In a win worse than most teams' losses, we triumphed in the battle of the comically inept. And of course there is only one response to such a spectacular acheivement:
[yt=We Are the Champions]En9eiH4dTK0[/yt]
Cisco ( C- ) -- still struggling with his shot. Made Martin's reintegration that much easier by just not showing up for this one and letting Kevin have as many minutes as he could handle with almost no resistance from the incumbent starter. Had quickness issues on defense, and who knows about the calf. Was never effective at all on offense. More irrelevant than actually hurting us though.
Moore ( B ) -- yep. Back again. Like toenail fungus. Or our new KT. In the early going was often crossmatched scrawny beanpole on scrawny beanpole against Camby, and played a pretty good first half. Camby was awful, which helped, but Mikki was also benefitting for the first time in forever from the ball movement he needs to get those open dunks around the hoop. However when guarding his own man -- new MVP candidate Paul Davis -- things did not go so well, and Davis responded with a career night, much of it at the line which is the only place he can be counted on to hit consistently. After half not nearly as effective as Camby decided to actually play (I think the Clippers in general suddenly realized with about 3 or 4 minutes to go in the first half, that hey, we found somebody we might actually be able to beat! and put in much more effort thereafter), and while he was not fooling anybody, or at least not me, but playing Brad 38min, Mikki 32, and Jason only 26, Natt mercifully had Thompson in there to play the stretch minutes.
Miller ( B- ) -- strong first half often matched against another big pasty lumberer in Paul Davis, with Randolph and Kaman both out and not there to torture him. Davis was scoring at will of course, but Brad was taking care of the rebounding, and especially with Kevin out there had his soft little pass and jumpshoot game in high gear. Came to a screeching halt after half as Camby woke up and began to completely dominate the glass. Jumper started misfiring badly (to the tune of a lovely 5-15), and it looked like we were spiraling to another ignominious defeat. But Brad revived just enough to help down the stretch though, getting back on the glass himself and hitting two clutch FTs in the final minutes to help us stave off more humiliation.
Salmons ( C ) -- one of those curious games where Salmons easily led us in assists, doubling up the closest King, and yet played an absolutely atrociously selfish game. Gunning one on one, charging into triple teams -- his 5-19 is 100% his own fault for being an idiot. On one play he decided to go one on one with Camby, and after taking the entire shot clock before chucking up a weak jumper, got the ball back after we rebounded the miss and proceeded to then brick a three to finish the possession. Combined with Kevin to take turns being selfish in the late second quarter as we one on oned the Clippers right back into the game. Maybe got even worse in the third as he rushed into the middle again and again to meet Camby and give the ball back to the Clips on his way to a 5-19. And yet as mentioned. along the way he would just pop up once every 10 possessions and use his driving ability to create an angle and make the good pass. On defense we tried to use him as a cooler on Eric Gordon, who pretty much doesn't play like this against anybody but us (and our defense), with limited results. Gave us better than normal rebunding effort, but most of them were off his own forced misses. Tough to grade, but fugly.
Udrih ( B- ) -- aggressive offensively in the early going, and was having no real problems with a horrendous Baron Davis back the other way until Baron suddenly came to life at the end of the second quarter and in the space of about 2 minutes nearly equaled Beno's production for the entire half. Remained low level efficient on offense in the second half, which is more than can be said for any of the guys who scored more than he did. But notched only two assists and really has no opportunity to run the offense at all on a night when John and Kevin spent the majority of the evening playing keep away. Lost many of his late minutes to the two Bobby's, the old one who played defense and the young one who gave us a shot in the arm on offense.
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Martin ( B- ) -- . Came off the bench firing smoothly in a solid return to action and led us in scoring off the bench, but things began to get ragged. After intially renewing his soon to expire relationship with Brad, caught Salmons disease, and the two of them ground our offense to a halt with selfish one on one play after selfish one on one play. I lost track of the number of one pass or less possessions we had there, but it was getting ridiculous. And the difference between Kevin's game and Salmons' game is that while Salmons was certainly the more gratingly selfish of the two tonight, he still managed to come up with 6 assists to go with his 5-19 shooting, while Kevin notched a big fat zero to accompany his 5-14 (methinks that 10-33 shooting and 33 shots to 6assists can go a long way to explaining why our two main guns combined for a negative +/- on the night). At one point in the second quarter came up with back to back airballs. Finsihed the evening on a sourish note with a bad TO on another forced drive in the final seconds to allow the Clips one last chance to tie or win. So 20 points, a win, and welcome back, but a number of large hairy warts on this one and if we lose, or this was not a first game back, I would probably have dropped it half a grade.
Thompson ( B+ ) -- hustle off the bench gave us a boost in the early going as Jason discovered just how sluggish and rotten the Clippers core was to start this one. But sometimes that hustle game is a bit deceptive -- its almost when Jason looks LEAST impressive -- just a blown up scrapper trying to get by with lack of talent by banging around wildly. After half the hustle game was much less in evidence -- Camby's dominance inside largely checked Jason off the glass. And yet in most ways Jason looked better than he did running aorund out there wildly. Settled in a bit, took smarter shots, wasn't rushing and forcing as much, and in the end got to close out the game instead of a borderline HOF player like Mikki Moore. FT shooting nearly came back to bite him, and us, in the final minutes though and throw a pall over the proceedings. Seconds after the Clippers gave us the game with a head slapping (if you are a, I mean "the", Clips fan) blown dunk by Al Thornton (Jason flew by and may have changed the shot a little), Jason got fouled and with the game on the line choked off both of them at the line. Still the best he has looked in some time.
Jackson ( B- ) -- numbers won't really show it, but brought hustle off the bench both early and late, in the early going outhustling Baron Davis who is just half a step above tanking to get his idiot coach fired at this point. Could not finish though, and actually got quickhooked in the third quarter for Bobby Brown with both us, and him, floundering. Return in the 4th was very effective however, as Natt brought him in to harass and school rookie Eric Grodon, and he frustrated him on multiple plays. Then switched over on Baron, and again was able to use his strength to stay with him in a way that the younger Bobby had no hope to (not that Baron in any way was scaring anybdy tonight). Bobby still could not hit his own shots though, finsihed the night 0-5, and that is going to hold this grade down. But he made a contribution with physical defense, and while most of his 8-24 teammates do not realize it, that will win you a lot more games than chuck and ducking.
Brown ( B+ ) -- finally got in for the first time to replace the struggling BJax in the third quarter -- and one would have to believe that if Bobby the Elder had been playing well Bobby Jr. would not have gotten in at all. But in any case, he did get in, and he made the most of it. Hey, you knwo if you are going to have a game where nobody is passing and everybody is just going to take turns going one on one, Bobby Brown can do that as well as anybody. So came in, caught the spirit, and gave us a boost with point a minute scoring for his 7 minutes on the floor. Eventually pulled for the Elder Bobby after Baron returned and posed the physical mismatch, but even though it was short minutes Bobby did the spark off the bench thing well tonight.
[yt=We Are the Champions]En9eiH4dTK0[/yt]
Cisco ( C- ) -- still struggling with his shot. Made Martin's reintegration that much easier by just not showing up for this one and letting Kevin have as many minutes as he could handle with almost no resistance from the incumbent starter. Had quickness issues on defense, and who knows about the calf. Was never effective at all on offense. More irrelevant than actually hurting us though.
Moore ( B ) -- yep. Back again. Like toenail fungus. Or our new KT. In the early going was often crossmatched scrawny beanpole on scrawny beanpole against Camby, and played a pretty good first half. Camby was awful, which helped, but Mikki was also benefitting for the first time in forever from the ball movement he needs to get those open dunks around the hoop. However when guarding his own man -- new MVP candidate Paul Davis -- things did not go so well, and Davis responded with a career night, much of it at the line which is the only place he can be counted on to hit consistently. After half not nearly as effective as Camby decided to actually play (I think the Clippers in general suddenly realized with about 3 or 4 minutes to go in the first half, that hey, we found somebody we might actually be able to beat! and put in much more effort thereafter), and while he was not fooling anybody, or at least not me, but playing Brad 38min, Mikki 32, and Jason only 26, Natt mercifully had Thompson in there to play the stretch minutes.
Miller ( B- ) -- strong first half often matched against another big pasty lumberer in Paul Davis, with Randolph and Kaman both out and not there to torture him. Davis was scoring at will of course, but Brad was taking care of the rebounding, and especially with Kevin out there had his soft little pass and jumpshoot game in high gear. Came to a screeching halt after half as Camby woke up and began to completely dominate the glass. Jumper started misfiring badly (to the tune of a lovely 5-15), and it looked like we were spiraling to another ignominious defeat. But Brad revived just enough to help down the stretch though, getting back on the glass himself and hitting two clutch FTs in the final minutes to help us stave off more humiliation.
Salmons ( C ) -- one of those curious games where Salmons easily led us in assists, doubling up the closest King, and yet played an absolutely atrociously selfish game. Gunning one on one, charging into triple teams -- his 5-19 is 100% his own fault for being an idiot. On one play he decided to go one on one with Camby, and after taking the entire shot clock before chucking up a weak jumper, got the ball back after we rebounded the miss and proceeded to then brick a three to finish the possession. Combined with Kevin to take turns being selfish in the late second quarter as we one on oned the Clippers right back into the game. Maybe got even worse in the third as he rushed into the middle again and again to meet Camby and give the ball back to the Clips on his way to a 5-19. And yet as mentioned. along the way he would just pop up once every 10 possessions and use his driving ability to create an angle and make the good pass. On defense we tried to use him as a cooler on Eric Gordon, who pretty much doesn't play like this against anybody but us (and our defense), with limited results. Gave us better than normal rebunding effort, but most of them were off his own forced misses. Tough to grade, but fugly.
Udrih ( B- ) -- aggressive offensively in the early going, and was having no real problems with a horrendous Baron Davis back the other way until Baron suddenly came to life at the end of the second quarter and in the space of about 2 minutes nearly equaled Beno's production for the entire half. Remained low level efficient on offense in the second half, which is more than can be said for any of the guys who scored more than he did. But notched only two assists and really has no opportunity to run the offense at all on a night when John and Kevin spent the majority of the evening playing keep away. Lost many of his late minutes to the two Bobby's, the old one who played defense and the young one who gave us a shot in the arm on offense.
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Martin ( B- ) -- . Came off the bench firing smoothly in a solid return to action and led us in scoring off the bench, but things began to get ragged. After intially renewing his soon to expire relationship with Brad, caught Salmons disease, and the two of them ground our offense to a halt with selfish one on one play after selfish one on one play. I lost track of the number of one pass or less possessions we had there, but it was getting ridiculous. And the difference between Kevin's game and Salmons' game is that while Salmons was certainly the more gratingly selfish of the two tonight, he still managed to come up with 6 assists to go with his 5-19 shooting, while Kevin notched a big fat zero to accompany his 5-14 (methinks that 10-33 shooting and 33 shots to 6assists can go a long way to explaining why our two main guns combined for a negative +/- on the night). At one point in the second quarter came up with back to back airballs. Finsihed the evening on a sourish note with a bad TO on another forced drive in the final seconds to allow the Clips one last chance to tie or win. So 20 points, a win, and welcome back, but a number of large hairy warts on this one and if we lose, or this was not a first game back, I would probably have dropped it half a grade.
Thompson ( B+ ) -- hustle off the bench gave us a boost in the early going as Jason discovered just how sluggish and rotten the Clippers core was to start this one. But sometimes that hustle game is a bit deceptive -- its almost when Jason looks LEAST impressive -- just a blown up scrapper trying to get by with lack of talent by banging around wildly. After half the hustle game was much less in evidence -- Camby's dominance inside largely checked Jason off the glass. And yet in most ways Jason looked better than he did running aorund out there wildly. Settled in a bit, took smarter shots, wasn't rushing and forcing as much, and in the end got to close out the game instead of a borderline HOF player like Mikki Moore. FT shooting nearly came back to bite him, and us, in the final minutes though and throw a pall over the proceedings. Seconds after the Clippers gave us the game with a head slapping (if you are a, I mean "the", Clips fan) blown dunk by Al Thornton (Jason flew by and may have changed the shot a little), Jason got fouled and with the game on the line choked off both of them at the line. Still the best he has looked in some time.
Jackson ( B- ) -- numbers won't really show it, but brought hustle off the bench both early and late, in the early going outhustling Baron Davis who is just half a step above tanking to get his idiot coach fired at this point. Could not finish though, and actually got quickhooked in the third quarter for Bobby Brown with both us, and him, floundering. Return in the 4th was very effective however, as Natt brought him in to harass and school rookie Eric Grodon, and he frustrated him on multiple plays. Then switched over on Baron, and again was able to use his strength to stay with him in a way that the younger Bobby had no hope to (not that Baron in any way was scaring anybdy tonight). Bobby still could not hit his own shots though, finsihed the night 0-5, and that is going to hold this grade down. But he made a contribution with physical defense, and while most of his 8-24 teammates do not realize it, that will win you a lot more games than chuck and ducking.
Brown ( B+ ) -- finally got in for the first time to replace the struggling BJax in the third quarter -- and one would have to believe that if Bobby the Elder had been playing well Bobby Jr. would not have gotten in at all. But in any case, he did get in, and he made the most of it. Hey, you knwo if you are going to have a game where nobody is passing and everybody is just going to take turns going one on one, Bobby Brown can do that as well as anybody. So came in, caught the spirit, and gave us a boost with point a minute scoring for his 7 minutes on the floor. Eventually pulled for the Elder Bobby after Baron returned and posed the physical mismatch, but even though it was short minutes Bobby did the spark off the bench thing well tonight.
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