Clippers vs. Lakers - Game Preview and Open Thread

and no more injuries

Eric Gordon’s beautiful, moonball, knee-weakening, once-in-a-generation jump shot. It’s just perfect. I love it. I love everything about it. Every time he shoots it, the Clippers crowd goes quiet for a split-second like one of the cheerleaders just pulled up her shirt. Even the spin is gorgeous. I can’t say enough about it. I am in love with Eric Gordon’s jump shot. I want to marry it. I want to have kids with it. I will go to at least one practice or shootaround this year just to see him hoist 200 of them. And by the way, the kid is going to be great — he’s bigger than I thought, and when he drives to the lane, defenders just bounce off him. He will end up being the third-best guy in that draft.

I cannot wait for tonights game. I hope it’s a good one because I am paying good money to see this one.

I’d be happy to spend all day on this, but it looks like I’ll be doing some “work.” The most interesting thing right now, for me at least, is that sample from the game last night, which turned out to be more important than I would have guessed.

Going in, it was a mixed bag. Don’t want the Blazers to compete, but don’t want the Lakers to be completely dominant. One of the things we discovered in the game is that Portland’s early schedule is just as nasty as the Clippers—we’ll see if they make such a big deal about it on ESPN tonight. The Blazers looked to be quite mortal, not really ready to compete at the elite level, and then GOden played just enough to show that he has very crude offensive skills, and little enough to show that he’s still fragile. Any news on that MRI? The Blazer version of Club Optimism took a huge hit last night—and hey, do you think some of those pundits handing the Blazers the 6-8 spot might be a bit nervous about that pick? There’s a long way to go, but then you have that tough early schedule to worry about.

On the other side, the goal is to win and compete like on October 9th. But the Clips have some fairly significant excuses if they fall short: no Camby, they haven’t had a chance to play together, two guys just coming off the shelf. So the real goal is to compete and display some of their weapons. The Clips want to stay in the game and play hard, they want to defend and hustle and hit some shots, and they should be alright. I would say it’s important, especially with it being a home game, for them to do better than the Blazers did last night.

It will be important to keep Radman in check, and the Clips have to stay at home, in general, on the Laker shooters—and there really aren’t that many of them. If Radman isn’t left open and isn’t running up and down the floor, then Ariza’s offensive game will probably be muted as well. The Clips want the Lakers thinking about Thornton, rather than Thornton playing catchup to the Laker SFs.

The problem for the Clips is that they don’t have Camby around to slow down and stifle Gasol. Gasol looked as good on Oct. 9 (with no Camby) as he did last night, and Tim Thomas coming off an injury isn’t going to stop him. There’s a major advantage for the Lakers here, because you also don’t want to ignore Bynum and get him going. Again, good basic defense and rebounding will help. We all remember that Kaman was missing layups and seemed tentative at the hoop after getting past Bynum, and the same logic applies as with Thornton: a good offensive start and some baskets by Kaman will make the Lakers think about what they have to do, rather than the other way around.

LO did not look at all like Maggette 06 last night, although I only saw the first half. There’s a reason why LO got a zillion dollars from Miami (and the Clips didn’t match) and Maggs got 35 or something from Utah, which the Clips did match. LO is a more complete player. And he’s coming off the bench as a PF. I predicted in my earlier studies that Radman was the most likely starter, because they need his shooting.

One scary thing about the Lakers last night was the rebounding of Kobe and Lamar, combined with their inclination to distribute. The Clips have to rebound and they can’t let Lamar and Kobe grab rebounds and take off and run. The Lakers now have plenty of weapons where Kobe can think like Magic Johnson and get things going for other guys. The trick with the Lakers will be that he eventually likes to score points and get his own shots, which can take them out of their flow and some of his shots might not be so great. But he’s a monster, there’s no denying it. It’s not much of a silver lining, but perhaps it’s good that the Clips have low expectations out of Mobley—hit a couple of shots, play defense—unlike the way that Brandon Roy was supposed to take him on directly and be highly productive. It didn’t happen.

Without Camby, and without Eric Gordon, and with Kaman playing poorly, the Clippers got a good start, hit some shots, and exercised their will on the vaunted Lakers on Oct. 9. Tonight they just have to play hard, try and make some good things happen, just like they did in that first preseason game.

So TT and Baron are playing for sure? And Camby is out?

The Clips do have some other options, with Camby out. I think KA at Clipperblog is wondering about starting Ricky Davis and putting AT at PF, but I think that’s very unlikely. We might see AT at PF once Odom is on the floor, but it doesn’t make any sense to do it before that, and I expect that MD will try to win the SF matchup.

But what about Skinner, Davis3, and even DJordan? Crazy old Zhiv would seriously consider starting Jordan against Bynum, letting Kaman play against Gasol, and then bringing Thomas off the bench when Odom comes in. That would be fun. It won’t happen. Either Skinner or Davis3 would be the more realistic choice.

But I think that MD and the Clips will go with what worked on Oct 9. With TThomas and BDavis getting in a couple of good practices and ready to go, this is pretty much the same game as far as they’re concerned. And Davis seems to enjoy playing with Thomas—Ramona says that Davis, Thomas, and Mobley have all bonded. Davis makes other players a lot better, and Thomas fits the mold of some one who might improve his game considerably playing with a guy like Baron. So why not.

probably think this game is meaningless too so hes not even trying.

wow we didnt lose this bad last year

Shell-shocked….a game with 12 minutes garbage time. There were truly a lot of silly turnovers, forced shots, overpassing, etc. Also, Kaman is as bad as ever offensively, back to committing silly turnovers and weak shots at the basket. The team looked disjointed, but i think they will come together…hopefully sooner rather than later.