Last season the 3rd quarter was dispicable for the Clippers. It often is, and I don’t want to go on an anti-dunleavy rant here (I hate him as our coach but I think for this team to have a chance we need to give him one more chance because he deserves that courtesy of the GM). But to me bad or as you put it “pretty stagnant” with all “the makings of one of those terrible quarters from last season,” seems to be a lack of a halftime game plan. We all know Dunleavy is a great planner who probably over-coaches during the game, but why does every team we play come out of the gates at half-time with a game plan and the Clippers don’t? What could the Clips be doing at half-time?

Anyways, I’m so happy and cautiously optimistic about the team this year, Blake is great, couldn’t be happier. It will be hip2clip again!

Blake Superior may backfire as a nickname. Say Blake has a solid season, but doesn’t put up ROY numbers (which by many is where his standard is set).

He could be coined as “Blake Inferior”

Looking forward to watching take-2 of the preseason matchup with the Clips throwing in a few rotation players who did not play in the loss a wk ago (Blake, Camby, Telfair). Based on positive reviews from the folks who showed up to the Blazers game I also can’t wait to see players who underperformed in last wk’s game getting an immediate opportunity to make amends.

One of those aforementioned underperforming players who has the biggest opportunity of a bounce back performance was Al Thornton. To be fair, majority of his mishaps in gm 1 was a function of his quick fouls, and subsequent desire to make up for lost time. With Griffin/Camby likely drawing the Randolph assignment, Al should be able to stay on the floor and focus on playing instead of rushing his game. LAT’s glittery report on Al, along with his box score line playing against talented Blazer wings (did not watch the game but assuming he was matched up against Batum/Outlaw/Fernandez), also gave me reasons to hope for an improved performance.

Still need to find away to watch this game from the bay area but I’m assuming a video can eventually be found since it’s televised. Meanwhile I look forward to your reports

It was a pretty quiet Sunday. Just have to get through the preseason at this point, and it would be great, even incredible, if the Clippers can stay healthy.

Kind of funny to contrast how CMDSr knows he’s a bad coach with injured players (or he knows how to act like a jerk, depending on your perspective), while good old Nellie somehow seems to thrive on using his weaknesses to disrupt other teams, most recently the Lakers. Not only are the Dubs missing their young PF now, but without Jackson for the game tonight they’re missing arguably their best player. And with the Clips getting three critical rotation players back, and it also being a meaningless preseason game, the Clips by all rights should be looking forward to crushing the Warriors. And yet, as SP points out, somehow playing the Dubs is a little bit of a nightmare.

I’m having fun watching other teams try to start to gel these days, including the Warriors. The main guy I’ll be keeping an eye on tonight is Stephen Curry. In the first place, there’s no way to tell how Nellie will form his attack. Will he start Ellis and Curry in the backcourt? Unless I’m mistaken, it seems to be turning out that Curry is more of a natural PG than most of the other recent SG tweeners, even a teammate like Ellis, but also including Bayless and Gordon, and I know I’m forgetting a bunch of others. But Curry is a shooter, an Eric Gordon, Steve Novak, Anthony Morrow-level shooter, even if he sees the court, though he hasn’t heated up yet and missed a bunch of shots in the last game against the Clippers. At any rate, it should be interesting to see how the Clipper backcourt of BDavis and EGordon fares.

I’d like to see BDavis log some strong minutes and lead the attack, but if we can see that he’s in good form and energized, as he seems to be, then he doesn’t have to prove anything in the preseason, and he can save it for when it counts. That gets us to Telfair, who didn’t play against GSW last time, so that should be interesting as well. It’ll be interesting to see if MDSr tries to make a strong assertion of Clipper defense and trying to control the tempo, or if he lets the full-strength team get out and get loose, especially in the second half, against a team that wants you to play that way.

Portland and BlazersEdge is certainly in a kerfuffle already over Andre Miller, which is nice to see. That was a good win for the Clips, as it seems to have prompted a WC bubble-elite team to start questioning its offseason moves. It just shows that it’s nice to win games, and so many of the good teams seem to have little trouble doing it. Denver, for instance, is riding high, seemingly bringing back the energy and enthusiasm of their great playoff run. SP and others mentioned Carmelo’s 40+ in 20 minutes, or whatever it was. But what about Dejuan Blair’s 28 points, with Tim Duncan pretty much sitting out the preseason? Blair had 4 or 5 rebounds, so he’s not just a Milsap-style rebounder.

I really like SP’s note on Kaman 2.0 and rebounding, and that’s something to watch tonight. Biedrens got off to a great start last season and established himself nicely, while Kaman was a step slow, and I don’t think Camby was up to speed yet in those early games. If I recall, it was too-much-schnitzel German Kaman and Biedrens 2.0, although that matchup wasn’t the focus of the first preseason game. Camby is also interesting, because of the way he matches up with the leaner, less powerful PFs, like Aldridge. Then there’s DJ, of course. Nice to have everybody healthy.

Is anyone else like me, idly wondering whether MDSr is going to get a bit too comfortable bringing Blake Griffin off the bench? Kaman and Camby are such solid starters, and Griffin brings the energy and pop that any coach would want from a 6th man. On top of that, with DJ’s rise, and Telfair as a backup, the second team sets up as a pretty exciting and productive unit. It’s too early to tell, but Dunleavy hasn’t done any tinkering to speak of yet, and it seems like he hasn’t had a chance to figure out the tough decisions. Those are Kaman vs. Camby, to get Griffin in the starting lineup, and Thornton vs. Butler as a starter. The one thing that he has been able to do so far is get DJordan plenty of minutes, to good effect. It’s still early, and only the second game for Griffin, not to mention Camby and Telfair. Just seeing how the game goes with the Clips at full strength, and playing at home, should be plenty.

But playing these games against the weird and wacky Warriors kind of messes things up.