Back to sports. The Clippers look like a deeper team. I think Utah relies too much on the 3 point shot. They are feast or famine with that. Tough series to predict.
hmmm...what does depth mean? the clippers played a very short rotation against dallas, and utah was down its starting pg. i'd argue utah was the deeper team all year, but the clippers have the two best individual players in the series, hence they'll win.
The Clips have the best player, the Jazz I like more as a team actually. Anything can happen in this series. If Conley is back, I got Utah for sure. If not, who knows.
Utah looked a little shallower but they were missing Mike Conley. Can he come back soon with that hammy injury? Remains to be seen. Meanwhile my money is still on Utah because... Clippers can clip.
kennard played out of his mind last night. doubt he can keep it up all series, but if he does then utah is in trouble
They’ve been starting Batum at the 5 last couple of games? Though Zubac getting his usual minutes. Is Ibaka likely still out for some time?
they have people who are paid a lot or whose names you recognize, but i'm not sure there's much quality there. certainly less so than utah's players after their top 2, if that's what depth means. if it means "they have a bunch of relatively interchangeable pieces" then that's accurate.
I would say Rondo, Boogie, Kenard, Pat Beverly, and others are quality bench players. Not even including Ibaka if healthy.
Who knew Reggie Jackson and Rondo would have been the CLips saviors this season. Lue pushing those two into big minutes saved them against Dallas and when Jackson fouled that forced them to play Kennard who Mitchell lit up like a Christmas tree on those Dwayne Wade like drives to the bucket
rondo only in the playoffs, not sure on beverly anymore (think he's getting by on past mediocrity at this point), boogie no, kennard sometimes? i just don't think they have much talent aside from leonard and george. no more than any other team, at least. i'm pretty confident having seen some footage of bob cousy that with a time machine, i'd be in the hall of fame.
shooting that badly that often might be like losing 20 games as a starting pitcher in baseball: it paradoxically might mean you were good?
Clippers have trouble with dominant wings who can score and pass. Utah has the perfect blend of wings+scoring guards as well as Gobert who will eat up any easy possessions in the paint. Bogdan, Ingles, Mitchell, and Clarkson are simply going to be too much for Kawhi+PG to handle. I have the Jazz winning in six games. I don't trust PG to step up and Kawhi, as good as he was in the Mavs series, would have a difficult time replicating that type of offensive dominance he put on. Jazz are also arguably the best three point defensive team in the league with opponents shooting 34% from three against them. In general, their defense is top 5. That Mavs team couldn't play much defense while this Jazz team can get defensive stops. I think Mitchell will show this series that he is heading into NBA superstardom. If Clippers had trouble with Luka, Bogdan+Ingles will be able to replicate some of Luka's style of play.
i do think a big difference is that dallas was a bad defensive team. but i'm not sure that the jazz are better equipped to stop leonard if he's just going to walk himself to 17 footers and convert 70% of those. i also don't think having two players who combine to approximate a poor man's luka is like having one player that can do all those things better than each. in theory, george should be able to slow mitchell down a bit without too much help, which should grind the jazz offense to a halt (assuming conley isn't going to be 100%). that obviously didn't happen in game 1. but the mavs shot 50% from three in games 1 and 2 and then...did not.
Wow Utah up 66-53 at the half and Mitchell has 27 already. Rondo zero minutes so far, 20 each Snake with 14 points and Playoff P with 9. Go Utah!!
Mitchell is destroying the Clippers. We are looking at Dwyane Wade 2.0 right now. This Utah roster is STACKED...
