You know the problem with a little hope? It can be crushed again. Its like being caught in a long term abusive relationship with a significant other. You get numb after a while. But start something new up, only to have it fall apart too, and it hurts again.
So anyway, having lost my stomach for our sadsackness a good month ago at least, fact is I quit watching this one with about 3min to go in the 3rd. Did not get to see Carl Landry's minutes. Did not care. Did not get to see David Stockton's NBA career. Cared a little more there, but really. Mercifully was trying to ignore us saving Doc's job by making Austin Rivers look like an NBAer, or Ben's continuing to look lost, or Ryan Hollins, or Nik lowering his 32% season long shooting %, or Omri's career high 17 rebounds.
Couldn't do it. Not after we completely collapsed to the tune of getting outscored 73-36 in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. 73-36. And the collapse actually went on a little longer than that. We were up at least 29-19 in the first before it began, so that means a bare minimum 78-36 run. I almost never quit on these guys, but that was enough. I was more embarrassed, against this opponent, than at any point in Corbin's disastrous tenure. At least there we had an excuse. I was simpatico with the players' dismay. Here though...well, maybe George is playing too fast. Maybe we hit a wall. Best to just call it one of those games, pretend it never happened, and walk away.
Boxscore
Stats: 32min 15pts (4-13, 2-4, 5-7) 6reb 2ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Gay ( D ) -- the first of many players hwo made the argument that despite last game being the first in a week, this Clippers result turned ugly in part due to fatigue. We actually started this oen off hot, and Rudy was at the center of that. Very energetic and active at both ends, blocked Hawes inside, shoved Barnes out of the way for a dunk on the break, think he had 10 of his 15 points by the end of the first quarter. But as it was with the team as a whole, things turned dramatically therafter. Not only did Rudy disappear, he flat got his ass kicked by Barnes and probbaly had to sign a waiver saying he liked it. to add injury to insult, he also banged knees repeatedly with Big Baby Davis, and that's a big knee. Result was that after the hot start Barnes dominated him, blocked his shots, elbowed him, forced him into terrible shots, and Rudy went by by, as did we. --Brick
Lily Aldridge
Stats: 21min 0pts (0-4, 0-0, 0-0) 4reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Thompson ( D ) -- seemed the right move to have Jaosn start this one after Landry sucked last time, and against Spoencer Hawes filling in in the twin tower set for Blake Griffin. Unfortunately the end result was Jason went right back to the big ball of nothing he's been for months alongside Cousins. Like much of our team, he was aggressive for almsot a full quarter, early on tried to force a post move over Hawes, didn't make it, tried to get the offensive board in a crowd, and ended up getting thrown around by Barnes as the refs all watchd hot girls in the stands. And for the first 6 minutes was really much more aggressive trying to block shots on defense, got 1, challenged a couple of others, and made a big effort on acouple of boards. Then Cuz went to the bench, Jason shiofted over to center, and we promptly completely lose bowel control . Jason went from invisible, to confused on seemingly every rotation, to throwing terrible passes 3 feet over the head of his teammates. The Clippers exploded, and Jason never did a damn thing for the entire rest of the game. --Brick
Vanessa Marcil
Stats: 25min 21pts (6-19, 0-0, 9-13) 4reb 2stl 2stl 2blk 5TO
Cousins ( D ) -- simply did not have it physically from the beginning of this one, and against of course a physical freak of an opponent who it must be said looked remarkably bouncy form the beginning. I think even fresh Cuz, or fresh anyone, would have struggled against the all out physical assault waged by Jordan in this one, but that's not who was out there. Cuz got dominated on the glass and repeatedly let Jordan establish such deep post position that the end result was a given. There actually was effort. It wasn't a low effort defensive effort, he moved, he came up with several good steals and help blocks. But when it came time to push and shove, Jordan pushed, and Boogie gave way. And on the other end the lack of legs was even more evident, as he made moves, got around the rim, and time after time the layups and rolls rolled off. Oddly, the one thing that was falling were his jumpers, although eh seemed to be taking them with a weird low jump almost falling into them motion. Still, he knocked down his first three Js, and they were the only three things that fell until late in the half when he finally scored on a great reverse spin on the baseline. Was again having temper problems, and now has 2 techs in 2 games under Karl. Not a great sign, nor is Karl's history with colorful characters from Gary Payton to Kenyon Martin to Allen Iverson any particular sign he's going to be a Boogie whisperer the way Malone was. Came out in the 3rd angry and extremely aggressive, and for a while he was at least returning things personally, slamming inside and getting the entire Clippers frontline in foul trouble. But there was a lot of chatter, cheapshots, flops, and he eventually picked up his 4th on one of those "saavy" plays by CP3, and while we had stabilized the scoreboard behind him, we had made up no ground. As soon as he left we collapsed in a big way again, and there was just no point in ever bringing him back down 30. Gets a little grade for the 3rd quarter foul drawing routine, which led him even on a bad night to notch 21pts in 25min. But in general got his butt physically kicked by Jordan, and didn't have full control of his temper again. --Brick
Corinne Bishop -- with her dad (she's the one on the left)
Stats: 29min 9pts (4-12, 1-6, 0-0) 2reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
McLemore ( F ) -- Ben needs a bounceback performance in the worst way. After getting lit up by a red hot Avery Bradley, he got burned by the combo of JJ Redick and Jamal Crawford to the tune of a combined 47 points. Ben wasn't on the floor for all of those points, but he did see his cover pour in about 35 points in his 28 minutes of play. I don't know how much of that to put on Ben - if there is one thing that Doc Rivers teams know how to do, it is set an infinite number of screens to free up their Ray Allens for open jumpers. The Kings tried the novel approach of just letting Redick take those jumpers instead of rotating out to cover off the screens. Redick did his damage early, and when Crawford got hot in the late third, Karl pulled Ben off the floor to let Casspi and Stauskas take the brunt of the blow. The real problem for Ben is that his jumper has been off for about two months now. Tonight he wasn't just missing open jumpers, he was also dribbling into off-balance contested takes with lots of shot clock left. He continues to be hesitant to go into shot blockers inside to draw contact and get to the free throw line. Until he can figure out how to use that athleticism to get fouled on occasion, he is going to continue to struggle to score efficiently. --Hadlowe
Priyanka Chopra
Stats: 23min 10pts (4-7, 0-1, 2-2) 7reb 5ast 1stl 2blk 1TO
McCallum ( B ) -- Ray actually had one of the best nights for our team tonight. I mean, the official scorer down in L.A. must have had cataracts or something, as the box score totals did not remotely match my own tallies. Ray was credited for two rebounds, two blocks, three assists, and one turnover that I don't think actually happened. I mean, that's a lot of hallucinating going on there. So let's call it what it was - a five rebound, two assist night. Ray set up five other shots that his teammates couldn't knock down (that would have resulted in "legitimate" assists) and his 4-7 shooting was in fact a real 4-7 shooting. And best of all, he didn't let Chris Paul get off. Paul finished with 10 points, but he only scored 4 on Ray (on three shots), and overall he allowed just those four points on seven total shots, which is really nice. The rest of the team didn't show up for him, but that's not Ray's fault. Solid game. --Capt.
Amelia Heinle
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