation, Chris Kaman gives Gordon a triumphant piggy back ride all the way back down court.

[4th Q, 3:32] – When the TV feed resurfaces, Jerebko nails another three to bring the Pistons within four, much to the delight of his fan section composed entirely of vikings. No — seriously. Jerebko has fans and they dress up like vikings.

So that basically sums up what we missed while we were subjected to poker.

Game Notes:

• The Clippers had their worst rebounding effort of the season tonight. Detroit grabbed an incredible 19 offensive rebounds, 10 of them coming from Ben Wallace. It’s no secret around the league that the Clippers don’t box out – expect teams to continue to hit the offensive boards with reckless abandon like Detroit did tonight.

• The familiar trend of the Clippers shooting extremely well in the first half continued tonight, as they made 54% of their field goals and finished the game at a 56% clip. Again, another narrow escape that didn’t have to be – the Clippers nearly shot 20 percentage points higher than the Pistons. If you’re that much better offensively, you should win by a much larger margin.

• This makes back to back nights where Marcus Camby has played over 40 minutes – for those of you worried about Blake Griffin’s spot in the rotation, don’t be. Camby and Kaman should not and will not keep up this heavy of a workload.

• When Kaman, Baron, and Thornton are on their games, the Clippers are a very efficient offensive unit. The three combined to go 25 for 34 from the field tonight for a 74% combined shooting percentage. When the Clippers struggle on offense, it’s rarely the result of bad play calls or a lack of execution. It’s usually just the Clippers missing open looks. Even Eric Gordon, who struggled a bit by his standards (4-11 FG) had three wide open looks from deep simply not fall. The sets are working well, but the Clippers are playing uphill basketball by allowing their opponents an unnecessary amount of extra possessions every game. The team simply needs to work harder on the glass if they plan on playing at a higher level.

Clippers next tilt will be Sunday at home against the Grizzlies at 12:30p PT.

Game 17

5p PT

Fox Sports Prime Ticket

980 AM

What do Earl Watson, Dahntay Jones, Tyler Hansbrough, Troy Murphy and Jeff Foster all have in common? They all love to beat the hell out of their opponents. Troy Murphy was the best defensive rebounder in the entire league last year. Dahntay Jones plays the type of defense that could make a previously partial viewer absolutely loathe him. Earl Watson is one of the most underrated perimeter defenders in the game. Tyler Hansbrough made an entire collegiate career out of finding dogs overpowering people down low. Jeff Foster just may be the dirtiest player in the NBA. The idea is, these guys aren’t going to run by you and they’re not going to shoot the lights out, but they will lure you into a drag out, nasty, ugly affair. Without Granger, playing that type of game was the best chance the Pacers had at winning, and the Clippers allowed themselves to get caught up in the mud.

This was by far the Clippers worst offensive performance to date and the box score numbers are not for the weak stomached. The team went 29 for 90 from the field, which totals out to an unbelievably bad 32.2%. In addition to shooting poorly, the Clippers only managed to get to the line 14 times against an incredibly physical opponent in Indiana who did not shy away from contact. Kaman struggled with his jumper for the second night in a row and finished 3 for 19 from the field, while Al Thornton cooled way down with a 2 for 15 performance. That’s a combined 5 for 34 outing from two of the Clippers primary scorers.

Surprisingly though, most of those 34 combined looks were good ones. This was not a case of Al Thornton reverting back to his inefficient ways and chucking up contested deep jumpers. Instead, this was just Al missing multiple chances from point blank range. Dahntay Jones did such a great job banging with Al in the post that when Al was finally able to free himself from Jones, he often hurriedly and excitedly put up an off balanced attempt. Some of these misses can probably be attributed to Roy Hibbert’s presence as well – Hibbert may have “only” blocked 3 shots, but he altered another handful as well. Despite the terrible totals, getting Al Thornton looks near the rim is pretty high on the list of desirable scenarios for the Clippers offense. He just failed to finish.

Speaking of missed chances, what’s been eating Chris Kaman lately? No one expected Kaman to keep up his torrid early season pace, but in his last 5 games he’s gone 28 for 82 (34%) from the field and has continued to turn the ball over at an alarming rate (3.4/game). Should this be cause for concern? Is Chris Kaman regressing as the season moves forward? If you follow the same theory that was just applied to Thornton, the answer is no. Upwards to 8 or 9 of Kaman’s misses tonight were easily convertible bunnies that are usually a guaranteed two points. This slump hasn’t gone on long enough to justify hitting the panic button quite yet. Give some credit to the defenders who have pestered Kaman the last two games. Ryan Hollins and Roy Hibbert are both extremely long, and their length and shot blocking ability caused Kaman to alter the release point on his jumper just enough to throw it off. Kaman should regroup well against the smaller teams awaiting him next in Detroit, Memphis and Houston. If he struggles mightily in those matchups, especially with Gordon back, then there may be some real cause for concern.

Game Notes

• Gordon’s triumphant return back to the lineup, and his home state, was rained on a bit tonight. Gordon looked a little rusty on the defensive end keeping up with Luther Head, who sparked a completely stagnant Pacers offense in the early going. Gordon showed off his trademark explosiveness on the offensive end, but it only resulted in 6 points off 2 for 7 shooting and a game low mark of -22 in 27 minutes. Surely it wasn’t the homecoming Gordon had in mind. Before the game, Gordon said he was “100 percent”, but expect a few games of Gordon shaking off the cobwebs.

• The Clippers pick and roll defense has been notably better this year, but tonight it fell apart when it was most needed. Two T.J. Ford/Troy Murphy pick and pop plays in the 4th quarter[4:52, 1:46] resulted in absolutely back breaking buckets. Murphy is a tough cover in those situations for any big man, but the Clippers would be well served to tighten up in that area of defense. There are plenty of big men out west (Nowitzki, Frye, Odom) who can destroy the Clippers off that simple two man game.

• There was a point in the third quarter where both teams were shooting under 30%. The main beneficiary in an ugly contest like this? Garbage man extraordinaire, Marcus Camby. Camby’s line through three periods was absolutely ridiculous – 10 points, 20 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 blocks. It’s scary to think how the Clippers would have fared the last two contests without his services.

• Maybe the most damning stat of the night, outside of the putrid shooting totals: Clippers as a team had 9 assists…and 14 turnovers. When the team isn’t shooting well, taking care of the ball or sharing it, the offense is going to perform poorly like it did this evening.

• A pet peeve of mine when watching younger kids practice is that most of them warmup incorrectly. They’ll get on the court, and almost without fail they’ll start jacking up threes. I understand that – shooting three pointers is fun. They count for more points, I get it. But for warming up purposes, it makes no sense to start from deep. The smart way to warmup is to start right next to the basket, and slowly move your way out as you make shots, get a sense of range, and gain confidence. Baron Davis essentially does that tonight. Instead of settling for outside looks early, Baron gets 3 of his first 4 buckets by driving to the hole for easy layups. And what do you know? A confident Baron hits back to back threes as a result. Baron finished with 25 points tonight, tying his season high and continuing his trend of playing well after a particularly bad individual performance.

The Clippers will return to action Friday night in Detroit, likely after some serious soul searching over the holiday.

Game 16

4p PT

Fox Sports Prime Ticket

980 AM