from my seat - section 114 @ the oracle

Hi All, first time postor here, long time reader, and even longer time (17-yr) Clips fan now working in the Bay Area. It appears the game was not televised so hopefully this brief take on limited time can help you read beyond the box score. Will focus on the SFs here and I will try to write more later today:

Thornton vs the Alternative: Starting Thornton along with Rasual means Thornton was slotted at the PF spot. It was another example of Dunleavy's stance of matching up to the other team's lineup which I haven't been a big fan of. The thinking is that Thornton should be used in place of Craig Smith to cover the faster, longer, and improved Randolph, but the experiment failed miserably as Thornton often overcompensated and earned quick fouls on Randolph (DJ actually ended up guarding Randolph on a few occasiosn in the 4th and did a great job containing him, more on DJ later). Al also chucked and rushed too many shots to my liking - he was likely trying to make up for lost time due to fouls but, other than a towering dunk and a fortunate make on a last-second fadeaway three those are the same ill-advised shots that make clips nation cringe over the past two seasons.

Rasual on the other hand lived up to his stopper reputation and meshed well with a BD, Gordon, Kaman lineup. It comes as no surprise but he easily wins the comparison with QRoss - stronger, good one-on-one coverage and played good transition D. He did not risk too much on the passing lane yesterday so that part of his defensive repertoire remains to be seen. The box score did not do him much justice imo, as two of those were inexplicable end-of-the-clock passes from teammates when they actually had the better shot. The rest of the misses were decent looks from improved spacing and more willing passers (most notably EJ, who was generally effective with his drive and dish yesterday) which have to be considered as good shots regardless of makes or misses. If the starting SF job will be decided based on preseason I'd say Butler 1 - Thornton 0 so far.

Misc on the wings:
- Correlating to reports, Ricky Davis does appear more healthy and seem to have an extra bounce compared to last season. citizen zhiv mentioned he'd much rather see Novak, but regardless of rationale for Novak's DNP I was glad to see Ricky getting time at the sparkplug role with reasonable effort on defense.

- Speaking of Novak he was first to come out for the shootaround at halftime and he missed a grand total of two shots in a four and a half minute span. Never hurts to have more shooters.

- Aside from a ball slip plus overpenetrating and failing to pass out of 3-teams on ~ 3 occasions (1+3 = 4 TOs), EJ was everything we wanted to see after all the offseason praises - great shooting, quicker and more athletic with a slimmer frame (even attempted an alley-oop), penetration at will and looks to pass with more trustworthy options.

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My apologies for the incomplete post earlier today (esp. for leaving you hanging on DJ) but that's about the best I could do within a 10-min break. Getting a much longer break now and as promised here's more on what I saw...

First on DeAndre Jordan: It's easy to get overly excited about a freakish athlete/huge physical specimen in the NBA game, especially one with great charisma. But even the most conservative assessment has to concur that he has stepped his game up by more than a few notches. I was initially skeptical about training camp hypes on DJ and was slightly bummed about another Camby knock but DJ's play yesterday quickly wiped those thoughts of mine aside. Not only did he seem more filled up compared to end of last season but, more importantly, he was coordinated, demonstrated decent footwork, and knew how to practice patience with that newfound bulk - there was nobody in the Dubs who can contain him and he knew it, so instead of trying to carry too much momentum and charge into players, he used his size and quickness to manuveur in the paint and goes for the highest percentage shot possible (dunks and hook shots, not the wild circus shots which he sometimes took last season). Equally impressive was his FT shooting - which was a huge hindrance to his game and one of the bigger reasons Skinner was able to get the amount of mins he got last season. It was a positive change of form which translates to a smoother release, so I do not think his relative success at the line yesterday was a one-off. Some might be concerned with his five fouls, but most of them can be attributed to help defense situations, when some of the defenders lost their guy (namely Randolph and Maggette) and DJ gets stuck in the foul area. In fact he played solid defense throughout the game, in particular when he and Kaman shared the paint in the 4th and he did an admirable job guarding Randolph and changing shots. Camby's elbow shot is still a valuable piece of the offensive arsenal and his shape remains to be seen, but DJ should definitely be above Skinner in the depth chart and it's reasonable to expect more minutes for DJ to keep Camby fresh throughout the season. A more bullish outlook would be using him as a game changer/off the bench sparkplug/on the Dwight Howard path, but I don't want to go there yet until I see more of the same.

On Chris Kaman: using the version analogy, he was largely playing at the Kaman 2.0 level with a few legacy bugs, namely his tendency to charge into defenders. But there was a clear effort to limit his dribbles and hustle on defense. He appeared stronger and even went for the dunk on two occasions (got fouled on both, but under similar circumstances last season he would have gone for a jumper, hook shot or take an extra dribble instead of taking it to the hole). He also demonstrated his ambidexterous attribute with two hook shots - one on each size. Dunleavy went away from running his offense thru the bigs in the 2nd and the beginning of the 4th, which happened to be times when the Dubs gained on the +/-. As the numbers suggest Kaman and DJ have more than showed up.

Baron Davis: there's no denying that he showed up in much better shape than he was at any point during last season but he needs to practice a more tempered approach. Here's an account of him I wrote on another site:

"It was clear from watching yesterday’s game @ oakland that Baron is on a mission – driving hard to the rim, diving for loose balls, refusing to settle for long jumpers (before the 4th quarter), and simply doing the best he could to avoid starting out on a bad note once again. The passion and aggressiveness did rub off on other guys, most notably EJ, DJ, and Kaman. However in the process he tends to go overboard with his aggressiveness and made the kind of plays which unnecessarily put him at higher injury risk. This was more pronounced when the team was behind by double digits in the 4th and he began to force the issue (he tried jumping into Randolph to relive the AK posterization moment whereas a simple spin move/drop step would get him an easy 2. They clashed and fell hard onto the floor instead and fortunately both guys were OK).

Perhaps he’s just giving his all-out physical approach to the lead guard game – the only approach known to him – one last shot to see how long he can ride it out for, and here’s hoping that he is willing to flip the switch when the time is right. That’s “the hope”. But if he doesn’t watch himself and “the fear” holds, then another injury setback could put a irremediable blow to his bruised ego and sparks a downward spiral to his career trajectory. He still has control over the situation and a tempered approach is key to avoid the latter scenario."

Again it's great to see him pushing himself hard, but you get the sense that he's trying to show too much all in one game. This also explained most of his 7 TO's, from fancy pass attempts into the paint which got deflected to driving into multiple defenders. Here's hoping that he will complement his fitness and aggressiveness with a more cerebral touch.

Miscellaneous (con't):
- Craig Smith wasn't getting enough touches, if at all, for me to make a fair assessment; and on the one play that was set up for him where he had a clear look at the shot, he hestitated and tried to force the issue when the defender showed up which resulted in a shot smothered by Randolph. He clearly needs more work with the other Clips bigs as the team's spacing was horrible when he was no the floor, which explains his -5 on the +/-.

- Kareem Rush was a much welcomed spark when he came in at the 2nd qtr and, together with Ricky Davis and EJ, led the 3-pt barrage. He was generally ineffective on the 2nd time he saw the floor however (first half of the 4th qtr) - he took an Al Thornton-esque fadeaway at the elbow (missed) and was porous on perimeter defense. It wasn't bad enough to cost him his shot at taking the 15th spot though, as long as he keeps his sweet shooting and willingness to run open.

- Mardy Collins played 14+ mins and he was what we have more or less expected - didn't make any huge mistakes, but also didn't do much to help. In fact he's the kind of guy you won't want to have to start the 2nd if you've already fell behind after the 1st, because it almost seemed as if he would hold the team from making a rally.

- Many mentioned EJ didn't play any point yesterday. But in reality Baron deferred dribbling up the court and distributing duties to EJ about 20% of the time. EJ was also on his own to close the final 2 possessions of the 3rd quarter without making any mistakes.

- Finally on Blake (Superior?): He was at the pre-game warm-up and showed consistency at the 19-ft range, but was often distracted by conversations/interviews. Like the shot form though and looks to me like he was on the right side of 6'10 in person.