Last time, the first time since November eighth. The Clippers shoot under forty
from the field. They lose to the Lakers at crypt one six to one
oh three, first loss in the last week and a half, Clippers had
one five straight. Welcome back into Clippers Talk. I'm a Moslin. We'll
get back to your phone calls at eight sixty six nine eight seven two five
seventy eight six six nine eight seven two five seventy at follow out of me
is where you can find me. Where you can find our next guest,
not Montana, he is in SOCW. Currently it is Big Chuck Mockler from
Clips and Dip for some Clips and Double Dip here on Clippers Talk post game,
Chuck, thanks for doing this. Where do you think this one was
lost by the Clippers. I mean, I'm kind of I'm trying to decide
between uh, shooting in the paint and just general defensive kind of lacks not
focus, I guess lack of defensive focus. Lot Murray tweeted out a stat
that so Zoo made nine of his thirteen field goals tonight, all of them
were in the paint. The rest of the Clippers went eleven for thirty two
in the paint, which is horrendous in a three point loss, that's just
that's a lot of bad luck happening. At the same time, I think
that's a big thing to look at. The turnovers in this game were very
frustrating. Harden was uncharacteristically loose with the ball and you know, paired with
just some weird kind of defensive instincts I guess taking over on some odd doubles
here and there. It just all combined to sink the clipse. Yeah,
I will say this for the Lakers, when you have Anthony Davis and Christian
Wood in there, it makes it a lot tougher on the interior. But
if eatsa zu Bots got them a ton of extra possessions that they also did
not convert on and missed some open shots and some good looks like Kawhi over
Austin Reeves in the mid range. Just an off shooting night for Kawhi Leonard.
He was more than do the last fourteen games, sixty percent from the
field, fifty three percent from the outside. Tonight six of seventeen from the
field, two of seven from the outside, with just fifteen points. Nothing
more than that going on, right, Chuck and I know postgame, he
said he wanted to play during crunch time, but they had him on the
minutes restriction. They got a game tomorrow, what can you do? Yeah,
the minutes restriction thing. I can see where people are a little frustrated.
You know, I agree that you know, this shooting game, you
know, I hope I knew he was due for an off night. I
didn't know it was going to be this off. But these things do happen,
and the minutes restriction is odd. It's just another one of those things
where if there is the minutes restriction, why throw him there for the last
seventeens? You know, there's ways to split hairs with the minutes restriction that
I think go obviously the more negative way when you lose like they did tonight
against the team they lost to. You know, we talked about this these
two teams in their last eleven games and how they were pretty much complete opposite
and that meant nothing tonight, which coincided with Kawhi not shooting well. So
I you know, Tyler said that he assumed he thinks Kawhi is gonna be
good to go tomorrow. They play again on Wednesday, so hopefully he doesn't
have to play a bunch of minutes tomorrow. But let's see where he's at
around the thirty five minute mark, because that is where he was at today
when things got you know, a little weird with with his benching. Yeah,
I'm wondering about Kevin Durant, who did come back in their loss to
Memphis in Phoenix tonight, what his status will be tomorrow and minutes wise.
But you know, I did try to point out that he can't underestimate this
Lakers team. They were gonna get up for this one. Throw out the
records. It is a Hallway Series type of rivalry. But with Paul George
having an off night, Kawhi Leonard having an off night, as we mentioned,
James Harden having an off night, Russ and off night normally Pal outside
of the fourth quarter and off night, you can kind of take away some
positives here spin it positive that, Hey, if that many guys have an
off night, you still only lose by three with the shots to tie at
the end. That's not the worst thing in the world, right, Yeah,
that's a good point. You even if you just look at the box
score for this one, you look at who is a plus and who is
a minus. Every single bench player was a minus for the Clippers, and
every single bench player for the Lakers was a plus. So that's something where
you can, I guess it's kind of easy to point your finger to,
right, like we got so many guys off night. Even then, the
starters still won their minutes and stuff like that. Well everyone except for James
Harden in terms of starters won their minutes. So yeah, I mean it
sucks that it was against the Lakers. I guess it's good they got out
of their system, you know, to start the year, and with a
game tomorrow that's going to be I think, you know, the last time
they played the Suns, it was, you know, a battle of two
seventy point haves. So we'll see what happens tomorrow again against the pundlement thincond
I had a back to back. But let's hope it's out of their system.
You know, Yucky said Norm was great late, which we can hang
our hats on and stuff like that. And can't imagine that PG and Choir
are going to shoot so poorly again tomorrow. You kind of touched upon this,
but I thought shot selection was interesting. It was wacky. Yeah,
and guys turning down shots or making an extra pass and overpassing, or being
two unselfish. At times, it felt like they didn't have much rhythm.
But in particular, you know, we talked about this yesterday on the podcast,
and I don't want to be overly harsh, but I thought Russ had
a rough game. And I know he's taken on the Lakers, and you
know, immediately out there he was shot out of a cannon and he was
doing all he could to try to get a win against this Lakers team.
But he had an off night, and I just thought the flow was just
it was a little bit nasty, as coach lou would say. The offense,
it was jumped up a lot in this game for them to shoot only
thirty nine percent. Yeah, both the point guards couldn't really get either of
their you know, lineups in rhythm, right, Like James couldn't really get
the starters into that usual orbit we've seen during the good stretches, during these
wind streaks and stuff like that. And then we saw Tyler again, you
know, play that Hoffer lineup as we call it, where it's the four
Hall of Famers with pg Kawhi, Russ and Harden and that lineup was okay
at best. You know, Yeah, I'm looking at Fly by Night Justin
Russo for that lineup data tonight. Yeah, we'll see. But yeah,
it just it was I think I tweeted this out of the show. It
was just a little herky jerky kind of the whole night. There was no
room to get into you know, you would have thought that guys could have
built off, you know, the easy buckets that do was getting and things
like that to help there to the side of the ball, but just off
tonight. Yeah, I don't know. They have a short amount of time
to clean it up before another tough opponent. Let's deflect then and talk about
Big Zoo a little bit more. Nine of thirteen, twenty two points,
nineteen boards with ten offensive rebounds. I mean, I think he kind of
won that individual battle against Anthony Davis. He was a plus one, Davis
was a minus four. They won the war, they won the game.
But Big Zoo was incredible, and it just looks like they have all the
faith in the world at him now. Finally. Yeah, I mean he's
shown kind of some new interesting I guess not new, but you never see
it this many times in the game. A couple flashes here and there offensively
from Zoo in games where you see him do something where you go, oh,
all right, yeah, go ahead, big Zoo like that used to
happen maybe once every couple of games, and now we're seeing it multiple times
per game. It mostly has to do with the fact that he's had the
best point guard for his play style that he's ever had and probably ever will
have, in James Harden. But he's getting reward on the offensive end,
which is helping his defense, which again helps the offense. So hats off
the Zoo. It's a shame we, you know, we couldn't get to
win in what was maybe his best game of the year for the Clippers.
But he has another chance to play well against Nurk tomorrow, which I think
he's gonna do. Yeah, he had a great defensive play on ad early
on, kind of pulled the chair out a little bit, then had a
layup on him, an offensive rebound, a block at the five minute mark
on Anthony Davis. I don't know if I've seen Aviza Zubots, at least
against that high quality of a player on the other end, defend him that
well and really win his minutes. Technically he did. He was really really
good out there. Hopefully he can keep that energy up tomorrow against the Phoenix
Suns and Yusuf Nurkic. He is Chuck Mockler, of course, of clips
and Dip fame, doing some double dip here post game on the show.
Follow him at Chuck Mockler on X Chuck. Sorry about the Fins, but
they're not done and neither is this Clippers team. And just a regular season
loss to the Lakers. There's more games to be played. And I heard
a saying before about the NBA. Best thing about it is you lose a
game, there's another game right around the corner, and they got once more
against Phoenix. Yes, as always, let's go clips and let's hope we
can turn this five around tomorrow and BEATKC. All Right, I like your
colors more. He is Chuck Mockler of Clips and Dip. Why we have
a moment. Let's quickly pause ten seconds for station and identification. Here on
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