(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
Buzzer Reaction
 Los Angeles Clippers |
 Milwaukee Bucks |
MVP: With the Clippers nursing a 40-34 first-half lead, Crawford scored seven points in less than a minute and a half, part of a 21-2 run by Los Angeles that sealed the game before halftime. Crawford finished with a game-high 25 points.
LVP: Ersan Ilyasova led the Bucks in points, tied for the team lead in rebounds, yet managed to be their worst player. He made just 6 of 22 shots and got drubbed by Blake Griffin (20 points, 8-for-13 shooting) in the paint.
That was … a free handout: The Bucks coughed up a bunch of soft perimeter passes all game long and the Clippers converted. In the first half, Los Angeles scored an efficient 12 points off six Milwaukee turnovers.
— K.L. Chouinard
Good Things Come In Threes
Tweet(s) of the Night
Blake knows the love for Giannis. Spares his life, just a layup and-1.
— Andrew Han (@andrewthehan) January 28, 2014
The Depth Charge
| BENCH | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | OREB | DREB | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | +/- | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Byron Mullens, C | 5 | 1-2 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | -4 | 2 |
| Ryan Hollins, C | 14 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | +1 | 2 |
| Antawn Jamison, PF | DNP COACH’S DECISION | |||||||||||||
| Hedo Turkoglu, PF | 19 | 2-4 | 2-2 | 0-2 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | +7 | 6 |
| Total | 28 | 4-8 | 2-3 | 0-2 | 2 | 9 | 11 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 6 | +4 | 10 |
(Photo via NBA.com/Stats)
ClipperBlog Live’s Best Moment
Andrew and Seerat are joined by Jeremy Schmidt of Bucksketball to discuss why the Clippers are disliked around the league from an outsider’s perspective, how the Bucks’ misplaced preseason expectations have affected the season, and … GIANNIS!
Check Your Messages
Bittersweet Homecoming
Why is it that its only when we’re getting set to leave somewhere that we suddenly begin to miss it, to mull over the good times? Those moments of elated nostalgia could’ve been useful in the middle of a rut, ya know? Like when the Clippers got thrashed by the Indiana Pacers on the second game of the Grammy road trip.
In theory, this trip was supposed to be a disaster. The Clippers, a squad already stretched too thin, lost Chris Paul during their last home-stand. Instead, some cool things happened. J.J. Redick came back, for instance. Blake Griffin went demigod. Jamal Crawford was up to his usual tricks, topsy turvy as an NBA player can get, but he did end up registering one of his finest games as a Clipper.
I’ve no doubt the players, with tired knees and likely just as weary minds, are nostalgic for something else: the comfort of their beds. But tonight’s game has me pining for games past. When else, other than against the Bucks, is J.J. Redick going to be so open from the arc? When else are the Clippers only going to dunk in that game? It was like watching a slideshow your friends make for you when you’re about to leave the country the next day. It was a formality win for a team that, just a little while ago, didn’t know the definition of a formality win.
Matt Barnes hoisted six treys tonight and I’m only thinking about the singular one he drilled.
– Seerat Sohi
Wake Up Younger Under the Knife
It’s a fun proposition; be bad, embrace young, developing players, watch the ping pong balls pile up and drool over the next star in college. The seven-game road trip offered franchises in various stages of rebuilding repose. And to end in “Laverne and Shirley” town is apt given the history of L.A.’s other franchise.
It was not long ago–literally 4 seasons– when the Clippers were like these Bucks. Overpaying free agents to join a roster. Newly drafted kids out of high school and college pressed into service with burdens of success. Blake Griffin and Chris Paul wiped all of that away.
It’s not fun to lose. It’s not fun to root for your team to lose. A team can have the most knowledgable fan base understand what is happening and it’s still an unpleasurable experience. It’s sexual attraction to fire.
There is a certain empathy all Clippers fans should feel when watching games like tonight. These were du jour for so many seasons: your team, inexplicably bad, but at least an enjoyable game featuring the opponent’s star power.
With no uncertainty do I look back fondly on the tumultuous past of the Clippers. But with each passing season, the cracks and crevices of the Clippers’ foundation get plastered over, and I find myself having more in common with suffering fan bases, “tanking teams” as they’re called now. Comrades forged through chaos.
– Andrew Han
