Lakers 96, Clippers 91: The Empire Strikes Back

I do not think the clippers are in trouble, but we have two tough games coming up and should we lose those then we’d be at 9-8 record and the FIRE VINNY movement will hit full blown alarm status.

My gut instinct is that this guy cannot coach us to a championship. As you mention D.J., depending on jump shots is NOT an offensive system we can rely on especially come playoff time. We need to hit the block more often with Blake, and even though his shot was falling tonight, I am not convinced yet that it will consistently.

We will not win every game, but the fact that we do not accept moral victories is a positive sign that our collective psyche as Clippers fans is transforming for the better. With this loaded roster, there are no moral victories and we should be able to compete in every single game.

A Few Suggestions:
1. I think you guys should read and answer listener e-mail / tweets on the show. Just make it a segment and chose one or two of the best ones.

2. I also think you should patch in listeners to come on live to the show, **cough cough**, to increase fan participation and keep the momentum of this Clippers Live podcast rolling.

I was pissed in the moments after this loss, but after I gave it some thought, the credit for this goes to Metta.

If I were Vinny, I would let him put up 3′s all night long. The fact that that shot was the back breaker, doesn’t mean it will *ever* happen again.

I watched the game, I’ve reviewed all the numbers, I see no glaring weaknesses. The Lakers, and Clippers both played a good game. I make no excuses, but I do demand accountability for what happened. I think I got that from the responsible parties. C. Paul was not happy with the result, and left the game visibly upset, its important that its not ok. Heres’ the thing. The Clippers played well enough to get the game to the closer. Sure, our set up man (C-Billups) didn’t do that great a job setting the tables, but the game could still have been closed out by our closer, C-Paul. Nothing more than a blown save, these things happen, we can’t win every game. It’ll be nice to beat the Lakes every time out, but nothing we can do now but get ready for the Grizzlies tonight. The Clippers played well enough to win, but our closer let them off the hook.

My biggest problem with our offensive this year has been Blake’s tendency to take 8 to 10 16-23 foot jumpers a game! I don’t understand when he thought stepping out to the perimeter and shooting a shot that he makes around 40% of the time, instead of playing physical, post basketball, where he makes close to 70% of his shots. It’s starting to get incredibly frustrating because what’s the point of CP3 carving up the defense just to dish to Blake 19 feet away from the basket?

Defensively, I just don’t understand why there’s no sense of urgency to close out by the wings. Billups and Butler are CONSTANTLY caught jogging to rotate to the open man. It’s why Rubio got the wide open look on Friday night, it’s why MWP was SO wide open for his 3-pointer (I don’t care who is taking the shot, no one should be left that wide open with no effort to contest the shot). There are plenty of other weaknesses on D, but the lack of young athletic wings that are defensive stoppers is going to kill us when it really counts this year.

I understand that we are only 4 weeks into the season, and 6 weeks from the day “Training Camps” (if you can even call it that) opened. The Heat started out last year 9-8 and that was with summer league, a full training camp, and no lockout to deal with. They went on to win 21 of the next 22, ended up with the second best record in the East, and made the finals, with a top 5 rated offense and defense. There’s absolutely no reason the Clippers can’t right the ship because honestly, the Clippers have all the pieces that Miami had, and then some. VDN needs to step it up and show that he is capable of being a Captain and commanding his troops to give 110% for 48 minutes, and not this half-assed ball we’ve been witnessing during stretches of games. If VDN can’t figure out a way to do that sooner rather than later, maybe he isn’t the right guy for the job.

Too early for the Fire Vinny calls. One plus the Clippers have over Chicago is that Paul and Billups are veterans that can take over. I’d rather have a different coach though.

Agree with Tim. Del Negro not perfect,but the offense bogged down at the end because everyone left it to Chris to take over as he usually does & he was not ready to do it after not having played in 5 games However,it was clear pretty early on that he wasn’t himself & it might have been better to have Mo in the game when it was apparent they were having difficulty scoring after he went out. He’s like Jason Terry who’s always in the game at crunch time. The Clippers are fortunate to have 3 terrific veteran guards who can usually make the right decisions when it counts. The only other one they’ve had in the last 20 years who could do that was Sam Cassell.