besides the near win against the Lakers.

being the last of the road trip and 4th in 5 nights, could very well be a blow out, and not in the Clippers favor. The D last night was absolutely pathetic, and if they play the same way against the Bucks, they will get their asses handed to them. I hope for some more energy and passion from the guys tonight, but truthfully don’t see how they can have anything left in the tank at this point. I hope they prove me wrong.

when we’re complaining about wins after starting the season with a slew of losses.

I totally agree though. It’s not like this team has figured it out and is clicking, it’s winning, but winning ugly while running its starters into the ground. Meanwhile the players continue to get injured.

The thing that worries me the most is that this team is winning in spite of Baron, and I think that’s fool’s gold. Z-Bo has been absolutely unstoppable, but can anyone really imagine an elite team with Z-Bo as its primary option?

What’s worse is that Dunleavy doesn’t seem interested (or capable?) in finding a better way to use Baron. Instead, he’s just relying on the same predictable play time after time to get Z-Bo the ball. You can only go to that well so many times.

Yes Baron is in a horrible slump and he’s responsible for some seriously bad shots. But a huge factor in his shooting slump is the fact that in Dunleavy’s offense, he only gets outside shots with the clock running down after Z-Bo kicks it back out due to a double team. That’s not a recipe for success.

And I ask AGAIN – If Dunleavy supposedly has so many plays, why is it that we see the SAME exact play over and over a game at the end? SAME EXACT PLAY!

Hate to break it to you, but those stats don’t dispute to my points. So 60% of his shots are early in the clock. How many of those is he making? What percentage of his shots in the latter 11 seconds is he making? My argument is about the QUALITY of his shots. Of the 40% of his shots in the latter 11 seconds, how many are quality shots and how many are ones he has to chuck up because the play broke down and someone gave it to him with the clock running down? That’s my point.

And I’m not arguing that Baron is an efficient player. NEVER once did I make that claim. If you thought he was, you were simply ignorant (not you specifically, but the general "you"). Anyone who has followed his career knows he takes bad shots. He’s no John Stockton. But he off-sets the inefficiency by imposing his will on the game and hitting big shots. He was able to do that in Charlotte under Paul Silas and Golden State under Don Nelson – two completely different coaches. Yet he can’t do that under Dunleavy because of the completely predictable offense that features giving it to the post time after time in isolation. If we were going to run this kind of offense we should have kept Sam Cassell and never signed Baron.

And again, I’m not absolving him of this either. I’m just saying that the system is a poor fit and we’re not making the most out of our asset. Good teams accentuate their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. In Baron, we have a PG who can run, create and cause havok to the other team. Yet our offense doesn’t allow him to do that. You don’t sign Shaq or Duncan put together a run and gun team. You run a half-court, post oriented team. You don’t get Nash and Wade and force them to walk it up every play (unless you have a YOUNG Shaq of course). We however get Baron and force him to walk it up and dump it into the post on every play.

How many calls are going against us tonight….

60-30 still in the 2nd – this is beyond a joke Clips

that we need to trade Kaman for a few players that could play off the bench.

Kaman IS pretty good but he is never on the floor. I think he sat out more games than he actually have been in this season.

They are still trying to posterize and humiliate our players…

I guess we would just have to blow them out on January

Anyway, this game really killed my fantasy team.. I have Marcus

…didn’t watch/listen to the game but just wanted to chime in a comment:

- Wine tasting is overrated
- Clippers deserve a pass after 4 in 5
- Got to watch the Kings vs Hornets though!…I think Salmos is definetly an underrated scorer and will give you some pretty good D also…good to have off the bench, but good enought to start in SacTown
- Listening to the Kings tv announcers, just makes a Clipper fan (actually, any real NBA fan) appreciate Ralph Lawler and Mike Smith…More dead air than Jim Rome.

By this loss. It was inevitable. The starters played 50 minutes last night. They’ve played 5 overtime sessions in the last 3 games. The blowout tells me it’s nothing less than fatigue. I’d be more worried if we lost another close, OT game where we had to run the starters in the floor again.

Onward…