Last Call: Los Angeles Clippers 126, Toronto Raptors 118

It’s nice to see Blake being assertive when the team needs him to, demanding the ball and also it’s good to see Doc running some plays through him in kind of crunch time, this will really help him develop and this will only add to the team when CP3 comes back, it’s another scoring option to go to besides CP3 and Jamal.

I think that Turkoglu getting more comfortable and also more familiar with the play book will help the team immensely. Turkoglu is more comfortable looking for his own shots, he even ran some pick and roll. I think that he can really help to add a new dynamic to the bench.

People should give more credit to the system kicking in. I say that because I thought that system was starting to work well and that even without CP3, even more with a more friendly schedule, I really thought and even wrote about how Clippers were probably do better than most people would think and so far, they really are.

When this discussion came, just after CP3 went down, I commented on that, the Clippers would be better than people think and when I watched the confirmation of how much Redick brings to the table – based on Redick and sans Redick offensive ratings -, that’s when I got that feeling that the chances were good.

And most of all, I thought that the silver lining, the blessing in disguise would be to see if Blake would step up even more without CP3 and that he if could do that, that would be very, very valuable in the Playoffs and so far, Blake has been doing that. When I commented that Blake would get a part of the scoring load with no CP3, Andrew mistook my POV as saying that he wouldn’t be a playmaker and more of a scorer, but I meant that he could and he should do both and he really has been doing both.

But I should had written all of that in some article instead of just comment section… hahahahaha… Well, who cares, what matters is that the team is stepping up and they are still #4 in the West even after more than 10 games without CP3, so I can only imagine how good the last run towards the end of the season is going to be – with no more injuries, please.

This team has been showing more contender qualities than most people are giving them credit for and playing well without a Super Star is one of them. Many would argue that it’s just because of the friendly schedule but that would be a mistake because that would be overlooking a series of other factors. Without the system, even if it was against an easier schedule, I’m not so sure Clippers would be playing like this. This vision also overlooks Blake’s and DJ’s improvements. Or how much Redick means to the team’s offense, how Collison stepped up as well.

Many serious Clippers analysts are afraid of making bold statements but if there are no more big injuries, Clippers will be a contender by the time they enter the Playoffs and they will become the biggest surprise – well, maybe not by then because they will probably be playing good basketball.