Clippers win one thirteen to one oh four over the Hornets. Here at Crypto
dot com, Marena, i'm ata Moslind, Welcome back into Clippers Talk.
We got a little clips in double dip for you. Chuck Mockler is joining
the show from CND at. Chuck Mockler on Twitter is where you find him.
I'm not sure where he could be during the holidays, if he's in
Montana or if he's within a half hour of me, and he could have
been here at the game tonight. Maybe he was here at the game tonight
and just didn't want to say hi. I mean, Justin Russo's ghosting me.
Chuck comes to games. We don't even take pictures anymore. What the
hell's going on? Our pets heads are falling off. Chuck, Thanks for
joining me here tonight on clipperstock Hey, thanks for having me. Can we
be a little excited at least as a Clippers snap the two games nap as
Lot Murray called it on Twitter, which I thought was a good reference for
a two good losing streak. That was appropriate. Look, I'm I'm I'm
excited about that. I'm a little unhinged when it comes to you right now,
but I guess we'll move fast. It so the Clippers come through late
after things got dicey. It was a stretch where the Charlotte Hornets were on
an eleven to two run to start things off in the fourth quarter. Would
this have been the worst loss of the season? Chuck Uh? Yeah,
I think this probably would have been considered the worst loss of the season if
they would have dropped this one. I mean, no LaMelo ball. You
know, I know we were missing Khi Leonard. But it's a seven win
Charlotte team. Not every game is gonna be pretty. It's, you know,
the day after Christmas, So I guess some of this is excusable,
But no, this would have been a horrific loss. But thankfully the top
end talent for the Clippers kind of tipped the Hornets over. Yeah, they
had a foot in the chimney still, but you're right they came through late.
What does it tell you about this team though, the way they were
able to take over late. Would they had to We've seen this before.
We've talked about a flip the switch mentality and how it could come back to
bite them sometimes. But tonight it worked and they obviously were able to flex
their muscles late. Yeah, there was some great stuff late from a lot
of Clippers. Actually, if you look at Zeus minutes in the fourth quarter,
played six minutes, he was plus seventeen, which is pretty incredible.
So you like to see ty Loopull and the rest rings there with who's going
to be out there and who's not. I you know, Russ played the
whole fourth quarter. There was some inspiring play from Russ Russ late in this
one, so you like to see him dig deep in kind of sloppy games
like this. Right, we were all wondering how they were going to respond
after what happened in that last loss. So there was some adversity here,
you know, just give them the schedule and whatnot. But it's nice to
see the win. And yeah, it's just good to see him win ugly.
I guess if that makes sense. We need the wins and they found
it anyway they could. Yeah, reveals character. I thought Russ was especially
good in this game, and one of the guys that was as you would
expect, going one hundred miles per hour the entire time. When I thought
there were moments where this Clippers team just let their foot off the gas or
just didn't look like they were fully focused. But Russ was fantastic and down
the stretch a big board late when they were having trouble getting one, a
block, a three pointer, gotta beat the zoo bots involved. This was
one of his best games to me as a Clipper, because I don't know
if they went it without them. Yeah, this was you know, James
Harden was fantastic in this one. That was kind of another you know,
this is why you trained for James Harden thing, but this is also why
you know, you manage Russ's minutes well and things like that, and and
you know trust him when he is playing well and making good decisions and whatnot.
So it was awesome to see from Russ. I think you're right.
The energy really trickled down from him tonight without Kawhi Leonard and in a game
where Paul George you know, was pretty rough for most of it on both
ends of the ball. So it was great to see Harden step up and
it was awesome to see Russ, like you said, I have one of
the better games in the season. Yeah, full disclosure, it is humility
season. And I did pick Terrence Man as my player to watch and he
struggled with his shot once again. I thought he had some really good defensive
possessions with rear view contests on Terry Rozier and guarding him Man Miles Bridges.
But we're all of the assumption that it's just between the ears. There's nothing
physically wrong with Terrence Man. He's just hesitant to take shots. And I
think the first shot he took he hesitated on and then missed a short,
little turnaround eight footer in the first quarter. But that's what it is right
now. I mean, I'm not overly concerned because physically he's okay, but
it is a deep shooting funk that Terrence Man is in, right Chuck.
I mean, we're thirty games in, you know, we haven't had that
many games of you know, Terrence starting with the with the guys yet,
so we're gonna, you know, I guess take that kind of with a
grain of salt too, considering a mere coffees out there kind of in and
out giving Paul George and cowhis availability. But it's it's tough right now.
We talk about on the podcast how you can kind of see Terrence Man thinking
about every division kind of every outcome that could happen when he has the ball
in his hand and that usually lower on that outcome option for him is shoot,
which is what they need right now. You know, him and a
mirror combined for only seven field goal attempts, which you can't do on a
night when Kawi is out. Yes, James Harden was hot, but there's
got to be some threat, you know, from some other guys. So
hopefully in between now and Friday, they can you know, kind of get
them, you know a little more right each and every game as we go
forward. I don't think it's going to be, you know, a hard
line when we see it really get better. I think we should just look
for progress at this point. But we know we can get there. So
we just got to continue to have faith and you know, things will look
better when Kawhi is back. Yeah, it feels right now like intead of
shooting, he's throwing it. Just it doesn't look the same. He's not
in rhythm. The confidence isn't there. Coach Bleu said pregame he talked to
Terrence earlier today and he wanted to stress the importance of his defense and everything
else he does to help this team and how the shooting and the scoring is
great, but that's not necessarily what they need from Terrence Man. And it
sounded like he was trying to encourage Terrence Man to not let the shooting affect
the other parts of his game, because it seemed like the last couple against
OKC and the Boston Celtics. I think at times it did affect his defense.
Maybe a little bit out there that obviously can't happen. I had a
call earlier from Lenny and Inglewood is a longtime caller here on Clippers Talks.
All shout him ount. He's one of my favorites. Good voice, good
phone. He went after Paul George a little bit. I pushed back because
he took twenty five shots, and I'm good with that. It wasn't his
most efficient game out there, but without Kawhi, instead of taking seventeen like
last game, he got up twenty five in this one was much more aggressive.
But do you think there's anything wrong with PG thirteen right now other than
maybe him playing a stretch of a month straight where he was at about thirty
eight minutes took its toll. I don't know, Yeah, I mean thirty
eight minutes and sick right, like he was sick over the holidays schedule,
has him been too kind of the Clippers. I wasn't super thrilled with his
defensive effort to start this game. It was just a little you know,
Kawhi lifts the floor so much for this Clippers defense, but PG I think
needs to try and step into that role a little bit more when Kawhi is
out. There was just some lapses mentally that you don't want to see.
But you know, forty on eleven threes, you're you're probably never going to
be mad at that. Right, he hit the most important one when it
mattered, which you want to see him, you know, step up in
the end of those moments when you need kind of a superstar moment after James
Harden has done so much too in this game. So I don't know if
there's anything wrong physically other than we know he was sick. It's you know,
the day after Christmas, We're going to see how he looks on Friday.
I think he'll look a lot better. I think there could be something
to maybe an underrated part of Kawhi Leonard's leadership. We see it on the
court. He's much more vocal there and he had. I remember it was
the game against Sacramento. They were up by thirty, and he was calling
guys out for miss ces defensively, and he was being tough on guys,
and I love seeing that, and I think it's missed and I think to
expect this team to be as focused without their number one guy, their best
player, but also their best on court leader, Like I think it's Kawhi,
and I think that's part of the reason the Clippers had been so much
better. It was the Kawhi Leonard leadership out there. Yeah, he's leading
by example, and I think you I agree. He has been a little
more vocal this season, and his level of play has been, you know,
some of the best regular season basketball that he's ever played as a Clipper,
which is also helping things as well too. But you do hope that
the team is just a little more focused. You know, they got it
together towards the end, like we said, when things were a little bit
too close for comfort. So at least they got it together then. But
it's a bump in the road a little bit, you know, in terms
of having one hundred percent solid focus for the whole game. But they did
get the win and they focused when they needed to. So let you know,
we should all be happy. And we also we have to give a
small shout out to Daniel Tys who was five and seven. He didn't look
the strongest on the defensive end, but needed that efficiency in this one.
Yeah, I got that technical which I think got him that seven point lead
in the fourth quarter. He wasn't happy with some of the calls out there.
He was playing very hard and was not being rewarded for it. But
five of seven, ten points, four boards like that, I thought,
Actually, your guy, Kobe Brown had some really good minutes, maybe his
best stretch in the first half, and Coach Luke kept him out there because
defensively he was being a menace. Yeah, his size was really on display
against kind of a skinnier I guess Hornet's team. Kobe Brown is going to
be a matchup nightmare for guys who you know his foot speeds even I guess
not as fast because that really is kind of one of the things needs to
work on on the perimeter. But no, his anticipation's great. He had
his hand in the passing, laid a couple of times, which was great
to see, and some solid point of attack defense, which is something the
Clippers do kind of lack, you know, a little bit, you know,
deeper as you go down the roster. So it was a hardy seventeen
minutes. He wasn't exactly lighting it up offensively, but he's doing little things
to help him get more minutes, which is what the Slippers team needs,
especially with Kawhi Leonard out. But yeah, it was it was good to
see the rookie doing the little things, Chuck. They got two more games
at home with two days in between, both here at Crypto Memphis on Friday
and then the Miami Heat on January first of twenty twenty four. I mean,
it's that till next year, but it's actually much closer than that.
What do you got the Clippers going in the next two? Next two?
Man? The New Year's Day game is weird again, you know, it's
kind of like this one we had tonight New Year's Day, Big night.
Yeah, exactly. I think they're gonna get I don't know if the Grizzlies
can go what are they maybe five and zero with with John coming back.
I think they get to win against the Grizzlies, and I'm gonna say win
against the heat too. Why not, It's gonna be harder for them to
travel over to the West coast. So yeah, I'm gonna say two or
not. Well, that's good. You said they're gonna beat the Grizzlies because
I mean Will did say they suck the Memphis Grizzy. Yes, that's true.
They have one four straight now with Jaw and a couple of game winners
from him, including tonight. Clippers win tonight one thirteen to one oh four
over these Charlotte Hornets. Chuck Mockler from C and D has been our guest
here on Clippers Sock Chuck. Interested to find out when the next YouTube is
look forward to it my friends talk to you then it'll be soon. Thanks
for having me at of