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| Embarrassing loss to Warriors proves the Clippers haven't changed one bit |
The Clippers continued their time-honored lore of decreasing in big game
Breaking News Alert -- So much for the Los Angeles Clippers belonging in the NBA's top tier.All season, we've heard that Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and their teammates are a new reproduce of Clippers. Deep. Positioned. Cozy, and joyful, together. And worthwhile to be considered among the cream of the crop in the league.
It voiced good. It impelled gumption on paper. It ever does.
Paul is an astoundingly immense phase ward. Griffin's game has progressed noticeably the past two years, and he's more than capable of being a regular league-wide Meridian 10 musician. Jordan has disappeared from an afterthought to a defensive and rebounding personnel to be anticipated with.
And hitherto the past is the past, and often a prologue to what we should expect from the near future. And this Clippers' team has a past riddled with the kinds of things that can hold back any talent-laden squad from being the next genuinely immense happen: Infighting, bad luck, horrific decisions, and an utter inability to make even a Western Conference finals.
Why? Because when push was necessary to knock, they fall down.
So how do you prove that the past is the past, and today is different? That those frightful rememberings are lessons learned and not clues of more to go? Good start would be to walk onto your home field at Staples Center, stare down the team you dislike most -- and that dislikes you similarly -- and get it done. Against the uber-hyped Golden State Soldiers you prove all of us that the regular-season asterisk, the one that in the fine print points out you're great in December but it never translates to May, has vanished. You do it by stepping up against your rival, the Soldiers, and coming the win.
Ah, yeah , no dice.
On Wednesday night, it was the Soldiers 115, Clippers 98. Same Clippers team. Same deal.
Don't try to envisage it's just an early-season activity with no prophecy significance for what's to come. That's true, often, but not when units dislike each other, as these chaps do. When it's personal, as it is between these two West Cost powerhouses. Hate produces effort and antagonism and indignation, and those concepts on a basketball storey tell us what we need to know.
And it's this: The Soldiers, of course, are gonna be felt. The Clippers still haven't payed that liberty, even if they still are 16-7, good for third in the Western Conference. They've always been good at the regular season, and rotating it into an 82 -game illusion.
And it's not like the Warrior were in top form here in LA. A team that has prepared more than half their field goals this year and has the league's good pique often looked utterly unable to buy a pail. A team that's supposed to represent the 3-point capital of the universe hit only 23.3 percent of them against the Clippers. The team that has an biased advantage with -- between Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry -- two of best available five participates in the game, failed to get 20 places from either of them.
Durant was 5 for 17 with precisely 16 places. Curry composed 19 places and was 0 for 8 on 3s, a rare dud from behind the arc. Klay Thompson composed 24 places on 8-for-18 shooting.
And still they rolled.
The problem with the Clippers has never been their aptitude. It has always been, for one ground or the other, an inability to show up in big game. Those frequently happen once April flattens around. But Wednesday night counted as a big game, too.
As such, Blake Griffin travelled 5-for-20 and contributed seven -- seven! -- turnovers. CP3 had 15 places, was efficient and in control, but was never capable or willing to exert his regulate over the situation, which rapidly got out of hand and never changed course.
It's as simple as this: The Soldiers, even on off lights, are prevailing against a team like the Clippers, who are a quality team but precisely aren't in the same league. This time, it was Draymond Green who stepped up, composing 22 on 8-of-10 shooting. And Durant, without a hot entrust, who kept up his trend toward a career-best bounce season, this time gathering down eight committees and supplementing seven assists. Curry may have missed every three "hes taking", but he had seven steals.
In recreations that are or feel like the playoffs, the Soldiers find ways to win.
And the Clippers find ways to lose.
It's early. It's December. There's time. And, in the NBA, concepts certainly change. But one thing that has been consistent and true for years now is that the Warrior are real , no matter the time of year -- and the Clippers simply aren't
Source : cbssports.com
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