Gordon was sharp, great release and there was a great pass in the first half where he dribble to the baseline and found Hart for an open two by the freethrow line. I know he’s not a PG but he’s adaquate when needed.

His defense on Kidd was great, ripping the ball from his hands twice.

As for Paul, I was impressed how much better he at executing the Screen and roll w/ Baron Davis. It was a solid screen he put on the defenders.

Finally I can breathe..

Well, the monkey’s off our back. And guess what? The schedule’s looking pretty tasty for the rest of the month. I’ll be looking forward to winning more often than not for these upcoming games.

It’s only one game, but we certainly found out we could do without Tim Thomas. He provides shooting. But we also have other guys who can shoot, and actually hustle & play defense. Just saying. Obviously, Paul Davis came up big today. I have to take back what I said about him being inactive for DeAndre. Hopefully, Davis(3) can build off of this and keep Thomas on the bench more than on the floor.

Eric Gordon. We’ve all been calling for him, and now he looks entrenched as a rotation player…he’s a big weapon on a team without an abundance of them, he’s healthy, and it should be fun watchinghim develop.

Can’t overlook the fact that this was Camby’s best game so far.

Thornton, in limited minutes was off the hook. He put his head down in the 4th and brought this much needed win home for us. How encouraging is that? Most importantly was that he took charge in the 4th quarter at a crucial time.

On the minus side…Ricky Davis. Can deal with some missed shots, but not with missing shots and turning the ball over. He’s doing it way too much.

Mobley – 32minutes (too much), 2 rebounds, 1 assist. (-4) That means we did all our damage for those 16 minutes he wasn’t on the floor tonight. +15 in 16 Catless minutes.

Dunleavy – I don’t like to ride Dunleavy, and maybe someone can help me answer this. But it’s the 3rd quarter, we’re up 11 and we just got a steal. Why take a timeout there? We have momentum, maybe on our way towards putting the game away, then he calls a timeout?? I didn’t watch the game, so maybe I’m missing something. But when I saw this develop while I was tracking the game, I couldn’t believe it. Then of course the Mavs promptly came back to close the gap. If we wound up losing, I would’ve blamed this timeout call.

Gordon, Taylor, Camby, Paul Davis, & Al Thornton were probably our most effective five players today. Baron forced alot of shots though he made a few and got his 20. Paul Davis was surprisingly mobile and contributed solid minutes. Al was in foul trobule most of the game but when he was finally on the floor he hit some clutch buckets. Camby grabbed all the tough defensive boards in the fourth, something that we’ve been missing all season as guys like Millsap and Landry destroyed us inside. And the rookies; Gordon and Taylor played well together for crucial stretches (probably because they had the most minutes together during the pre-season). Right now, those two kids and Camby are the three players on our team who make effective touch passes and allow the ball to swing around the court quickly.

Perhaps Tim Thomas’ injury and Cat’s decreased minutes is improving the team’s offensive rhythm and spacing. Though a tough competitor and a pro, Cat is a ball stopper, especially when he and Tim were trying to run a pick and roll/pop between the two of them. It was painful to watch, though I’m sure that it comforted Dunleavy greatly to have those two veterans running his plays.

Gordon provided instant energy off the bench. His entrance into the game certainly made the half-empty Staples Center crowd happy. At one point in the second quarter, the lineup was Hart, Gordon, Ricky Davis, Skinner and Paul Davis (if I remember correctly). That was a stretch where Dallas could have gone on a 20-0 run but Gordon made some clutch shots and as Qlippers mentioned above; he drove into the lane, drew the defenders, and instead of forcing up a shot or trying to draw a foul, made a great ditch to Hart for an easy jumper. That was the main difference between Baron Davis and Gordon/Taylor today. There was a point in the second period where the guys in our section were calling for Taylor to replace Baron Davis when he was misfiring and ignoring our wide open shooters.

There was one other disturbing sequence where we were adamant in posting up Paul Davis in the post and along the baseline. It seemed like Dunleavy was trying to force Paul Davis into playing the EB role, as if our plays haven’t changed even though our personnel have. I’m not sure if we can convince Dunleavy that Paul Davis just isn’t the reliable offensive post player that EB was. When Skinner is playing (in the previous six games), the ball has been going to him in a half court set as well…which begs the question…why are we posting up Skinner and Paul Davis when we need buckets? Fortunately Paul Davis answered today, he made some great passes in the post and hit a jumper from way beyond his range that shocked us even as we screamed “BAD SHOT” which then became; “WAY TO GO PAUL!”

We have to win the next three games now if we have any illusions at all of being a respectable/playoff caliber team: Sacramento on Wednesday, Golden State on Saturday, and the Spurs (without Parker and Ginobli) next Monday. If we can finish this stretch 4-6 before we head east for a week, it might be possible to think about playoff contention again. Wouldn’t that be something? HOPE! Or we can be the Comeback Kids!

but it is welcome news.

Clippers have been looking better and better each game. They will be a competitive team once they settle on an identity.

No matter how excited I am for this first win and the fact that they look good. I don’t think we are out of doom territory yet, our record is still 1-6. I won’t feel at ease until we show that we can consistently play at this level.

I went to the game, no TT really helped. I don’t know how staples center can keep them.

Here are some pics:
http://flickr.com/photos/60328699@N00/sets/72157608813830954/

Preseason is finally over. About as excrutiating as it gets—putting together a new roster, having guys hurt, not even at full strength for a hellacious schedule of 7 games against 50+ win teams. We knew it was coming, but we didn’t realize that it would be a “preseason,” a chance for the Clips to go through trial-and-error, get healthy, and slowly get to full strength, all while digging a hole of six losses. We saw the “ascendency,” the line of competency trending upwards, now it’s finally complete, and the Clips are ready to play and compete and begin to be a real team.

The expectations were a tricky balance. We knew that the Clips were severely handicapped: no Camby at all, BD hurt, etc. But the opponents also had their own challenges, which created a complex equation: no Carmelo, no Deron Williams. It would have been great to have been at full strength and able to take advantage of the opponent deficiencies, but the Clips just weren’t in a position to do it. When you tell me that the Clips have that schedule, and they’re going to be starting Tim Thomas in the first six games, I’ll tell you that they’re probably going to lose every one of them. So take the opponent injuries out of it—they were deceptive. Let’s say that the Lakers are the Lakers, and the Jazz are the Jazz. 0 and 4. Overtime loss to Denver, 0 and 5. At best the Clips might have be 3-4 right now, and if they were 4-3 we would be ecstatic. My point is the home win against Dallas was huge, the dark days of this season-preseason are over, and Club Optimism can come back into the light. It won’t be too tough to make up a couple of games here and there, against weaker and mid-range teams, once the team gets going. If we look at the 6-game hole as a 3-game hole, you can see how quickly it can be erased as the schedule moves from bad to good.

Gordon looked great. The steals were a big help, and quality defensive minutes against JKidd, because it will encourage MD to play him.

There was a secret weapon yesterday in the plan to play Gordon, however, that no one is talking about: Al Thornton’s foul trouble. That’s a big part of what made it possible.

We’re not out of the woods yet. The trick is going to be moving Gordon ahead of Ricky Davis and making him the first guy off of the bench, and once we’re there it’s going to be just as tough for Dunleavy to keep Mobley on the bench significant stretches. And those are both mountains to climb before we can even see the possibility of putting Gordon into the starting lineup. But yesterday was a great step forward.

You can see the Thornton connection in the fact that Mobley still got 32 minutes in this game. Thornton gets the quick early fouls and Ricky Davis comes in the game. Gordon subs in for Mobley and immediately makes a couple of plays. At the start of the 2nd, Thornton gets a lightning quick 3rd foul, and now Mobley comes back in for him, and Gordon is still getting minutes, while Mobley is playing SF. If Thornton doesn’t get that foul, Mobley subs in for Gordon after a couple of more minutes. And then the same thing happens in the third quarter, when Thornton gets a quick 4th foul. And Gordon gets even more minutes when Ricky Davis retaliates against Dirk’s shove and gets a technical.

So it wasn’t like “oh, Gordon’s playing really well, and I’ll leave him out there for 30 minutes.” It was a specific set of circumstances, but the key is that Gordon played well and was impressive and made the most of the minutes. Compare those minutes against the empty minutes that Ricky Davis has been playing. We’ll know that the change is really going to come when Mobley comes out before Thornton and Gordon comes in for him. Knowing Dunleavy, that may still take quite a while. Another sign, a smaller step, would be RDavis coming in for Mobley, then Thornton coming in and Gordon going in for him (welcome to the rotation!), then Mobley coming back for RDavis and playing some SF. Then Thornton comes in for Gordon.

I’d be a lot happier to take Ricky Davis out of the equation for a time, and let him play his way back in. It’s always something with Milph, and the maddening one now is that “Ricky Davis is a time bomb! He’s going to explode at any moment and put up a 15 point quarter!” So Davis hits one wide open three—the type of shot that Eric Gordon or Steve Novak would be in a contest to bury 8 out of 10—and Milph is sure that a deluge is about to strike. Instead RDavis misses a couple of shots and doesn’t do much of anything. “He’s so overdue” is one thing when it’s starting pf, no D no rebounds Tim Thomas, Quentin “20 ppg in college” Ross, Brevin “he has to hit that shot” Knight, or Walter McCarty. But on a team with guys who can shoot like Eric Gordon, it can’t last forever.

Club Optimism believes that another sign that this is a year of destiny was the timely injury to Tim Thomas. More Paul Davis, please, and feel free to take your time coming back, TT, with Camby getting healthier and eating more minutes all the while.

The Kaman-Camby combination means that Paul Davis is primarily going to play PF. He can defend and rebound, unlike somebody else we know, and he can also hit open perimeter shots and run the floor a little bit. The trick is to get PDavis solidly established enough so that TThomas becomes a bit of a luxury item, rather than an essential. TThomas can be a great player on this team, he can come in and hit shots and make plays and help the Clips 2nd team gain an advantage and extend a lead, but the less the Clips “need” him, the better.

I think true Clipper fans should want all of the guys (et al Ricky Davis, Tim Thomas, Paul Davis) to have a great year this year. Dunleavy is not D’Antoni. He won’t play the same 9 guys every night and let the other guys wither away until an injury pops up. Dunleavy likes match-ups. He likes to match up what he has in his arsenal of players against the opponent to where he believes he has an advantage at the most positions. That might mean Paul Davis plays center on some nights, but forward on others. It might mean Tim Thomas at center against an opponents’ 2nd unit center. The more guys are playing well, the deeper and more dangerous the Clippers are.

Watching the Lakers post game yesterday, one player mentioned that they have in essence TWO teams – the first unit and the second. That means their first unit will be fresher towards the end of the season if the second unit can hold or expand leads, or even bring them back from deficits. Why shouldn’t we want the Clippers to be the same?

If a second unit of Paul Davis, Tim Thomas, Ricky Davis, Cuttino Mobley, & Mike Taylor can get in sync, I think they can equal or best any opponents 2nd unit. This lineup would probably only happen if the Clippers are ahead but still, it could be very potent. I would enjoy seeing them beat up on other teams’ bench guys. How about you?

What do you think? Am I a horrible person for doing the following? I went to the Dallas game via tickets that were purchased from that creepy looking guy at the street corner. I was in a c-level suite for $25.00 each.

I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the Clippers played best when shooting well from three. When they won games during the pre season they averaged 103 ppg , when they started struggling , it went down to a hair over 70.

Why would the clips be interested in trading kaman ? hes our only low post threat. Marcus camby despite being a good center doesnt produce enough on offense in my mind (of course this depends on who we get if we trade kaman). Yeah we cant lose to the kings. iirc we won the series 3-1 last year so…

NY Post says the Clippers are shopping Kaman in a 3 day deal.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11112008/sports/moresports/getting_cat_ty_in_n_c__138157.htm?page=0