Playoffs: Clippers Vs Rockets

I feel bad for true clipper fans (billy crystal?). they looked like a force through game 4. watching their role players shrink like that for the rest of the series had to be super painful. I can't think of a bigger choke job in my time watching basketball.

the phx/lal series, phx had more talent and shouldn't have been down 3-1.

the dal/mia finals: wade FTAs, and dallas never led 3-1.

this was crazy. I don't even know how you keep the core intact. it's that bad. they were clearly the better team, and they just wilted when it mattered most.

 

I actually believed they would at least make WCF. It's strange, yet amazing to see them all down in the dumps. Thought they would keep the core together for a long time, but maybe not anymore. Would make sense if DeAndre left for Dallas.

 

regarding the coaching: doc's supposed to be a master motivator, but he couldn't get his guys to bring it in games 5 and 6, when they REALLY needed to. game 7 was a foregone conclusion after that. his press conference after game 6 sounded like a coach who gave up.

I wonder if dallas and lac could do a double s&t with Jordan and chandler, with the clips getting a TE for the salary difference and using that and the MLE to try to shore up some other spots on the roster. I'm grasping here. and I don't like the clippers; it's fine with me if they burn it down. I'm just having a thought exercise.

 

Doc is overrated, but he's still a better coach than Vinny Del Negro. The offense the Clippers ran under Vinny was atrocious.

The big problem with the Clippers is that their core players lack that "it" factor needed to win championships. You can't coach that. And I'm not sure Doc has the GM skills to recognize those traits in players.

 

Thanks for clarifying. Wondered what the hell you were doing there.

 

Ahh, Magic off the bandwagon, how cute. Who is it this time Magic? I guess Cleveland.

 

Just watched the 1st three quarters and one the main things I noticed is how horrible Griffin defense was .

It reminded me of Stoudemire defense the way Blake wasn't in a defensive stance on lots of possessions ... particulary on Crockets high PNR

 

If the Sprockets advance, can You imagine the headache refs will get? Soooo many BS calls to make, soooo little time... and who to favour.

 

Somewhere in LA there is a Clippers fan (who is also a Lakers fan BTW), walking the streets with seemingly no purpose and wondering why all that athleticism failed him yet again

 

And how as well having a 6th man with the single greatest play captured on video in the history of basketball ....... (even if he clearly traveled) ...... didn't help either.

 

I've always liked Bill Plaschke. No no whoa wait ...... that's not true. Last couple days or so.


The Clippers are still the Clippers, and they're still cursed
Bill Plaschke
LOS ANGELES TIMESbill.plaschke@latimes.com @BillPlaschke

Ariza three with 56 seconds left..is that the dagger?..

It crushed their flashy new narrative, one in which Los Angeles' second-string NBA team was finally going to step out of the Lakers' shadows after Ballmer bought the team from the league-banned Donald Sterling last summer.

"You hate to equate sports with, like, death, but it does feel like a wake, or a funeral right now," said the Clippers' J.J. Redick.

It wasn't that they lost this series, it was how they lost it. After defeating the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs in a first-round series that included a memorable last-second Game 7 victory, they finished this series with three of their worst losses ever.

"It feels like a bad dream," said the Clippers' Jamal Crawford.




The Clippers blew out the Rockets twice at Staples Center last weekend to take a 3-1 series lead. Only eight of 228 teams in NBA history had blown such an advantage to lose a playoff series. It was a lock. For the first time, the Clippers were going to advance to the conference finals.

"We had three chances to get it done," Crawford said. "And we didn't."

They lost Game 5 in Houston by 21, without putting up a fight. Then they led Game 6 in Los Angeles by 19 points late in the third quarter, yet crumbled to lose by a dozen.

All of which led to Sunday, when they still had a chance to overcome their past, forge a new history, break the Clipper Curse.

Then the opening tip happened and it was the same old Clippers. They made five dumb mistakes in the first five minutes. They clearly weren't yet big enough for this giant moment.


Remember how Ballmer's voice boomed during his introductory news conference in August when he shouted, "We're going to be hard core! Hard core! Hard core!" Remember how he promised the Clippers would keep, "coming and coming and coming and coming and coming!" Remember the buzzword that was printed on those free T-shirts promising "relentless?"

In the end, they were hardcore tentative, relentlessly reluctant, and it was only that curse that kept coming.

Chris Paul, whose last-second shot won the series against the Spurs, couldn't find his teammates in the right place. Blake Griffin, who elevated his game to an elite level during this postseason, couldn't hold on to the ball. DeAndre Jordan, as usual, couldn't even make one-third of his free throws.

"We just didn't bring it," Griffin said.


Here's what Doc Rivers told Clippers after Game 7 loss to Houston (I left this side link in)

They play for an owner who once shouted, "Nothing gets in our way!" Yet they just didn't bring it? How does that happen? Though Rivers said he wants to keep his three stars together, expect the Clippers to make some changes to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Afterward, Ballmer addressed the club in terms that included enough profanity that players describing his speech noted they were cleaning it up.

"He said it was a really bad situation to be in, but that he really believed in us," said Austin Rivers, the coach's son and backup guard.

Yet everyone walked away surely believing in that curse, which seems stronger today than ever.

The curse is more than a succession of bad seasons. It has been blamed for multiple injuries suffered by top draft picks and trade acquisitions — everything from Danny Manning's torn knee to Griffin's torn knee — as well as constant hijinks by its former owner, who would give lewd locker room speeches and heckle his own players during games.

Donald Sterling may be gone, but his imprint remains. Shelly Sterling may be gone, but it might not be a coincidence that she sat courtside during the Game 6 collapse.

(HMMM ...may be something there karma wise) (but I love that she thought she was going to "party" with the balloons and confetti, whatever, on the floor afterward and look what happened)

"We're going to break this, we are," Doc Rivers said Sunday. "It's my goal, it's why I came here, I thought we had it. We just have to keep at the fire, that's it."

That was some fire, huh? For long moments this spring, it lit up the fresh faces of Los Angeles' long-shadowed basketball team. But in the final moments Sunday, stoked by their inability to overcome their dark history, it consumed them.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/la-sp-clippers-rockets-plaschke-20150518-column.html