Speaker 1: What is going on? Clippers fans, Welcome to the New
Year's Eve postgame Hang. The Clippers just got their asses
handed to them by the San Antonio Spurs. Nothing went right.
They couldn't win the wemby minutes, they couldn't win the
non wemby minutes. They looked tired, they looked bad. It's
I don't think there's a whole bunch to read into
this other than the fact that this team is really
gonna be very excited when Kawhi Leonard comes back. But
I mean it was. It was crazy. This was an
exhausted team running into a generational player in Victor Wimbinyama,
who had he probably played twenty six minutes in this game,
and he had twenty seven to nine, five assistant three blocks.
A horrible game by the Clippers. Kind of all around
shooting wasn't there. Turnovers were lazy like this game. This
game went about as bad as you could have thought
it would go, which makes sense if you watched what
happened yesterday versus the Pelicans. It was not good. If
you're new to the show, I'm gonna put this out
on audio as well. I am Chuck Mockler, Adam Oslin
and Will Updike are all team they are I think,
I mean, Adam's working right now and Will is I
believe unavoidably. But yeah, thank you for joining us, Mark
Jack saying first thanks Mark, way to be on the ball,
someone is. The Clippers were not tonight. Yeah, So in
case you missed it, they barely got by the the
Pels last night, which was which was a combination of
looking tired and the Pelicans just having an unconscious night
from outside. They had to play a bunch of minutes.
Norm had to play forty minutes last night. It just
wasn't what it was supposed to be against the Pelicans,
and it set the Clippers up for failure tonight. Basically,
Harden and Zoo were over thirty five minutes against the
Pells too. Chris Dunn had to play thirty two. This
is a tough game to go into, but the Clippers
could have been a lot better. I'm not excusing how
the Clippers played at all, but that was bad. That
was really bad. I like where John is here. Ending
the year of over five hundred was not in my
preseason expectations, but I love it. Yeah, let's we could
take a quick step back from whatever the hell that
performance was from kind of all of the Clippers. No
one was very good in this game tonight. In the
first quarter, James Harden scored thirteen the Clippers seventeen points,
didn't score in the second quarter. Everyone just looked gassed.
If you watched this game and you saw that the
Clippers were losing the non wemby minutes in the first half,
it kind of just felt like, oh shit, like this,
this isn't gonna be good. Yeah. I figured there were
gonna be some people upset. Uh sorry, uh Jonah, that's
my bad. I figured people were gonna be upset about
KPJ's performance two games is of inefficient shooting. I believe
he was a plus in the Pelicans game, though, And
if you are on the Clippers bench and you do
have a positive plus minus, that is that's not the
easiest thing to do. He was bad tonight, But that's
not why the Clippers lost the game at all. The
Clippers lost the game because they were exhausted and no
one could hit a three twenty from the line, not
twenty seven percents a little skewed because Buns went one
for six the starter. Everybody was pulled. Everyone who plays
meaningful maskowall minutes to the point that they could be
pulled were pulled. Like five minutes left in the third
is when the is when the white flag came up.
It was not good. A guy like Zoo, who is
usually efficient, was not And if Zoo is inefficient and
no one else is, things are gonna be bad. Just
not good. Uh, Zoo played well against the Pels and
then just exhausted tonight. He only played twenty two minutes.
We saw seven minutes of obamba, which was not good.
Zach Collins looked great. The Clippers made Zac Collins look
so good tonight. You was bringing this up saying Zoo
couldn't even score on Zach Collins. You're absolutely right, no
one could. It didn't make any damn sense. It just
shows the fatigue of this team. They're exhausted. They have
OKC on the second, which who knows how that's going
to go. I will say the focus, the focus clearly
is on Okay. See with how Tye played the minutes tonight,
he knew guys retired. This game was lost. It's not
my favorite thing to happen getting your ass kicked by
forty and then just being like, well, we got to
play in two days. But now you know, it shifts.
I think it shifts my attention more to the OKAC game.
I'm like, hell yeah, let's go out and we should
be rested, right, most minutes of starter played was norm
at twenty six. The starters will be well rested. The
bench will be well rested too, because guys like bones Kai,
Jordan Miller, and Kobe Brown all got over twelve minutes.
So like, everyone's gonna be rested for okay seal, So
let's hope they they manage to look good there. Yeah.
So the backup center thing, I tweeted this from the
Clippers pod count that drunkenly tonight. I'm sure I'm going
to bring up how bad the Clippers backup center lineage
has been since they basically chose John Wall over Isaiah Hartenstein.
It's just been I mean, Daniel Tyson Mason Publy at
the same time were the best combination, and even that
which we saw in the playoffs was bad. Yes, cheers,
and it's cheers to a good twenty twenty five. We're
not cheersing to this game. The KPJ thing is weird.
Terrence I assume is going to have a chance to
get some of those minutes if you can show that
he can initiate the offense. KPJ. Bones isn't taking KPJ's minutes.
We've talked about that on the show before. KPJ does
do things better than Bones that aren't scoring the basketball.
But Terrence Man, I think should have a shot at
taking some of KPJ's minutes because those you you just
never know what you're getting. It's it's just so up
and down. I don't know when he's a plus, he's
finding other guys, the game is slow for him and
stuff like that. So yeah, I don't know. Tonight was
a burn the tape game. I don't think too much
can be drawn from this. Yes, you a fantastic point.
Just four more days so Kawhi comes, please my lord. Yeah,
there hasn't been any updates on the Kawhi timeline. He's
he's been practicing with the San Diego Clippers during this break.
That's why he's not on the road trip with the Clippers.
It wasn't like an flamed injury thing or anything like that.
It was just there's they don't have any time to
practice it's a three and four on the road, and
he didn't have to practice, So let's hope that target
date is the same thing. I'm sure we're gonna hear
some news about it. That Mexican nar with a great point.
What a Clipper New Year, perfectly fitting Clippers New Year.
Not completely unsurprising to those of us who have been here,
maybe too long, but we maybe we saw some of
this coming. I don't know, yes, So Jonah, thank you.
Brings up a good point about Terrence Man. He's played
point guard and started at point guard for US many
times in the past, even though that was a different
iteration of this team. Very true. He's more capable of
initiating an offense than Chris Dunn. That's not a That's
not a knock on Chris Dunn. Overall, Chris Dunn is
a much better defender, but in terms of initiating the offense,
which does seem to be Tyler's biggest worry or you
know thing with whoever the backup point guard is, Terrence's
probably is a better option than Chris Dunn, and hopefully
maybe KPJ. It's gonna take Terrence some time. Though he's
been off the condition he's gonna have to get there,
and Terrence's return kind of coincides with with Kawhi com back,
so there's gonna be this minute's crunch coming up the
tyler has to figure out. So it's kind of a
double edged sword on this. Mark Jaggs saying, if you're
serious about winning now, KPg isn't the answer. But if
you're playing for the future, that may be playing make so.
If you're playing for the future, it makes sense to
see what you have in KPJ. But they also can't
not play him. I know that's not I haven't been
a big fan of his minutes, but he's the only
one who can initiate the offense. He defends better, and
he's a better rebounder than the other backup point guard options.
Right now, Okay, someone's asking what the bench total points
were tonight, and they were not good. Emir had fourteen,
which will take Bones had seven, Kobe had five. It
wasn't good. It's also skewed because they played so many minutes.
We should look at the star scorers because the starting
scorers tonight were very bad. Uh Norm had fifteen points
on twelve shots. Harden had seventeen points on eleven, so
that wasn't crazy, but no one else had more than seven.
Chris Dunn only took six shots, Zoo took seven but
only made two, Dereck Jones two for five, So like
there no one, no one could get it killing and
it just and it was so the thing like, look,
you come into this game and it's clear that Wemby
makes a huge difference on and off the court for
the Spurs, and when they're playing the Clippers, when Wemby's
on the floor, they Clippers have to become a perimeter offense,
which they're not. They have to get to the paint.
That's their whole thing, drivekickswing paint and spray whatever you
want to call it. When Wemby's out there. It was
just there was nothing the Clippers offense could do, coupled
with the fact that they were exhausted. So like this
this was a perfect storm game. I know we were
pretty high on the last full episode we did with
Adam will Updyke in myself, which if you're new to
the show, thanks for hanging. It's using three of us,
but we're doing a little New Years I've hanged, but
this one liked that Yeah, it just it perfect storm
to get the shit kicked out of you, which sucks.
I don't know. Big things coming in twenty twenty five.
Supposedly Kawhi Leonard's return is going to be there, well hopefully,
so that's a good thing. I don't know, drop what
you're most excited about from the Clippers twenty twenty four
so far? Looking at Okac again, I don't. I don't.
This is crazy Mark Jack saying Kawhi is it coming
a distraction? I hate to say it. Does the fact
that he's probably coming back in five days change any
of that, because when he's back, he's not a distraction,
and that happens in five days, so I think, I mean,
if it's only five days of distraction. I also don't
think practicing with Kawhi and playing without him as part
of their problem, because they haven't been practicing with him
on this trip and they've only done it's been four
five on fives practic No, it's not. That's not far
of their problem. They haven't been like complete dog shit,
So I just don't think that's part of And I
don't think he's a distraction because a he's not with
the team right now on the road trip, so I
don't think he's a distraction. And if he is a distraction,
he's coming back in like six days. So it seems fine.
Clips got the Thunder, they should be rested. Now that
they're rested, I'm very much looking forward to this Thunder matchup.
We can see everybody go all out again. Not a
lot of minutes played by the starters because they were
they were bad. It was such a bad like Clippers
were down twenty at one point, was like, yeah, they
deserve like twenty of these. This wasn't a fluke. The
Pels game was crazy. They didn't play well in the
Pels game. I thought a lot of that was they
were just tired and they ran into the randomness that
is playing the Pelicans and they're shooting from outside, specifically
against the Clippers, and then they run into a guy
who is one of the best players in the world
in Wemby and he only had to play twenty whatever minutes.
So not the biggest uplift going into twenty twenty five.
But I believe someone mentioned in the comments earlier the
Kawhi is coming back, which feels good. The Clippers do
in terms of strength of schedule, have a fairly easy
ish strength of schedule for the rest of the way.
To go looking at the standings, which we're going to
change basically like every day. Now Clippers are nineteen and fourteen,
they're down to the seventh spot, so don't look at
the standings too much, because again, every day they're going
to change. I'm saying this partly to myself. Clippers are
a game back of the four seed right now. Is
kind of just for context, right, So the four seed,
the four seed, and the nine seed are separated by
three games, so the Clippers most likely are going to
be terrifying standings wise and oscillating between the four, you know,
the four and the eight or the four and the Yeah,
kind of the four in the eight would be my guest,
But that's what happens. Nineteen and fourteen. Oh no, dog
eight saying this game sent me in to depression. Don't
be depressed from this game. Don't be that depressed from
this game. If they get washed by OKC next week.
What day is it, It's Tuesday. If they get washed
by okay, see, then maybe slip into appression, a depression.
But this game, if this game won't this game shouldn't
have sent you into a depression. I don't think who
am I to comment on your depression. But there's other
things not this game nick Rama saying, give me all
the post. I'll overreaction. Trade talk. First of all, we
got to trade the whole starting five. No, no one's
actually brought up trades so far, which I appreciate. There's
no one really to trade for on the Clippers. It's
like an interesting trade. We talked about this a little
bit of the last episode, where it's just like the
highest trade values. Norm and I don't think they're trade
Norm because I'm just thinking about the locker room right.
A basketball on court aside training, Norm, I think would
destroy this locker room. Mark Jagg with an interesting comment saying,
I think the starting four should be hard, Norm Kawhi Zoo.
The fifth spot should be situational. For example, they should
start done versus the Hawks. We might see something like this.
I don't think it's that crazy that we might see this. Sometimes.
Derek Jo's junior is undersized for the four by about
like four inches. I'm like, I think like twenty pounds
based on the average power forward. But we'll see it's
gonna take. I don't know, TYLERU wants less shit to
figure out, I think rightfully so as the starting as
the head coach. So I don't know how much we'll
see that. We might see it in the beginning a
little bit. Maybe they switched some stuff around, but it's
interesting they do. There is kind of this weird minutes
crunch coming up. I'm not saying like this that some
guys you know, should be out or whatever, but you
just look at the rotation and I don't know if
Tyler wants eleven guys in it. You know they they
have to play sparingly. One of the backup fives bamba
Uh not good. Kuai Jones also not very good. But
that's here we go. I love this from Elgony. Can
we go get someone like yakam Perle or another mid
ass backup five with the bones PJ and Kaimo package.
I hope so because I love I love the qualification here,
the mid ass backup five. That's all the Clippers need.
The level of backup fives is like it's there's such
a cliff pretty quickly when you start looking at backup centers,
where like there's just guys who are like The Clippers
have two on their roster right now who were not good.
So it's like, I don't know, let me look up
Pearls contract. Okay, he's making kind of a weird amount.
I don't think they could get Pearl's making like twenty
million year, so I don't think that's crazy. Okay, so
Pearl's out, But I like where your head's at. Algony
Jonah is the best saying. Sorry to backtrack, but thoughts
on the defensive scheme to not let Zoo guard Wemby,
they had to do something. It's a scheme that you're
only really gonna see against the Spurs because he handles
the ball so much and stuff like that. But uh,
you gotta try something right because Wemby pulls your center out,
you know what I mean. So if if Zoo's on Wemby,
Zu's pulled out, and then the rim protection is just
even worse, and so you kind of have to have
this weird It could be anybody, But I don't know.
It didn't work, I'll say that much. But that is
a great question, Jonnah, Thank you, thank you for asking that.
I don't know it was. It didn't work tonight, so
who knows? They play with burds like two or three
more times. I think, which kind of sucks. So I
guess you know that's interesting. We got a couple more
minutes here and then I'm gonna cut out because I
do have to get ready to ring in the new Year.
I hope everyone's having an enjoyable New Year. Everyone has
a safe time. If you're going to a house party,
if you're going to a bar, be safe. I like
this point by that Mexican Nara. I think a second
ballhandler should be the focus for a playoff runt. I
think they're gonna I agree. I think we're gonna see
they're gonna give Terrence a run at that, like, hey,
it's your turn, man. Now. Of all the times that
Terrence has come in clutch playing a random position for
the Clippers, being able to be a trustworthy secondary ball
handler would be his most valuable switch at this point.
Because this Clippers team, you bring Kawhi Leonard back, and
you look at the roster and how Tyler has been
coaching this year with the help of JVG, this is
an annoying ass team to play in the playoffs. If
they get the four spot home court with the into
it Dome. That'll be crazy. I feel a lot different
if they're a play in team, just because of the
track record of successful playing teams. But if they're not
a playing team, they have a shot at being incredibly
annoying and a very difficult out, which is an awesome
place to be because you can play free or all
that good stuff. But yeah, I totally agree with the
secondary ball handler point secondary ball handler in the backup
five because we got to give Zoo some rest. Zoo's
looks tired that it's just kind of a thing about Zoo.
You gotta deal with it, which sucks because he gets
a little gassed sometimes. But that's where we're at. It's
on to Oklahoma. I haven't talked about that matchup a
bunch because I don't have the two other experts here
with me as usual William Updiken had to Oslin. But
everyone should be rested, obviously. It's a tough matchup. Shay
had forty five the last time played the Thunder. We
need a bounce back from everybody in this game, and
I also we need to bounce back. Harden's turners have
been crazy the last couple of games. He had a
one to five assist to turnover ratio tonight, which is terrible,
just bad, and that neat that can't happen against okay see,
someone is putting a French comment up. I do not
know French. I apologize if there's anything negative on here.
Don't know what to tell you. But I appreciate you watching.
I'm very thank you for watching. I'll get to translate
on this and we will respond over in the comments.
Let us know the comments. What do you think is
gonna happen against the Thunder? Really hope they get the
win again. The Clippers will have rest for the starters
and most of the core bench guys. And then after that,
okay see game. We're getting closer and closer to Kawhi
Leonard's return after okay see then the target date of
January fourth, on Saturday, Kawi Leonard. As of now, as
of six thirty eight pm, we should we should have
some news soon hopefully on that. So yeah, here's to
the Clippers doing everything the opposite that they did tonight
versus Spurs when they face up with the Thunder. Thanks
for hanging out, Thank you for a wonderful twenty twenty four.
Just for myself, Will and Adam. Thank you all for subscribing.
Thanks for hanging out on these live streams. Check out
our other episodes. Yeah, oh wait, here we go. We
got the comment in English. Thank you so much. Genian
Jean Yan said, first of all, I don't understand why
the Clippers play travel and play on New Year's Day. Agree.
I find this very perverse. Agree. Then regarding Mobamba despite
his large size, yeah, he's not good. I'm using perverse
more in twenty twenty five, Thank you so much for this.
I genuinely appreciate it. As I was saying, thank you
everyone for hanging out supporting the show this year. Here's
to bigger and better results for the Clippers in twenty
twenty five. Kawhi Leonard's coming back which is awesome. Terrence
Man's coming back is gonna be a huge boost to
the bench. Don't forget how good Amir and Terrence looked
off from the bench before he got hurt. From our
hearts to yours, happy twenty twenty five. I hope your
kneears is wonderful and safe and as always, let's go
clips