No More Excuses For The LA Clippers

No More Excuses For The LA Clippers

Just when you think the Clippers had an easy win to get on Sunday they had what I thought was definitely their worst loss of the season and is it a little bit scary that I keep saying that every week going to be talking about it all on today’s locked on crisis Clippers you

Are locked on Clippers your daily Los Angeles Clippers podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day Yes sir you are locking in with the clips thank you for making locked on Clippers the first listen of your day your team every day I’m your host Daren vieri born and raised in LA and in my 19th season as a Clipper fan you can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram

At dim dropper pod And subscribe to my own YouTube channel dime dropper for even more LA Clipper content a video of my experience at Sunday’s catastrophe will be up on Sunday including my immediate reaction following the game I’m sorry will be up on Monday including my immediate reaction following the game

And locked on Clippers is free and available wherever you get your podcast including YouTube hit the notification Bell so you know every single time we post a video and comment anything on this one I mean this is a safe space Clipper Nation go at the team as hard as

You want I mean I’m all ears I be reading the comments because what is going on this episode by the way is brought to you by LinkedIn there’s no better place to get hired or hire than LinkedIn just post your job for free at LinkedIn do.com lockon NBA okay I was at the

Game the first quarter felt like okay the Hawks have started making shots before we start making Shots by the way the sprained ankles of teren man and Norman Powell the update on that is Norman Powell didn’t play Terren man did play we got James Harden back for this game

And there were so many things wrong I don’t even know what we did right going into the game you know we’re playing against the Hawks team no Trey Young no sadik Bay I mean it should have been a blowout it should have been a blowout and it was

Funny one of my boys sitting next to me in 207 was saying I think we’re going to play with our food and that’s exactly what we did to start the game and it was that classic story of you take a team lightly you let them get confidence

Shooting the ball and now you’re in trouble and the thing is the Hawks have been playing better defense the last couple of weeks Trey Young’s been out that can help the defense now you have dejonte Murray playing the one and yeah he doesn’t from what I’ve heard he has

Not been playing as good a defense as he did with San Antonio but Trey young I heard he improved defensively this year but he is still I think there’s a good chance your team could get better defensively without him and then they also have nothing to lose

Offensively so it’s not really I mean obviously dejonte Murray kind of carried offensively in terms of the ball handling duties and stuff like that but it was a pretty balanced attack you know they had Jaylen Johnson with 18 points Clint capella had 15 points and by the way Johnson and capella each had

A double double bonovich had 11 deont Murray had 21 to lead the Hawks and then DeAndre Hunter had 20 Off the Bench Wesley Matthews hit two threes Garrison Matthews in two threes I just felt like they were riging I mean they had they shot 49% from the field and 50 from

Three then the Clippers shot 38% from the field and 31 from three so we shot 17 more free throws by the way but moral of the story I could just say look the Hawks made everything they had a great shooting night and the Clippers had a terrible shooting night it’s nothing

More than that but how many times have I said that how many times have I on this podcast this season made an excuse and said oh it’s just a one-off game people should not overreact you know we’re still this seed well you know what I

Felt in this arena in that Arena uh on Sunday night we can’t get the three top three seat anymore I don’t think we’re going to be able to do it and you know what I’ve said all season about not getting a top three seed we needed to

Win I don’t care what your argument is in the comment section of what you say oh what if the Nuggets get the two seed and we avoid them till the conference we’re not going to win at all in my opinion if I’m wrong I’m going to be the

Happiest person ever to be wrong we’ll be celebrating together at Figaroa talking about how wrong I was or wherever the parad is going to be I don’t think we’re going to have one this year top three seed that’s what history tells us and I just don’t believe that

This team for two reasons one the pessimist in me seeing the Clippers and being a Clipper fan and thinking we’re not going to be the team that makes history and joins the 69 Celtics and 95 Rockets as the only two teams to win below a three seed then the just my eyes

Are telling me we are nowhere near Championship level right now we peaked in December and January we peaked after the all when we we were on that Grammy trip and we beat Boston and we beat Miami we beat Atlanta I guess that’s when we were peing cuz when we came back starting

With that loss to New Orleans we’ve been horrible we’ve been horrible we’re 8- 10 in our last 18 games and I want to say it’s a lack of effort it’s playing with your food it’s unseriousness it’s not injuries really we’ve had kawhai and Harden for and Paul

For the whole year really yeah we haven’t had Westbrook and I think we’ve missed his intensity a lot the last couple of weeks you know even when he’s playing like ass Russell Westbrook still adds a level of oh this game means something to the game especially at home

Games he really adds to the Ambiance of the of the crowd and he just felt dead they gave us nothing to cheer about and they’re lucky they didn’t get booed I was trying to get the booze going but again I’m sitting in an all Clipper fan

Section and a lot of that is sa booing their own team is sacriligious but they deserve to get booed what kind of effort is that first quarter we lost 3129 second and third quarter we didn’t even score 20 points in either 15 in the second 18 in the third and I had

Somebody on Twitter comment to me our offense is not the problem everything is a problem we don’t rebound we don’t defend well enough at the point of attack we don’t defend well enough in the interior we don’t play good enough uh Point uh pick and roll

Defense we don’t play good enough one on one defense we’re constantly helping and rotating and then offensively we’re very stagnant stars are inconsistent outside of Kawai James Harden I’m going to get into him more but he hasn’t looked good in he hasn’t looked great I should say

He’s had some good games he hasn’t looked great in weeks Paul George the last three games he’s starting to come together but even he settled way too much in the second half for threes all game it’s because again what was that game the other day it’s Chicago he’s

Making everything and I said it on the Pod I said that’s not sustainable some nights he’ll shoot like that but if you want to keep shooting step back threes you’re going to have those cold shooting nights and in this game he shot five for eight from two four for 12 from three 9

For 20 in the game overall so he shot 45% which isn’t terrible it’s about his average but he shot 33% from three because 12 out of his 20 shots were threes and a lot of them were not even wide open in the flow of the offense they were one-on-one force him chucking

Listen so and you know the fact that he shot more shots than Kawai even though Kawai was the one who had 17 points in the first quarter that was the thing kawhai had 17 points in the first quarter he was really carrying us but Atlanta was just off to a good start and

I was fully convinced that that was just they’re making shots before we’re making shots you know capella was hedging on Harden and Paul but dropping on kawhai and I felt like with those coverages we were going to be able to get some good shots but I will say the length and size

Of guys like Deonte Murray DeAndre Hunter Jaylen Johnson Fernando on that backline that was kind of solid affecting us but I mean defensively we just could not get stops we got nothing going in transition because we could not get stops Paul George got a couple of steals but throughout the game I just

Don’t think our defense was good enough it felt like the Hawks got a good look every time down and they don’t have Trey young I mean just the fact that we let them score 31 points in the first quarter it’s more than just they’re making shots first they should never

With that team be scoring 31 points in in the first quarter and in the second quarter we didn’t have 2 and3 for a stretch both of them were out at the same time in that hard and L lineup without Norman pal and no Russ was horrific we couldn’t score for a while

And throughout the game our transition defense I talked about it against New Orleans not great and you know what comes that comes down to a lot of it either effort or your team is tired and I think personally we were a great team to start the season we have not load

Managed the same way this year I think we really have put in more of an effort this year and kawhai said it’s between the ears it’s mental and this and that you know what he’s been saying that for a couple of weeks and tyou keeps saying

The same things for a couple of weeks I think I’m starting to see it and I’ve seen it every game we’re old we’re too slow we’ve relied on these eight or nine guys all season but the regular season it just took too much of a toll on them in a very good

West maybe we’ll revive enough to push for a Conference Finals birth but I think anything past that is a stretch at this point and I know this pod is going to hurt some people’s and you don’t have to agree with me just because I Darian vieri dime dropper whatever says that as

A Clipper fed for 19 years that I don’t think we’re going to win the chip this year means nothing means nothing you know I’ve been wrong about a ton of things on this show as your host I could be wrong about that and remember it’s every time I lose hope we start to

Do well it’s funny the second I said I was wrong about Harden and this and that and oh man like look where we’re at we’re the number one seed it’s ser that’s when it all started falling apart I should have stuck with my gut and not

Get too excited all year cuz look at this oh that that’s exactly why deep down I didn’t I kept saying you know can’t don’t get too excited on this show but I’m not going to lie you’re going to think I’m capping with this but I’m being dead serious internally I was

Having a real struggle all year I wasn’t coming home from games with the same joy that I always have my whole time as a Clipper fan my whole life and I would come on here and as the host of this show you know I want to promote the

Positivity and when things are going well of course I’m happy but deep down I was so skeptical because of James Harden but I know a lot of people would think you should be skeptical of Paul George as well and I am to a degree but that was my whole thing with Harden and

Westbrook initially it’s like you’re bringing in two guys that have questionable playoff histories at the final hurdle this is not about they never play well in the playoffs because that’s not true James Harden and Westbrook have had historically good playoff games but it’s about the final hurdle and it’s about people

Understanding how hard it is to win a championship and that’s why the three seeds win cuz they show It All season and and durability matters and I love that these guys have been healthy but it just shows that the toll the regular season might have been too much we have

16 games left we need to start playing better and even if we do can we beat Denver four times out of seven because they’re starting to peek at the right time I don’t know going to be talking about our defense and more coming up I gotta tell you a little something

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The second quarter 27 to 18 in the third quarter and we outscored them 3122 in the 4th there was some garbage time in there but there actually was a level of okay if we’re going to make a run we’re going to have to make it now for the

Clippers and we cut it down to I think 14 or 12 but it was just it was always a fake run I mean when you were down by as many as 29 at home to the Hawks like the role players outside of Paul George and kawhai didn’t play very well I mean

Zubats he offered little to no resistance he had six points in six boards and four of them were offensive so two defensive rebounds in 23 minutes no good his pick and roll defense and drop coverage was nothing special we went small to try something new at the

End and PJ Tucker got a lot of minutes again 21 minutes we’re starting to use him more and I thought his defense was excellent actually but offensively not good at all he is he made his only three but it’s just like he doesn’t offer much

Of anything he’s not an on ball guy he doesn’t shoot the ball quickly with conviction when he’s open and they leave him open constantly when teams are doubling off of Kawai cuz they started to do that more cuz he had 17 points in the first they start double teaming

Kawai and then when you have zoo and PJ it becomes easier for the defense to rotate because PJ’s not even willing to shoot it he’ll catch the ball when he’s open and look to go into a dribble handoff like Draymond does if you notice draymond’s left open a lot right so what

Happens is he catches the ball now his Defender reacts he now puts Steph Curry with him in the action to get a little dribble handoff and who usually guards the guy who’s coming off a screen when he uh who usually guards the guy that’s coming off a screen the guy

Who’s guarding the screener right helps for a second based on what your scheme is or switches whatever it may be if your defend if the guy that’s guarding the screener is five feet sagged off when Steph comes off that screen he’s walking into a wide open jumper so that’s how the Warriors countered

Draymond Green being left open PJ Tucker tries to do the same thing but he’s got no roll gravity he has nothing on the roll and he can’t like he can’t catch the ball and put the ball on the floor and make a quick read off the bounce like Draymond Green so it becomes

Nothing and when teams double and leave him open we don’t get much out of it and it makes everything harder even when Harden gets to the basket because there were times where Harden got by you know forest or Ci or capella in this game or Fernando he got by some of the weaker

Matchups and he drew a second Defender and he did get eight assists in sorry nine assists in this game James Harden but there were times where sagged off of either zoo or PJ and they took away what could have been a good look so my thing

Is with PJ Tucker I see that he’s added he’s shown that he can play D and he’s started to make make some threes I still don’t think he belongs in the rotation on on our team when we’re trying to win a chip when everyone’s healthy we missed norn massively today and Russ I

Absolutely agree but they miss Trey young there’s no excuse zero our defense was terrible let’s talk about it put of attack I’ve said it all season I love Terren man he cannot be your best point of attack defender on a championship team he just can’t earlier in the season

We saw Kawaii and Paul George taking a lot of the best players for larger stretches they have not been doing that anymore and I think it’s to preserve their legs again transition defense getting beat on the boards all this stuff it goes back to that we’re old to

Me it feels like we’re getting outworked every game and I don’t think it’s because they don’t care I think they know it’s their last like for kawhai and Paul George this is year five but we ALS we just also just struggle to convert when kawhai gets double teamed that’s

That’s a consistent thing I think a lot of it is you know guys not attacking Closeouts not being not shooting without hesitation Terren Amir Amir by the way you know he just had a rough one in this game one for six from the field 0 for four from three two points five rebounds

Bones Highland was horrific I mean just terrible two points and five turnovers on 0 for four shooting all his shot out were threes in 11 minutes he was just a nightmare in this game and I I just think no excuse he needed to be better we did not get anything from our role

Guys Tyson plumbley we did the same thing where we had Tyson in the first half plumbley in the second Ty played seven minutes offered nothing and Mason plumbley played seven minutes and offered Five Points and two rebounds on one for two shooting in the second half PL Ty was 0 for

Two just a brickfest kobai Leonard really had 17 points in the first quarter and then he had 11 the rest of the game it’s just not enough needs to shoot more but I mean Terren man he was two for six but one of them was a grenade at the end of

The shot clock he had no chance of making but two for five then one for two from three seven points four boards two steals he wasn’t very good he was whatever just there was no defensive resistance and I think partially it was because they didn’t have a main guy to

Go to yes dejonte Murray to a degree but it was kind of a committee beating us by committee and again that’s what can happen sometimes when you don’t have your best player everybody there’s no egos no ball dominant guy everyone’s moving the ball and it becomes can you

Guard NBA players without fouling if you can’t now you see why it’s so hard to play Modern defense because there’s so much Spa so hard to cover all that space with all the shooting all the shooting Personnel so when we play pick and roll defense and we don’t have to switch

Everything Personnel zubot usually does a great job in drop coverage and our point of attack guys aren’t horrific well our point of attack wasn’t good our drop our Rim protection wasn’t good and helping the helper the helper being zoo was nowhere nowhere to be found the rotations were poor and the and the

Hawks were hitting that you’re going to concede the three when you’re you’re going to concede something when you’re not switching picking rolles we’re conceding the three they were making the three but our offense is was such a problem was so slow and then James

Harden I mean do I want to get into you know what I’m going to wait on that but moral the story our defense is not good enough and it hasn’t looked good in weeks it’s can we can’t have Kawai and Paulo georg’s guard the best players every night can they they’re too old

They’re too they do too much on offense too but they might have to because but you know what we need if that happens James Harden to play better and coming up going to be talking about that I got to tell you a little something about Stitch fix you know that

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Turnovers than assists 8 for 17 from the field three for eight from three nine for 10 from the line again eight threes out of 17 shots I don’t know if I love that from Kawai just not aggressive enough in my opinion in the second half

I know you got doubled some but let me just check how many shots he took in the second half four I mean again second straight game I’ve said it we got to be better about converting when he gets doubled but second straight game I’ve said it with kawhai if this team is

Going to like crap the bed in front of next to him he needs to go out swinging it can’t be like the bubble it can’t Paul George 26 points six rebounds one assist four Steals and a block I thought he was actually better defensively than

Some others 9 for 20 from the field four for2 from three four for four from the line in 35 minutes my think with Paul too many threes too many threes and then zubats I just thought was really poor he has been I’m not going to say I’m not

GNA lie actually I’m gonna say it he’s been awful since the illness I’m sorry since the injury really he hasn’t fully returned to being great since the injury and we we have to have him playing at his best to win or else we got to look

To make him a backup next year or trade him seriously that and I haven’t gone that far with zo have I Terren man needs to be better defensively honestly both ends of the floor straight up if we’re going to win the chip nothing else needs to be said

PJ Tucker I admire what he’s doing right now and when we’re fully healthy he shouldn’t play bones Highland same kind of deal with this team he shouldn’t but he’s got to be a little better I prefer Ty over plumbley but they both look old right now they’re both not nearly as

Good as Isaiah hartenstein which was again a huge blunder we made going back to last summer trying to fiend the point guard with John Wall and letting go of what was a quality backup that some argued was even better than Zoo air coffee just didn’t have a good game I’m not worried about

Him James Harden I was really harsh on him in that Minnesota game but for the most part I haven’t dedicated segments to him not being good enough but I’ve done it for Paul I’m I just don’t know what to say every time I speak out about this I get called

A hater because everybody knows what I how I felt about Harden before we got him and I apologized when I saw us get the one seat I said you know what I was wrong about James Harden even if we choke in the playoffs we needed him

Because we would have never even been in a top three conversation or a championship conversation without him maybe he comes good you’re starting to see it right now in front of your eyes what you saw the last couple of Seasons the wear and tear of the Season

He gets a little injury or something he looks tired he looks slower he’s not beating good Defenders off the bounce anymore he got by some whack Defenders he’s having much worse shooting games his defense has not been the same as it was those first couple of months for

About the last two months I would say give or take he got some strips towards the end I what one steel one block he has not been creating the same advantages for us and he’s the way he slows down offensive possessions I mean he takes too long to

Do everything for my liking for my taste he might still get you a good shot at the end of The Possession it’s too long that he T he takes too long there are times where Amir coffee was streaking off streaking up the court in transition running the floor and he just wouldn’t

Pass to him there was a time where he got swung the ball he was wide open when I think Kawai had gotten doubled and he didn’t make the extra swing and instead he like doesn’t make the extra swing doesn’t take the open shot and goes into

One-on-one and we don’t end up getting a good shot like I have zero faith in him come playoff time zero and before I said well I crush him in the first round CU technically James Harden hasn’t been eliminated in the first round since 2016 and for all those wondering what

About Paul he’s a questionable in the playoffs the last time I saw Paul in the playoffs he made history for us was it without flaws no he missed those free throws against Phoenix I remember he he didn’t have as much pressure when kawhai had gone out it kind of felt like well

If the Clippers do this that’s overachieving but if they lose no one’s going to blame blame anyone and he bald but I don’t I don’t that what I just said is is BS Paul George had all the weight of the world on his shoulders after the way he choked in the bubble in

The slander he received and he played amazing the last time we saw him in the playoffs Point Blank so he deserves the benefit of the doubt from me if he messes up this season okay we can have those conversations but I don’t trust Harden at all he has not looked good for a

Couple of weeks he’s had some good games but he has not looked good consistently I’m not going to say anything else I never believe that a team with this guy could win the championship I just don’t feel it’s going to all align for him does that mean that he’s the reason we’re not

Going to win and that’s it absolutely not so please don’t twist my words like that but we have 16 games left and I have zero faith in him zero and I don’t care even if they start balling Paul kawhai Harden we get to the Conference Finals that would be amazing and I’d

Enjoy it I’m still going to support the boys every step of the way but winning the whole thing honestly getting out of the West because if we get out of the West that means we would have beaten Denver potentially I think we should win the whole thing at that point because

Anybody that let’s say we don’t even play Denver someone else beats them if we beat whoever beat Denver that’s enough in itself and honestly just winning three Series in this West this year is going to be insane whoever does it really is going to deserve it but with performances like

This pathetic James Harden had zero points for a minute I Funny he’s funny he ended with nine how many of those were in the fourth quarter in our last ditch fake comeback all nine he had zero points through three quarters he shot three for 10 from the field two for five

From three so he actually didn’t end up shooting that bad from three nine points six rebounds nine assists one block one steal and three turnovers he was horrendous and his defense was bad just like we have to overcompensate for him on defense a lot recently it’s just I’m

Not going to lie to you guys like tonight was the night where I was like you know what just stop lying I’m just going to stop lying to myself I just don’t think we’re going to win it we can still go far I still think we can make a

Run and pull it together even with regardless of seeding having a healthy Kawai makes things happen I think having a healthy Kawai is going to be an experience for all of us having a healthy Kawai in the playoffs for the first time since 20121 having that home

Crowd and hopefully it’s game one of the playoffs but now I’m starting to be nervous we might not even have home court having Kawai healthy knock on wood that’ll still be an experience but winning the whole thing I just don’t think we’re showing tendencies I think

The seating is too low I’m going to I may get a lot of hate in these comments don’t lose the faith Darian this and that I’m not going to lie to myself and I’ve been doing that for a couple of months honestly since we got James Harden when we went on that stretch

Everybody was taking Victory laps in December and January I even admitted I was wrong and the second I admitted we were wrong I was wrong now the inevitable is happening where it looks like James Harden looks tired the rest of our team looks tired we’re

Old I don’t even know what to say that was disgraceful and if it’s effort and you know what and they bounce back next game against well we’re playing Portland next we better win but it’s like let me see you beat a good team again let me see you beat a

Good team again let me see you get three wins in a row again we have 16 games left so by the way now we’re 42 and 25 so we’d have to go 15-0 to tie our best finish ever 14 and one to tie our second best finish

Ever at this point we made even get 50 wins we’ll see we better beat Portland that’s all I have to say you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Dime dropper pod subscribe to my own YouTube channel dime dropper for even more LA Clipper and LA Sports content locked on

Clippers is free and available wherever you get your podcasts including YouTube comment anything by the way let me see I’m just going to look at my notes see if I forgot anything Clint started dropping on Harden by the way later in the game and we just Deonte Murray was

Locking him up Murray started hedging and recovering on kawhai by the way they weren’t fully switching that action all the time but yeah Harden couldn’t make a shot floater or three when Wes Matthew started hitting threes he went down 14 there were sometimes where Harden got to

The basket he had no lift at The Rim Kawai went cold in the second I want to see what his field goal percentage was in the second quarter one for four yeah that was tough after the first quarter where he was so good Jesus just a rough one and the

Clippers attempted two two shots in the paint in the third quarter made one of them so could not get to the basket and that goes again our age we just don’t get downhill enough but yeah we tried to switch one through five in the fourth cut it down to like 14 just wasn’t

Enough but let me know what you think in the comments guys the agel proverb continues go Clippers win or lose we still support the guys

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