Alright guys, I’ll be brutally honest but I’m not going to bother looking up stats and stuff for this game. I’m very tired from a long day and still have lots of work to do, this Clipper game really set me back. That being said- I’ll still give you an analysis of the game. I’ll recap what went wrong, what actions should be taken to improve, and the positives we can take from this game. I like Kim Hughes’ style, although tonight it drove me crazy. However- I do see potential, at least until the end of this season. Until then, I’ll be rooting for him to get the team clicking. (Keep reading)

So with freedom comes responsibility, right? Baron responded well in the first few minutes, getting us VERY excited for this new pace. Clippers took a 4-0 lead very fast. Then what happened? Spurs ran off 18 straight points. Yes I typed that right, 18 straight points. It was unbelievable.. Very demoralizing and humiliating, including the fact that GEORGE HILL scored 17 points in the first half (I believe he had 15 in the first quarter alone). George Hill was a 2nd round pick for the Spurs, the same draft class as Gordon. But he lit up the Clippers tonight.

What went wrong? Well the Clippers had too much freedom. Not that they’ll never be able to handle it- but they just weren’t used to it. They frequently turned the ball over, and took horrible shots. It definitely looked like they felt the pressure of playing at a faster pace. They also took too many jumpers and contested shots instead of driving in and relying on ball movement to create an open shot.

What could they have improved? Playing at a faster pace doesn’t mean rushing everything. Nor does it mean trying to make a fast break out of every single possession. If the opportunity is there, you take it. If it’s not, you don’t force it. Clippers just forced it too much because they wanted to play at that “fast pace” they’ve been dreaming of playing for a long time. They need to slow things down and take care of the ball. They also can NOT run when they don’t play good defense. Defense is the first step to being able to run, because you need to get stops to start running down the floor. If the other team scores, you have to take the ball from the hoop, walk out of bounds, take it out, and by that time the other team is already down the floor.

The positives: DEANDRE JORDAN. Wow did he flourish in this environment. I really liked what I saw from Deandre. As Ralph said, maybe the early call (he came in during the first quarter) improved his confidence. But he had a few unbelievably clean blocks- even blocking dunks and pinning layups on the backboard. He was definitely a presence and fought for the boards. Deandre just needs to learn how to gather the ball, wait until he gets his defenders out of position, and then dunk it. He can’t just go up the second he catches the ball.

Another positive was Eric Gordon’s elevated play near the end of the 3rd quarter. He helped the Clippers trim the 30 point lead down to 18, it even went down to 14 after that. But Gordon started attacking the rim and getting layups and floaters (at least 2 of them were ‘and 1’s), which opened up his outside game and helped his shot come back.

I liked the pace and I see the potential, but this game was kind of like the guinea pig. There was no other way to test out what level of play the Clippers were at right now, and this was a good indicator of their current comfort with the new pace. Hopefully Kim Hughes can make the adjustments before next game, fix the obvious mistakes and have them playing better.