Ralph Lawler and Michael Smith are good announcers for the Clippers. But as far as promoters and sales pitchmen, this is getting embarrassing, almost like carnival barkers.

Just because of an infusion of talent, they sound like giddy kids at Christmas when the Clippers are leading, and then retreat to explaining away, making excuses that this team is still the top such and such, while the same old Clips slowly lose another game; from hype to denial in 10 seconds.

I want this team to be good, but the pregame and postgame sales pitches, well, I'm turning the volume off until this unabashedly biased, unfounded promotional business goes away.