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No game last night, game tonight (early 6:30 tipoff). Cruising the web this morning with not much to do I found three shouldn't-be-missed articles about the Clips.
1. "Sunday Shootaround" by Paul Flannery. This is an SBNation article with a lead story about Blake Griffin. At first it seems like it's going to be another one of these love letters to Griffin and his recent play. But this one's a little different in that Flannery actually does what writers of yesteryear did, and TALKS to Griffin... and head coach Glen Rivers, and point god, Chris Paul. This is my favorite quote from Rivers:
"The thing we started doing more is the advance pass to Blake," Rivers said. "When Chris went out, my concern was Darren (Collison's) not a point. He's more of just a guard and not a great decision maker. I was concerned about our decision making so we started outletting it to Blake. When Chris went down we basically told Blake he had to be a facilitator and a scorer. We kind of fell into the fast break stuff with Blake bringing it up. Now with Chris back that makes us really lethal."
And then this:
"I agree with anyone who says that we're having a great regular season but the proof is in the pudding in the playoffs," Rivers said. "I think this team needs to win a series and then I think, watch out. That's how I look at our team."
2. From Jeff Miller at the OC Register. The Clips have apparently been playing Glen Davis rap song, "Big Baby Gon' Turn It Up" in the locker room. It's an infectious party song with a fairly painful Auto-Tune vocal recorded back in 2012. It's also pretty fun. But... I thought Davis didn't like the "Big Baby" moniker? You can buy it on itunes or you can listen here on the NBA site.
3. Dan Woike (also at the OC Register) talks to Doc Rivers, Chris Paul, and DeAndre Jordan about the NBA minimum age requirement. New commissioner Adam Silver is making raising the requirement a priority (never mind that it's probably illegal and might not survive a test in court). Rivers, Paul, and Jordan are all against it and their reasoning is solid. Paul, of course is the President of the player's union. Changing the requirement has to get by the union before it goes anywhere. Interesting stuff.
From Rivers (who never seems to say anything that doesn't make perfect sense):
"I just have a philosophical view about it, that guys should have a right to earn a living," the Clippers coach said. "I can go and fight in Iraq at 18, but I can't play in the NBA? That's silly to me."