Sulty A. Adam Auslin, host of Clipper Countdown, the pregame, the
halftime, the postgame show, joins us in the studio. That was a
hell of game last night. It was. What's good guy, It's good
to be here. Yeah. Just uh, you know, Fred, you're
getting called out on Twitter for Rex Well, I mean just and again,
I don't want to correct you because obviously your a legend, first baut Hall
of Famer and all that, but thanks. Uh the Twitter account eat s
and Die writes in and says I always want eat S and Die writes in,
I take it very seriously, guys. It's listen. This is credibility
at full tilt. He writes in. You're right to call out. It
says this to me. You right to call out Fred Rogan about saying hard
and waddled in. He does not waddle. He metastasizes because he's a bleeping
cancer. Oh okay, well, i'll talk to you guys later in shape.
Yeah, Adam, thanks for yeah wow, So I didn't get that
and Die Okay, well it was said that you were added on that tweet
or that x whatever they're call it these days. So a little bit of
a correction according to his account there assuming it to him, Oh thanks for
pointing that out, yeah forty second doo. Yeah okay, So Adam,
what did you think last night? What did I think? What are the
headlines? Freddy? Uh? I think it was an exciting game and good
for basketball, and the Lakers ended up pulling it out when they were down
by nineteen in that first quarter. But to me, what changed things was
two back to back three pointers to end the first cutting a nineteen point lead
down to thirteen. Then it seems a lot more manageable. But give it
up for the Clippers to come back down nine with two minutes left in the
fourth quarter, just to send it into ot. Paul George was unreal,
twenty of his thirty five in that fourth quarter alone, And the problem was
the Clippers couldn't say out of foul trouble. They couldn't defend without fouling enough.
Obviously undermanned on a back to back, but you don't want to make
any excuses, but the Lakers had seventeen free throws in the last seventeen minutes
of the ballgame, and that was really the difference. George fouling out as
soon as they started overtime after he was on an unbelievable heater. Kind of
a game changer. Kawhi was the only guy for them who scored in ot
to me, they needed one more role player to step up last night.
Norman Powell was off, Bones Highland was off. Obviously no Terrence Man still
either for the Clippers. So it was, well, I guess twelve times
the charm for the Lakers. After losing eleven straight to the Clippers, they
finally figured it out. Do you find that kind of interesting, Adam,
that now the rivalry in the matchup matters, and these regular season games matter
now that the Lakers have finally whined one one, because before it was,
well, you don't have any banners hanging up. The Lakers are thinking about
bigger things. But now that they won one of these, now all of
a sudden, it seems to matter a little bit more. It's weird how
that works. Yeah, Lakers fans hang the banner after that victory last night.
I guess, am I doing it right, because that's what they always
say when the Clippers beat them. Oh, this is your guys' championship.
We don't care, Fred, It's the truth. I get this stuff.
In coming out follow out of May on X all the time just from ed
ses and die, yes and die, So it goes back the other way.
Look, the Lakers were obviously due. It was the right time to
get the Clippers second night of a back to back, no James Harden,
no Terrence Man. Lakers were down some guys too. But this Clippers team
now has seventy seven more games to figure things out with James Harden and four
days off, by the way, to get him up to speed till they
play on Monday. Now, do you believe that what we saw last night
from Paul George, from Kawhi Leonard is that sustainable? Like, is this
something to where those guys playing at that level? Because if they're playing at
that level, I know last night there was the foul trouble and it was
kind of a weird game to where Lebron and Anthony Davis were super seemed super
motivated to try and win that game. That was a statement game for them,
it felt like more than it was for the Clippers. If you get
that sort of production though from Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, that's a really
tough out the Western Conference. I don't care what their age is if you
can get that throughout the course of the season, and the addition to PJ.
Tucker, Westbrook played well, and then you see James Harden slowly get
mixed in. When Fred's done fat shaming him, it feels like the Clippers
have got a legitimate shot here and are a real threat in the Western Conference.
We'll get back to the fat shaming in a little bit, but yeah,
Kawhi Leonard and Paul George being healthy and playing at this level the efficiency
I think PG. Thirteen, Paul George had the thirty five points on just
seventeen shots, maybe it was sixteen. That's absurd. But Kawhi Leonard comes
out in the first quarter and had the best first quarter of his career,
starting seven of eight with eighteen points in the first and that's why the Clippers
got up by nineteen. Now, is it sustainable for them to combine for
seventy three points every night? No, But as I mentioned, some other
guys had down nights. Once they pick things up, once they get back
in their groove, I think the Clippers will be fine. And there's gonna
be a lot of adjustments with James Harden coming in now they're gonna have to
figure this out. Post game, it was Russell Westbrook talking about it.
It's gonna take some time. There's gonna be a process, some ups,
some downs, a learning curve. With James Harden in there, all of
that is understandable. But the point is these guys I think are willing to
sacrifice to try to win a championship, and James Harden is really backed into
a corner. Now this could be his last opportunity to really have a chance,
not just to win a championship, but to get that last big payday.
He's in a contract year. He's gonna be an unrestricted free agent.
That's all part of this. The Clippers have his bird rights, so they
can go over the cap to re sign him. But we'll see how things
play out. But I think the fit works on a couple different levels because
James Harden has become much more of a playmaker the last couple of seasons.
If you saw him in those games when Kyrie and KD were actually healthy in
Brooklyn, he was setting the table a lot and it worked, and they
looked unreal and unbeatable. The Clippers had to play him a couple of those
eighteen times they were actually fully healthy, so I saw it firsthand. But
also when he's not doing that, when he's not just facilitating, and Kawhi
Leonard or Paul George are both are out, we know there's gonna be nights
where that happens. He's insurance. You can then make him the focal point
of the offense. He can run the show. He's that regular season floor.
Razer, I believe where you have to navigate this tough schedule of the
Clippers having twenty five three games and four nights, so seventy five of their
eighty two games are coming within those parameters. They have by far the toughest
schedule in the NBA because they have third billing at Crypto dot Com. Hence
the into It Dome coming next season can't come soon enough. But you got
to survive the regular season. You gotta be a top three seed outside the
ninety five Houston Rockets. I say it all the time. Nobody else in
the modern NBA has won that was not a top three seed. So they're
stacking talent, they're bringing insurance in so in case Kawhir Paul George are out
for an extended period of time, and neither of them have played seventy games
so far as a Clipper in a regular season, so it's big for them
in a multitude of ways. But it's on coach lu to figure this out.
And I actually think he's the perfect guy to make guys sacrifice and also
put them in the right spots to succeed having all this talent. And by
the way, it's not like James Harden and Russell Westbrook haven't played together before.
They did it in Okay. See, they did it in Houston,
so it's not all new and unfamiliar for this team. I just thought last
night was great. Everybody was going all out. Everybody was going one hundred
miles an hour, fifty to fifty balls. It was a battle, great
hustle place. It was just a really fun basketball game to watch. Well.
And as Jonas mentioned, with the Lakers needing, it more wanting to
make a statement. I think the statement the Clippers made is, oh,
Kawhi Leonard just played forty one minutes on the second night of a back to
back. When's the last time that happened. Paul George, I think played
thirty seven. Paul George was this good. He was a plus twenty two
in a ballgame they lost by five. What does that tell you? In
the sixteen minutes he was on the bench, they got outscored by twenty seven.
That's how good he was last night. They looked unbeatable when he was
out there. It was exciting. Kawhi had the big throw down. Late
Austin Reeves started to find himself. If you're a Lakers fan, he had
some big plays. Did some say there was some foul baiting going on,
but some big plays. Nonetheless, I don't be tracking. It was hillbilly
Kobe out there, a little bit more than we had seen so far this
season, but an exciting brand of basketball nationally televised. That's exactly what the
NBA wanted. They're superstars out there playing. But now the Clippers have four
days off to get things right with James Harden for Monday when they're on an
East Coast trip starting in New York against the Knicks, and we will have
that game on the radio STA pregame at three thirty on Monday. I'm sure
everyone's gonna remember that by the time it comes. What was the crowd split
like last night? Look, if you had to guess uh, well,
full disclosure. I was back in Burbank because damn technically a Lakers home game,
and if you just go off the three clutch free throws Paul George had
to make late in that fourth quarter to tie. It was seventeen left.
It was obviously a heavy Laker crowd. They were into it. They tasted
blood. They wanted a victory over the Clippers, finally to get that monkey
off their back. I know they'll downplay it and say it's not that big
of a deal, but I saw plenty of people in my mentions, which
you know, the old line methinks the woman doth protest too much. Like
if you're saying we don't care all the time, you probably do. And
that's where that's where it comes into play with Lakers fans, and they're actually
being a rivalry in Los Angeles, even though they'll say there isn't. Yes,
the Clippers haven't won at the highest level yet, but guys, going
into last night's game, they had won thirty six of the last forty three
meetings against the Lakers. That is unbelievable domination in the regular season. Granted,
they haven't matched up in the playoffs yet, but still there's an edge
to these games. They are emotionally charged, you could say, and I
love what we saw from PJ. Tucker last night. It's not just James
Harden. I've always been a big fan of him, and he had all
five of his boards were off defensive rebounds. So another hustle guy reminds me
a little bit of Patrick Beverley. Plays with that competitive spirit out there.
It's gonna be interesting to see how this Clippers team comes together, this super
team type of roster now they have. You know what last night reminded me
of, And I don't know if you guys remember this. Do you remember
the game between the Lakers and Clippers before the COVID shutdown where the Lakers were
playing. It was like in the same weekend, they played Milwaukee on a
Friday night and then they played the Clippers on a Sunday and it was a
back and forth and the Lakers ended up winning that game late, but it
felt like it was a really important game to the Lakers, and the atmosphere
was electric. It reminded me of that game before the COVID shutdown, So
it was it was, to Fred's point, really entertaining and really fun to
watch. Whoever, whoever came out on top of that one. Both teams
put on a show that was truly a battle for Los Angeles last night,
and for the first time in three years, the Lakers got a victory over
the Clippers. Last time they beat them, that was the last game outside
of the Bubble. Then they won in the opening night of the Bubble where
they kind of did this hard reset get a few games in before the playoffs
start, and the Clippers took on the Lakers. Clippers lost that one late
as they didn't call foul and Lebron James holding on Kawhi Leonard. But that's
neither here nor there three years ago. Guys, gotta let it go right
Well, why are you opening that door? Jonas O mean, I'm just
saying, like, if we're gonna call this down the middle, let's call
down the middle. You want everything slanted towards the Lakers. I would like
to give a little bit of love to the Clippers who are making noise in
this town. How did I slant anything towards the Lakers? It just feels
like, you know, that was the greatest game ever, but the previous
eleven times the Lakers lost to the Clippers. You want to just dismiss those
altogether. I just thought it was a very entertaining game, I said to
Kevin before we started at them, which is completely impossible. I wish every
NBA game was like that. Do you think it was? Adam Solber,
buddy, do you think it was necessary, fred though to show up in
a CeDell three jersey, Like, I mean, that felt a bit much.
Oh did I carry it a little farre? It was a bit much.
I thought. I saw Eldon Campbell on his back was well, helicopter
defense. Elton Campbell. Those big arms just swung around in the middle of
the key like this, kept swagging around. Hey, Freddy, pace yourself.
It was just game five of the regular season, all right. The
Clippers and Lakers are still playing three more times. That's what I said.
We got a long way to go, all right, Adam, thank you,
all right, appreciate you guys, and the pregame show Monday three thirty.
But Adam Austlin, Yeah, that's it. Get ready for it,
Clippers countdown as we are just about one hundred and twenty eight hours away from
tip off, all right, so you know it's going to be big all
right, thanks Adam,