Last time checks us fine shins on my neck. Clippers win by twenty five
in San Antonio over the Spurs. Just got this stext from your radio voice
of the Clippers and Carlo Jimenez. The Clippers had thirty assists and fifteen steals
tonight. It's just the fifth time in the last ten years that the Clippers
have had at least thirty assists and fifteen steals in a single game. So
you can downplay it, you can try diminish it because it was against San
Antonio and they're three and eleven now, But the Clippers absolutely did what they
had to do to get starter's rest, to get ready a day off and
then right back at it against the Spurs on Wednesday. Coming up, we'll
hear from Daniel Tys post game. But joining the show now is Will Updyke
from Clips and Dip. As we already had a mention of the podcast from
a caller earlier, Will, well, how are you doing? Thanks for
doing a little Clips and double Dip tonight here on Clippers Talk. Absolutely,
you know, I'm I'm contractually obliged to be here after any win, so
here I am. I'm excited. I think that we got a lot more
of these coming up. It's weird how you just like lock Charles in a
closet whenever the Clippers win and he's supposed to come on like it's kind of
aggressive, but you know what it fits for this Clippers team with that aggressive
defense tonight, holding San Antonio to just ninety nine points a team that was
fourth and pace, and they shot just forty three ten of thirty seven from
the outside, only attempted fourteen free throws. But I mentioned Daniel Tice coming
in. How have you felt about him through two games now? Will and
the energy that he likes to bring out there. I thought that he looked
a lot better tonight. I kind of had some questions in that first game
if maybe he was struggling to sort of get back into game shape. I
know that he was unhappy with his playing time there in Indiana, and it
just seemed like at times he was a little winded. Certainly looked a lot
more effective tonight, you know, against Albeit, I feel like overall,
this is my thing overall, is that this was a great tune up game.
But sorry, back to Tys. I mean, I don't know what
more you could want from the guy. Nineteen and seven hit the three pointer,
so he's shooting one hundred percent from three as a Clipper. I don't
really know what more to say. What like, it's assuming that at bare
minimum, right, he can just be a stop gap that is a portion
of what Mason Plumley provided while he recovers from that injury. I mean that
I think it's it's pretty darn good. Yeah, why not? Where were
you going there with just as being more of a tune up game? Well,
I feel like, you know, this is the first blowout in the
hardened era. This was just an opportunity I feel like for the Clippers to
I don't like playing down the competition, but a team that's in a little
bit worse rate than some of the teams they faced. And I know you
can feel, however you want to feel about some of those losses in the
sixth game losing streak that certainly stare, But I feel like this was the
kind of game that they needed to play at their speed, be able to
sort of play around with things, get everybody involved where the stakes are a
little bit lower, but we can kind of see things start to build.
And I thought that that I thought that what we've seen from the last game
to now, we have seen a little bit more of that, which was
very concerning through the losing streak. But a game like this on the road,
we still do have to you know, you still do have to walk
into somebody else's arena and come out with a win. I thought this was
just kind of the perfect setting for this thing to marinate a little bit more.
What did you make us some of the lineups out there? Coach lou
talked about it post game. He liked Paul George with a lot of guys
there in the second unit, and he opened things up in that fourth quarter,
next to Tye, next to PJ. Tucker, next to russ In
Norn Powell. They were playing small, but you could say they were also
playing big with their play out there, and Paul George was just spectacular down
the stretch. I mean, Paul George is incredible. He's the kind of
player who can lift any sort of lineup. And you know, you've talked
about it since early in this season. I really do think a lot of
success is going to come in how we're able to effectively manage both superstars of
two to one three, And I think that's one of those issues of the
second unit is even with one of them, like even with Paul George with
if there's like three non shooters out there, it's very difficult. But they're
going to find ways to sort of mitigate that even if they do end up
having to continue to play PJ. Tucker like fifteen plus minutes. I really
liked not only the use of the lineups, but I thought the shot distribution
was really good as well. You got the guys getting those attempts that they
need to both stay in rhythm and I mean ideally your most efficient scorers are
going to continue to put points on the board. So I thought that that
was reassuring for sure, especially when to shout out my dude, Norm Powell.
He was my player of the game from the podcast coming in finish with
nineteen and five with two steals, you know, I said, I thought
as soon as Harden came here, it was one of those things that I
love the idea of the spacing, and I feel like he's a guy,
maybe even more so than than than Russ. No discredits to Russ, but
who can make things really really easy for Norm when he's out there. And
we've heard Norm say hey Ethan in interviews. He loves the catch and shoot,
loves the catch and shoot, does not feel that's below him, does
not need to necessarily have the ball in his hands to be scoring in terms
of creating for himself. So I think that that is going to pay dividends.
I loved him in the closing lineup and instants in the last game,
and I love the continuation here, those those twelve field goal attempts. That's
like, you know, right where I want to be. I think he
needs to be in that twelve to fifteen range every game. With how efficient
he is as a scorer when you bring up the catch and shoot threes from
norm He's going into this one, he was shooting fifty one percent in those
situations. Kawhi Leonard at fifty five percent coming into this game, and he
started zero for three, but then knocked down a couple. He had a
big dunk in the second quarter, then a steal on Johnson after a board
and dunked it just kind of took it away and nobody saw it coming.
Dunk was disrespectful. I loved it. I loved the crowd booing so loud
at Kawhi as soon as that moment happened. He also in the third quarter
had a pump fake on Wemby where he went by him and he ended up
with a no look to Zoo for a dunk in that quarter too. That
was just beautiful from Kawhi Leonard. The game just looked so easy for him,
and it wasn't, you know, his most efficient night, I guess,
twenty one points on seventeen shots. But I like the fact that most
shots so far. I believe he's gotten up now next to James Harden,
seventeen something to build on because he started, oh for three and then I
think he got to seven shots in the first quarter. Anyways, he seems
a little bit more aggressive right now. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and
I think that's gonna come. I you know, that was my one I
guess that was like sort of my one negative of the win over the Rockets
was just I felt that he was being way too deferential, and you know,
it's understandable, you're not trying to ruffle feathers or whatever. But I
think that he's definitely coming more into his own with the supporting cast. You
know, he's been He's been a really solid all season safe for like one
game. But I think you know that that is continuing to sort of coalesce
with these players being able to play off of one another, and I'm excited
to see how that looks when we can have everybody sort of running at full
steam, but we can still get just a little bit more field goal attempt
which will come with offensive rebounding and a little bit more pace. But if
we could get both Kawhi and Paul George two closer to him, you know
that like twenty field goal attempts per game sort of number and still keep everybody
clicking, That's when I think this team offensively is going to look really,
really dangerous. Now, well, I'm not asking for one of your epic
grants, but I'm gonna throw some red meat out there because we've kind of
been on the wave, the same wavelength when it comes to Russell Westbrook and
James Harden and what needed to happen here, and with Russ off the bench,
they're two to zero so far, James Harden looks more comfortable. I
just don't understand how people can't see the vision of you know, the guy
who led the league and assists last season has done it multiple times and yet
some people are saying he's just a dribbler, he's just an isolation player.
He ends up with ten assist to zero turnovers tonight. This is the formula.
I don't understand why there's this divide in some areas of Clipper Nation and
why you guys can't see the vision of James Harden being the third option and
that not just raising their floor in the regular season, but you think about
that, if it raises your floor and you're a higher seed, then it
raises your ceiling overall. And him being a third option in a playoff series.
I love that. Yeah. No, I mean, look, I
understand the complaints on Harden's game, but my thing is, if you're just
an isolation store score, if you're just a dribble or how are you leaving
the league in assists? Those two things don't really make sense. Look,
he's just a three level score in a way that Russ isn't. And this
isn't to discredit Russ. I think that Russ can be phenomenal off the bench.
I think there might be situations where Harden maybe doesn't have it going and
we see Russ in the closing lineup. I'm not opposed to that we know
what he can look like next to those two stars. But for right now,
it just makes the most sense to use the guy that you gave up
a first round pick for in the starting lineup. And I know that,
like I don't believe necessarily in the sunken cost fallacy, but I mean,
you have to at least try if you're willing to give up that much,
especially if you look at a guy like Nick Patoomb flourishing in Philadelphia, it
would be foolish to not at least give a try to both James Harden and
starting lineup and the guy that we said was going to be in the starting
lineup from the beginning in Terence Man. So I think it was the right
way to go. And that's not a discredit on Russ. I just feel
like there's this weird thing going on right now in the fan base and both
Clippers fans, specifically Russ fans, where this is like a personal like this
is a personal assault or an attack, and it's just not Things weren't working.
They don't work with those two together. That was exposed in the playoffs
when they both played together in Houston. It was they were much younger in
Oklahoma City, So I'm not going to count that against them, but it's
working right now. And I just don't know why, with the Clippers first
win streak in a while, why there's any need to question that. If
it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yeah, and it's not that we
don't like Russ, but not at all. We have to be honest about
James Harden is the better player. He's the better playmaker, he's the much
better shooter. As you mentioned in a three level scorer. He does things
at a higher level than any point guard they've had since CP three. And
that's the truth. And Russell Westbrook can still thrive in the second unit,
and I thought we saw some of that tonight. He was much better.
He had six assists, two zero turnovers. He was plus seven ten points,
four of eleven shooting. I didn't like some of the jump shots,
but he started to get to the basket afterwards, was finding guys and making
life easier for Daniel Tice. I don't know how many assists of his,
I want to say three of them, at least half of them were to
Tye. But it's James freaking hardened. What are we talking about? Here,
like, it's not about who you like. It's about the Clippers winning
ball games. It's about the team. It's it shouldn't be I'm team Russ
or I'm team James Harden, your team Clippers. It's about doing what's best
for them well, and it's not. I mean, look, it's not
even about skill set, although James Harden at this point in both of their
career is the more talented player in my view, it's about fit, and
clearly he's the better fit if you're looking at the long game, if you're
looking at the long view of what this team could be and optimizing them with
their most dangerous lineups on both ends of the flour. That's just hardened.
That's hardened for me. Well, to me, it's the skill set makes
him a better fit. But I get what you're saying though. Also he's
at Will Updyke at Will up d y k e on X of course does
the greatest podcast. That's at least some people say that every once in a
while they walk up at Krypton. Yeah, once in a while. It's
called Clips and Dip. Check it out at Clippers Pod at Clippers podcast on
YouTube. We'll have a new one for you. What tomorrow will yeah,
I think so okay, let's do it. Thanks for doing this tonight here
on Clippers Talk, my friend absolutely after any win, you know I'm here,
baby front running will just kid. Coming up next, you'll hear from
Daniel Ty's post game Clippers win by twenty five over the Spurs and San Antonio.
Let's not divide the fan base. House divided. Can't have it root
for James Harden. If you didn't like him before and you're still on the
fence, I don't know what you've been watching in the last two games.
You gotta think ahead, you gotta look long term, big picture here.
Clippers win once twenty four to ninety nine in San Antonio. More Clippers stock
next year on the M five seventy LS Sports