Podcast: Sorting out the good and the bad of the first half

The Clippers enter the second half of the season with the sixth-best point differential in the league, per Cleaning the Glass, solidly in the tier of teams contending for an NBA title. As is the case for teams with lofty expectations, the narrative around the Clippers has focused disproportionately on their shortcomings, but there is also a lot of good to be found in the first-half performance.

On the latest episode of the Clips Nation podcast, Sabreena Merchant is joined by Garrett Chorpenning of Sports Illustrated to talk about the pros and the cons of the first half of the season. They start with the good, namely the offensive flow Ty Lue has created in his first season at the helm, as well as the improved play of Terance Mann and Ivica Zubac on that end of the floor.

They then get into some of their concerns, namely the lack of easy baskets the team generates at the rim and at the free-throw line, and also some nagging defensive issues that Sabreena and Garrett believe will be fixed by simply having the best players available. They close with a discussion of who the Clippers could add with their 15th roster spot, or at least what type of player they should be looking for on the buyout market.

You can listen to all that and more in the full episode embedded below, and to make sure you never miss a single show moving forward, subscribe to the Clips Nation podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.