Cleveland 87 - Clippers 83
by Steve Perrin on Mar 10, 2009 11:53 PM PDT
in Game Recaps
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PrintIt's late and I'm tired. The Clippers don't play again until Saturday in Denver, so we have three full days without a game during which we can brood and stew and analyze to our hearts content. Obviously, blowing a 19 point fourth quarter lead, being outscored 33 to 10 in the final 11 minutes, is not something we're going to easily forget, try as we might.
Without trying to make them particularly coherent, here are some thoughts on the game:
- If you say "This is a big game, I'm playing" as Milph reported of Marcus Camby and Mardy Collins and others, doesn't that also imply the inverse? That some of these guys could have been playing in games they missed but the game just wasn't important enough? That's not a good thing.
- I thought Al Thornton played one of his best games. 20 points and 9 rebounds, plus tough defense on LeBron all night. Seven of his eight field goals were right at the rim, and the eighth was a clutch three that recaptured the lead in the final seconds.
- Chris Kaman looked bad... but mostly in a, rusty, no confidence sort of way. He didn't look lethargic or out of shape. But he was Mr. Flippy, getting at least three shots blocked when he didn't go particularly strong to the basket, and at the end he just didn't want the ball. The turnover he made just inside the 2 minute mark was just brutal. With a brand new shot clock and still clinging to a 3 point lead, he found himself with the ball and he basically panicked. In his desperation to get it to someone else, he threw a ridiculous cross court pass. Cleveland tied the game with a three, and then Kaman turned the ball away AGAIN on the next possession. He should not have been in the game done the stretch.
- The Clippers turned the ball over on 4 out of 5 possessions during a 3 minute stretch from 3:30 to 30 seconds left. When the Cavs turned up the defensive intensity, LA folded. (The charge on Gordon could obviously have gone either way.)
- I thought that call against EJ was a real game changer. The Clippers had gone about 8 minutes without getting a good shot, and that was a good shot. I thought Williams was moving, and clearly Gordon didn't even consider initially that the call was on him. Tough, tough call.
- The Cavs scored zero of the first 66 points on three pointers, and trailed 76-66. They were 0 for 17 at the time. Then Dain Blanton went and blabbed about it. The immediately made their first three of the game, and scored 11 of their final 21 points on three pointers (3 for 3 shooting, 2 of 3 free throws on a foul). 0 for 17 followed by 3 for 3. I guess you can call it clutch.
- For three quarters, the Cavs tried to run normal sets to get shots for people, and the Clippers were destroying them. In the fourth quarter, they gave the ball to LeBron and said, 'Do something.' And it worked. The outscored the Clippers 35-14 in the fourth. I must say, it's not my favorite style of basketball, but it's effective. LeBron either scored, or assisted, or hockey assisted (the pass that led to the assist) on every Cleveland field goal in the fourth. Every. Last. One.
- The Clippers had 3 turnovers in the entire first half. They had 12 in the second half, most of those in the fourth quarter. Given that the shooting percentages were identical (both team were 20 for 25 from the line, both teams made a paltry three threes, both teams shot 39% from the field) it was Clevelands 5 extra shots that ended up being the difference.
- Why couldn't the Clippers get looks in the fourth? Obviously the Cavs increased their defensive intensity. And I thought the refs let them get away with a lot of physical play in so doing. But why is Baron/Zach pick and pop for a Randolph 20 footer the best they can get for an entire quarter? I thought EJ was on the bench too long for one thing. Then, when he did get back in, the two times they called his number both ended as bad break turnovers - the tough call on the charge, followed by a slip.
- The Clippers final possession - Zach catching the ball at 35 feet and shooting - left much to be desired.
- If the Clippers hold on to win this game, it's the second signature win against a top Eastern Conference foe after the All Star break. Instead, it's just the umpteenth fourth quarter collapse.
Like I said, I'm sure we'll have much more to say about this game over the next several days. We've got lots of time on our hands.
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I'm not too sad to lose this one
The team looked pretty good. Baron played some good D on the final Cavs possession on Lebron, the Cavs then passed the ball around (I think every player touched it at some point) and it ended with Mo Williams hitting a clutch 3.
Al Thornton played hard, he had some nice aggressive drives and really did a good job all night, even hitting a clutch 3 to give us the lead with 30 seconds left.
Camby was okay, Kaman had some good defensive moments where he altered some shots, he was definitely rusty on the offensive end but did make one nice little reverse layup. ZBo did pretty well, I wish he could jump a little higher as he had a few chippies he missed that alot of guys would be able to throw down.
EJ was good in the 1st half but very quiet in the 2nd half (I think he only had 2 of his 14 in the 2nd half, 4 at most). He does disappear from time to time in my opinion but I think thats because of his youth.
The rest of the bench didn’t do much, as MDsr played our 6 best players almost the entire game.
FA in 2010.
I wish the Kings had won tonight
They blew a lead against the Thunder. Until tonight I thought we had the 3rd worst record in the NBA wrapped up. But now I think I think we’ll win enough games to move up to like 5 or 6th place. Classic Clippers, how do we lose even in the lottery? :(
FA in 2010.
by ClipperChuck on Mar 11, 2009 1:46 AM PDT up reply actions
this one hurt…. i mean.. so close right? why the tease. they need to play to win and put it all out there on the floor. i think blowing a 15 point lead in one quarter isn’t acceptable by any standard. i try to be positive about everything with the team right now but this one hurts….
i’m hoping kaman pulls it together and the team can build some chemistry for the tail end of the season. its weird.. i talked to someone after a clipper game that said they had inside info and commented on kaman. said he was not playing because he was trying to hold out as long as he could so he can play hard during his contract year. man.. i hope that isn’t true but why the move to the starting line up right away?
i still have hope for the rest of the season though…. blake griffin 2010??!?!?!? hahaha
The call against EJ
It’s hard to get that call when the Clippers spent thbalance of the 4th just walking it up, rather than pushing the ball, which is what got them their lead in the first place. They just stopped being aggressive.
Kaman and Taylor were in too long down the stretch. Don’t know what Sr. was waiting for.
Another Clipper/MDSr. collapse. Of course, LeBron gets a lot of credit, too.
F-Elton!
I wonder if the goal was to be entertaining but still lose to preserve the lottery balls,
same fashion against Indiana. If we won these 2 games, we go from 2nd worse to 5th. Clippers only hope is blake griffen, maybe Dunleavy knows it too
Anyways,
Ej played great in the 1st half.
Al Thornton defense on Lebron was the best I have ever seen for Al
Kaman and Camby were playing good help D
Kaman was terrible in the last 3 mins
We helped Cleveland inch closer to home court throughout the playoffs
It was amazing how many gimmies Cleveland was missing. I knew they couldn’t miss all those shots.
Last play, did it look like camby was setting a high screen for Baron but he just jogging and hence EJ had to get the ball into anyone?
Cleveland just didn't get motivated until the 4th
Like last year, LBJ just took over the game. Best player in the NBA IMO.
LBJ
is just too physically gifted. If his physique were like Livingston’s, I doubt he’d be half as good as he is. Of course, it also helps to have major hops.
"This kid is the best new talent in the league right now, and I don't care who else you mention." -Suns Coach, Alvin Gentry, on Clippers rookie sensation, Eric Gordon.
Of course, that doesn't excuse blowing a 19 point lead, which shouldn't happen
Physically gifted and increasingly mentally focused.
Rats
I was truly bummed out after this game. All the jokes on the game thread and such about having a fourth quarter collapse—- I didn’t actually think it could happen. They were playing very well, but still the Cavs were missing too many shots for it to be sustainable, that being said it was like a 16 point fourth quarter lead.
I thought Kaman was fine, just rusty, but I agree Kaman and Taylor saw way too many minutes in the 4th. I dont frankly blame the last play on Zach, nobody was open for the inbound pass, the play essentially breaks down and Gordon gives it to Zach who panicks and launches a 3. In hindsight, Zach should have caught the pass, realized there was enough time left to call another timeout and reset with an actual inbound play.
Lebron is good at basketball.
So is Eric Gordon.
Quick thoughts
-EJ needs to assert himself more especially in the fourth. I know he’s a rookie but still.
-I knew we’d screw up the last play as we usually do.
-As usual, the Clippers show how good they’re supposed to be. As we’ve known all along, this plays to their competition. I hate the fact that this team keeps teasing us on how good we could be.
"This kid is the best new talent in the league right now, and I don't care who else you mention." -Suns Coach, Alvin Gentry, on Clippers rookie sensation, Eric Gordon.
Rea-lly...?
Sterling gives me the hibi-jibbies.
"This kid is the best new talent in the league right now, and I don't care who else you mention." -Suns Coach, Alvin Gentry, on Clippers rookie sensation, Eric Gordon.
well the way I see it, Ive hated Sterling for decades now, so Im kind of used to that feeling, kind of like having that annoying friend, that friend just isnt goin to go anywhere
I keep trying to give MDSr the benefit of the doubt, but this year solidified in my heart that I hate him, and he HAS to go
btw if anyone was in section 106 yesterday, I was the one that yelled out during intros to fire MDSr, and then throughout the rest of the game
This loss is eerily similar...
to the 2000 Blazers collapse in the playoffs againsts the Lakers…
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/2000/playoffs/news/2000/06/04/blazers_lakers_ap/
"This kid is the best new talent in the league right now, and I don't care who else you mention." -Suns Coach, Alvin Gentry, on Clippers rookie sensation, Eric Gordon.
I think Collapse is MDsr's middle name!
"Duck, Crab. Crab, Duck"
Roger Sterling - Mad Men
by Lawler's Law on Mar 11, 2009 9:51 AM PDT up reply actions
haha
I’ve never felt safe even when we have a huge. Even more uncomfortable when we have to score quickly after a timeout. I don’t know where Mike Smith gets his info that “MDsr. is the best coach at making plays after a timeout.”
"This kid is the best new talent in the league right now, and I don't care who else you mention." -Suns Coach, Alvin Gentry, on Clippers rookie sensation, Eric Gordon.
I know that this loss definitely helps
our chances in the lottery, but I was really hoping we’d win.
"This kid is the best new talent in the league right now, and I don't care who else you mention." -Suns Coach, Alvin Gentry, on Clippers rookie sensation, Eric Gordon.
I feel so indifferent, I wanted to not lose by a lot but when we were leading in the fourth- I wanted
a win.
This helps out in the lottery.
2 things I saw interesting at the game.
Once Clipper Daryl started the wave, some fans moaned and groaned. There is a belief that once the wave starts, everything bad to the clippers can happen. It’s Superstition that alot of season ticket holders believe in.
Secondly, a laker fan started to cheer for the clippers b/c if they win it would help the lakers get homecourt. So a couple of clipper fans were cheering on the cavs to win to prevent this from happening.
Such a bizarre night
lol
I didn’t notice any of this as I was watching the game on TV. How was the crowd. 60-40 Clippers-Cavs fans?
"This kid is the best new talent in the league right now, and I don't care who else you mention." -Suns Coach, Alvin Gentry, on Clippers rookie sensation, Eric Gordon.
by cliptakular on Mar 11, 2009 10:11 AM PDT up reply actions
Sounds about right...
One fan was so pissed at this laker fan, I thought he was going to punch him. I also heard some M-V-P chants when Laker fans were calling Lebron crap
I'm starting to realize that Laker fans have nothing clever when "berating" the other team.
Laker fan taunt: “You suck” “Lakers are Better” “Who’s your papi?” Some spanish curse word. …That’s the extent.
Clipper fans: “Jason Richardson father of the Year” “Hey Robin, Why would your father name both his sons as girls” etc.
We own the trash talk
However, in the interest of full disclosure we do have alot more time to come up with witty and clever responses than the average team. Something about losing almost 50 games gives a person alot of time to reflect on life, wishes and dreams.
FA in 2010.
by ClipperChuck on Mar 11, 2009 11:15 AM PDT up reply actions
Predictable Outcome
I was watching from the Fox Sports bar right next to Staple’s, and all the bartenders kept saying “this game isn’t over at all”, early in the 4th, to which I obviously agreed. As the collapse was in full swing, someone said, “it’s like they’re trying to lose”.
The coaching is one thing, I can definitely remember many recent Clipper teams fold up in the 4th. Conservative play calling, leads to a lack of aggression, leads to the sharks (closing team) smelling blood and getting after the prey (Clippers). I’ve seen this way too many times.
Obviously, we’ve had one player who was able to overcome this, Sam Cassell. For now, our best hope is to get the ball in EJ’s hands, just let him shoot three’s, whatever. Going in to Randolph is usually a nice security blanket, but he was getting D’d up very well by Varejao.
Al Thornton definitely played one of the games of his life. His rebounding and D impressed me the most, and if he can continue to play anything like he did last night consistently, he’ll go on to make me and others eat our words. Still would like to see him shoot less and settle in more as a 3rd or 4th option, but I’m not sure how feasible that is.
Al Thornton continuing to play like that is like...
The Clippers continuing to play well for all 4 quarters….
…Flashes of greatness but ultimately failing.
by Newton Pham on Mar 11, 2009 11:48 AM PDT up reply actions
Quite Annoying
I generally love Miph, but at around the time that the Fox Sports bartenders were expressing their concerns, Milph was blathering on about LeBron and his rough childhood and how he is trying to make a TV series out of his life story and how inspiring it all was. It seemed to go on forever and you could just feel the Cavs starting to get serious about the game during this stretch — it was almost as if they heard Milph jabbering on the sideline and used it as inspiration.
I was yelling at the TV at Milph to shut up and focus on the game but they were just so pleased with themselves and confident that the game was in hand. After so many 4th quarter collpases this season, why on earth would they think any game is secure?
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted" – Albert Einstein
by Another son of Mike Smith on Mar 11, 2009 3:20 PM PDT up reply actions
Multiple Topics
Our fearless leader CS recommended that we settle in and gnaw on this bone for a few days, and I’m all for it. It was a fascinating experience. As always, I’m going to start by looking at the bright side.
1. Was this a heroic defeat that cost the Lakers the NBA championship?
Talk about a gift to Clipper fans. Let’s remember this game if Kobe and Phil and Pau and Lamar are getting on the jet to go back to Cleveland for game 7. You know how some close games, like this one for instance, are decided by a missed free throw or two (hey now, Zbo!) in the 3rd quarter? Obviously playoff seeding and home court are the same thing writ large. If, like any semi-self-respecting Clipper fan you have “conflicts with”—not to say hate—the Lakers and their entire ethos, then you don’t mind the fact that Cleveland won this game. In fact it’s a good thing. Keep telling myself that.
2. The Maestro of the Meltdown
Nobody does it better than Mike Dunleavy. I try to stay neutral on Dunleavy. And I believe that responsibility for a collapse should primarily rest on the players and their effort. But a coach determines lineups and can manipulate momentum and make key decisions and run plays and matchups. And Dunleavy has an uncanny ability, on a twisted sort of spectacular scale, to guide his teams unerringly through full blown nuclear 4th quarter collapses and meltdowns. Milph were mentioning weird stats last night—LeBron’s come from behind blocks (Baron Davis, you dog! outta here with weak breakaway!)—and I would put MDsr’s 4th quarter losses with leads of 10 or more up against anybody’s.
There was one obvious doofus move, and one trickier one. The obvious early stages of a collapse are not the time to leave a struggling Mike Taylor out on the floor. Let Baron Davis earn his money, and put the loss on him. That was the critical, classic Dunleavy giant mistake. Leaving Kaman in, even more disastrous, is complicated because Camby has fluid in his head, right?, and he wasn’t even supposed to be playing at all. So that could be a reasonable excuse (we’ll leave DeAndre Jordan out of this for a moment). But don’t you get the sense that that’s not what happened, that Dunleavy got excited after Kaman got the ball to actually go into the hoop a couple of times, and he was thinking, “Kaman’s gonna get a block or a rebound and a follow or he’ll create space for Zach and he’s gonna help us win this thing!” Umm, no, maestro, that’s not what’s going to happen. He’s going to turn the ball over. That what Primitive Kaman (early Kaveman) does, and after sitting out almost 50 games, don’t kid yourself, that’s Primitive Kaman out there. But let’s remember #1, and choose to think that this particular Laker FU required some of the Maesto’s very best, inspired work.
3. Primitive Kaman
God I love that big fella, that lovable lug. Has any basketball player EVER been more funky than Chris Kaman? His level of artistry is truly astounding, humbling those of us who try to make do with the plodding futility of a poor facsimile like Nick Fazekas. Stanley Roberts and Benoit Benjamin were pretty funky, of course, back in the day, but they were just amusing fools in the end. Olowokandi was angry and he had a British accent, and his funk was joyless and cancerous. No one does it like Kaman. We don’t forget, of course, his inimitable style of inverse basketball, where left is right and right is left and the obvious path is up around and under, rather than straight to the goal. But perhaps my favorite thing is that we now know, after, what is it, 6 years of careful study, that his mind goes too fast, not too slow, and how that can be, well, kind of a big problem at times. Like the way you get a key offensive rebound at crunchtime and then, quick as lightning, spot an open player on the other side of the court and fire a fastball right at him. How crisp and determined was that bullet across the key that—who was it, Delonte West?—reached out so easily to intercept?! Only Primitive Kaman, the old purest stuff, just taken down from a lengthy stay on the shelf, throws that pass like that at that time. Having Primitive Kaman available for crunch time in this game was like giving the Maesto the perfect weapon of mass destruction.
4. How about that Al Thornton?
Interesting. Thornton didn’t exactly finish out playing the perfect game, but he was freaking great, and he was great for the specific reason that he was playing against the greatest player of all time. If there’s anybody who is worthy of cheesy superhero movie comparisons it’s obviously Lebron. It’s nuts what that guy does. There were the 4 or 5 amazing plays while the Cavs were getting schooled and missing every shot, and then there was the simple, effective, patient, lethal comeback. And Thornton was tough. He was better on defense than we’ve ever seen him—by a lot—, he was focused and athletic, rebounding and running. It was great. But Superhero Lebron was ultimately just toying with him I guess. The trick is to get Thornton to bring that kind of effort and energy when he goes up against mortals.
Lots to chew on, like I said.
Bravo!
I’ve moved this comment in it’s entirety to the front page. If you want to comment on it, go there.
In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. - Elwood P. Dowd
by Steve Perrin on Mar 11, 2009 2:41 PM PDT up reply actions
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