We speak abstractly about the razor thin margin between winning and losing in basketball, but rarely do we get such a lucid illustration. I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen a game in which a team has been resuscitated the way the Clippers are Saturday evening.
With the game tied 99-99 in regulation and 0:11.1 remaining, the Sixers have possession:
Most hardcore basketball fans are programmed with the ability to instinctively determine the legality of a buzzer-beater most of the time. Watching it initially, I thought Iguodala hit it. Did you?
On second review, I have no idea. If the ball is still on Iguodala’s fingers, it’s barely grazing the hair on his knuckles.
UPDATE: NBA.com offers a better look (about the 1:29 mark of the reel), and the ball appears to still be in Iguodala’s hands:
The Sixers execute poorly in overtime, while the Clippers put together a string of solid offensive possessions. Baron attacks, the Sixers fall asleep when they let an unmanned Rasual Butler set up early along the right side of the arc, the Clips pick up a bucket in transition and Butler manages to create something off the dribble.
Defensively for the Clips, Maureesse Speights is less comfortable against Al Thornton than Rasual Butler. Al’s got more muscle to contend with Speights, who likes to bully smaller defenders to get himself inside. That adjustment helps the Clippers in OT, as does their good pick-and-roll defense (on one possession, they blanket both a Green/Brand S/R up top and an Iguodala/Speights S/R counter on the side.
Overtime is almost anticlimactic without discounting the really important development: The Clippers win a game they badly needed.
Some bigger themes of the night:
Keeping Kaman on the floor with five fouls
My position is fairly dogmatic on this issue. Lifting productive players with two fouls in the first quarter is ill-advised, as is sitting them with five midway through the fourth quarter. It’s unwise not to maximize that player’s number of possessions, and yanking him doesn’t do that. On the possessions between Chris’ 5th and 6th fouls, the Clippers play the Sixers even. They convert two field goals on consecutive possessions when Kaman delivers pinpoint passes – the first to Thornton against a swarming double team, the second to Telfair when Chris is one-on-one against Elton Brand. On the other end, the Sixers score on a contested, unstable 20-footer by Iguodala and, of course, when Speights goes to the stripe when he draws Chris’ 6th.
The Sixers’ mismatches
Thad Young is the kind of 4 who will give the Clippers fits this season with Camby and Kaman as the starting frontcourt. Both are decent defenders, but neither has the athleticism to defend a player like Young who is so dynamic from the perimeter. This is where the Clips miss Blake Griffin, who’d be a natural cover to combat Young’s versatility. Young keeps the Sixers in the game through much of the first quarter. Mike Dunleavy adjusts by sending in Mardy Collins to work on the defensive end against Thad Young, and to Collins’ credit, he does an effective job keeping Young in check. Collins is useful in a limited defensive capacity. On the other end, though, posting Mardy Collins doesn’t strike me as the best way to bust the Sixers’ zone, but that’s the kind of offense you see from the Clippers in the latter minutes of the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter once Kaman fouls out, the Clippers don’t have an answer for Maurreese Speights, who exploits a mismatch against Rasual Butler in the Clippers’ zone. Sometimes there’s value in the zone to protect a defense against a guy like Speights when you don’t have a natural defender who can match up, but when that zone features Butler who, albeit a sound perimeter defender, doesn’t have the bulk to deal with Speights on the block, it doesn’t give you the best chance to win. Speights generates five points over possessions inside of two minutes against an undersized Butler.
Al Thornton’s late fourth quarter
In addition to the layup on the pass out by Kaman, Thornton muscles his way to the hoop for the Clippers’ two most important buckets of the night. On both possessions, the Clippers trail by two. The first comes on a drive from the left wing against Thad Young. Al goes middle and unleashes a running right-handed hook. The second occurs when Al beats on the league’s best one-on-one perimeter defenders with a left-handed baseline drive. makes a strong stand on the drive, but Thornton bursts to the hoop and hits a high-degree-of-difficulty shot high off the glass.
The parallels to the New York game are unsettling, and there are sequences in the second half when the Clippers are unable to get a decent look, most of those instances their own fault. Eric is uncharacteristically impatient, Mardy Collins plays an unnecessarily central role in the half-court offense, and Baron tries to create when there’s better stuff available on the weak side. And because they’re not getting stops, the Clips aren’t able to generate more than two fast break points in the second half, zero in the fourth quarter.
Chris Kaman vs. Elton Brand
I don’t generally get caught up in meta narratives, but watching Chris Kaman and Elton Brand face off mano a mano was fascinating, particularly in the tight stages of the fourth quarter. The two were playing an informal game one-on-one when Brand ruptured his Achilles tendon in August 2007, which adds a level of curiosity to the match-up.
In the first half, Kaman wins the battle. His best move comes at [2nd, 6:23] when he backs Elton in with his right shoulder, then spins baseline for an soft right-handed hook. Elton gets things started in the third quarter when he takes Chris off the dribble from the top of the circle, spins counterclockwise, then elevates for a jumper over Chris that falls through. Chris matches with the identical right shoulder/right hook from the first half. He follows by draining an open jumper from 18 feet when Elton gets crossed up on a Butler/Kaman angle S/R. Elton gets his say: He drains a face-up jumper from the right side (!) the next trip down.
Watching Elton against the Clips this season doesn’t induce the same emotion from me that it did last season. My visceral feelings about him have diminished. He’s certainly not just another guy out there, but I find myself more able to experience him apart from his legacy with the Clippers, the possessions against Kaman the possible exception.
27 Responses
Great job by Thornton to get those 2 buckets down the stretch to keep us alive. That’s something we really haven’t had. We’ll get the occasional 3 point shot to stay with it or win the game but I don’t recall having someone drive to hoop like that (to keep the game alive).
The refs gave the Clips an early Christmas present. That really could of went any way, and with our reputation, you’d think they’d just end the game and let the home crowd go home happy.
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Posted on December 19th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
One of the recaps (I think it is NBA.com ’s) shows a close up still pic of the final shot and the basket and it is clearly still touching is middle and index fingers it was the right call by the refs. I agree with you KA it would not have been smart to pull Kaman, he is what allowed us to stay in the game.
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Posted on December 19th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
the ball is still touching his hand ….i personally thought the game was over im glad the review benefited us….
my brother normally hates on the Clippers and even he was excited with everything that happened haha
2 games away from .500 once we reach 500 i think we can do some great things we just need that confidence to keep translation into victories….
the Spurs are good but not great if we play like we can we can win that game….
and im glad a call finally went our way
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Camby with 22 rebounds ! Baron Davis 20 points , 13 assists! Those are some great stats. Rasual coming to life the last few games.. Kaman with another 20 & 10 + .
Its a damn shame the Clippers blew the Knicks game. Keep hustling Clips. Almost to 500 , then just put some win streaks together.
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kirbs Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 1:49 am
And damn lucky not to have blown this game as well. Need to take advantage of these handy half time leads and not let teams back into, especially sub par .500 sides.. How long for Blake ?
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 12:58 am
yeah I thought it was in too, even after the replay. if you look at the nba recap video there’s a still where you can clearly see the ball still touching his fingers while the red lights are on (as bestclipfan stated)
http://www.nba.com/video/games/sixers/2009/12/19/0020900386_lac_phi_recap.nba/index.html
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bongstradamus Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 12:52 am
I’ve been harping on this for a week and a half now. We played an OT game and only had 8 players hit the court the whole game. Our bench isnt getting played and they desperately deserve minutes.
Collins and Skinner should be the 11th and 12th men, both those guys would be lucky to be playing next season, they arent pieces of our future. But keeping Telfair and Jordan on the bench when Kaman is in foul trouble or Barons played too many minutes is just retarded.
Someone is going to get a huge injury and then we’ll be forced to play the bench, except they wont know what to do because Dunleavy never plays them when the team is healthy and doesnt give them the minutes they need.
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 3:36 am
dunleavy didn’t even contest iguodala’s last shot to the officials. he just went back to the locker room, while some of our players are still on the court. that just really shows what kind of coach he is.
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JM Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
The kind that gets his team to win in overtime by 5, you mean.
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 7:24 am
benny, Dunleavy says he went to the locker room to review the tape himself.
Shows what kind of a coach he is.
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JClipper Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 7:37 am
hahahah. yes
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 7:30 am
bs! you could tell from his reaction, when iguodala made that shot that he accepted the lost. even look at the way he walked back to the locker room and ralph mentioned something about the coaching staff can’t find the clipboard.
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n0b0dy Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 9:11 am
errrr, so you are saying dunleavy was lying when he said he went to the locker room to review the tapes? oh wow, how cynical… cant even enjoy a win when be catch a lucky break! tsk…
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 7:52 am
PLAYOFF PICTURE:
TOP 5 to make it for sure: Lakers, Phoenix, Dallas, Denver, Utah.
Next top 3 with better road record: OKC(6-6), Portland(6-8), CLippers(5-6).
Bottom 4 to challenge above 3 with poor road record: San Antonio(3-6), Sacramento(2-11), NOH(2-10), Memphis(4-10)
Factors favorable to Clippers:
1. Griffin is yet to play(with him we might win 7 0f 10 on consistant basis)
2. OKC is talented but too young to sustain win record.
3. San Antonio will have to face injury issues on consistant basis.
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ghost_ride Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 10:19 am
The top 5 should be correct, but San Antonio and Houston should be 6 & 7 right now. It’s going to be tough, but were probably gonna have to beat out Portland, OKC, SAC (who is playing better than us), & NOH who we don’t seem to match up well with all.
Bottom line is the team needs to continue to improve. A positive is that team chemistry seems to be improving on the road trip, other people are stepping up other than EJ, and we’re catching some breaks. Now we just need to steal a game in Texas…if we can get two that would be very impressive.
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rmb Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 11:14 am
We might steal a game in San Antonio. If that happens, Popovich will literally & officially go crazy.
Big Plus for Clippers this season: Unexpected production & leadership from Baron & Kaman. Undimished skill & energy from Camby. EJ’s grown-up overall leadership.
AL’s new found vigor & urgency.
Now we’re impatiently waiting for GRIFFIN to join this stable bunch ASAP.
Kaman+Griffin= more wins than losses.
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Telair, is pissed about his minutes and is confused about Dunleavy’s rotations. Another source says Barron Davis feels similar. I guess we’ll be seeing less of Telfair after this article.
http://www.sportsreporters.com/2009/12/19/brewing-controversy-between-telfair-clippers-players-and-dunleavy/
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Curtis Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 10:28 am
I have to agree with Telfair on this subject. Smith and Bassy are more than capable to help the team tremendously, and considering B.Davis’ injury history and Camby’s age, Smith and Telfair should be seeing around 15 to 20 min a night. Not to mention, D. Jordan needs to see the court as much as possible as well, but we can never seem to sustain any substantial leads to give him some garbage time.
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 10:30 am
S*#t! I was so convinced game over, I turned the channel and missed overtime. It was a pleasant surprise to read the headline in LA Times today (but had to do a double take for it to sink in). Any where I can catch a look at OT now?
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Nobody, so you believed him..good for you! But I don’t believe everything he says and this is one of them. Imagine if he didn’t say that..oh and I am glad that we got the win.
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
personally i dont care for telfair or smith.. when griffin comes and the great leadership of mardy collins…. LA should ship telfair and smith and hopefully butler for a big solid SF to help thornton
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Beard The Curse Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Any half decent coach would be killing the league with this roster. Telfair and Smith on a second unit is a huge plus. Unfortunately, we have a complete pyscho moron for a coach.
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bongstradamus Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 12:48 am
HAHAHAHAHA “great leadership of Mardy Collins”
Thats pretty dang funny.
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Bull crap from KA this is the same coach that lost his team in the same fashion in a back toback. This damn game shouldn’t have even been close. What the hell do you bench DJ for Skinner for when you won’t play either Get the hell out of here with the Dunleavy defense. Dunleavy $hiy his pants and the players bailed him outh there was little to no ball movement AGAIN after half-time because the damn starters are tired.
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Just look at Dunleavy. His face, his body language…is he someone who inspires? I don’t think he does. He isn’t even eccentric like Jackson or Van Gundy. He’s a boring, hapless, middle aged white millionaire. He can’t relate to these young men on any level. He’s the personification of ‘average’.
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
why would dunleavy review the tape..its not his call….he walked away …loser…..
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bongstradamus Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 12:47 am
He was covering for the fact he walked to the locker room and had given up on the game after the last second shot. It sounds much better to say “I was watching tape from the lockers” instead of “Well, shucks, i thought the game was over and was ready to go home.”
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Posted on December 20th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
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