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Basketball season is back and after all the din surrounding the frantic roster-building exercise, the contract negotiations, the training camp battles, the possible trades, it was a relief to see basketball have the spotlight again.
The Clippers took on the Nuggets for the first pre-season game of the year. The quality was quotidian by NBA standards as the rust was apparent with teams still figuring out their roles as per their playbooks. The result wasn’t ever in doubt as the Clippers lazed their way to an easy victory, beating the Nuggets 103-96.
The spotlight was on DeAndre Jordan and he finished as the standout performer of the game. He seemed to have left the histrionics of the summer far behind him, and looked the best player on the court by a fair distance. He was effective on the glass, rampant as the anchor inside, and his overall activity was exceptional. It reflected on his numbers as he finished with 15 points, 12 rebounds and 3 blocks.
But the bigger question was did he have a bigger role in the offense as he was promised? He had 7 shots and almost all of those were lobs or simple dunks. He seemed to have the same role as last year, as the offense was still centered on Blake Griffin in the post, and DeAndre being the feature with Paul in pick-and-rolls. The Clippers weren’t looking to feed him down low, and the only new development in Jordan’s game was maybe his improved free-throw percentage, managing to go 3-5 from the line. The shooting form is still the same, but Jordan’s body language on the charity stripe looked far more comfortable.
However, the biggest plus point for the Clippers had to be the rejuvenated bench and roster depth of the Clippers. The Clippers played the majority of the second quarter with their own version of small-ball with Rivers, Crawford, Stephenson, Pierce and Smith. If you think the Warriors have a great small-ball line-up consider the Clippers lineup for a moment. All five players of the Clippers are capable ball-handlers and capable of grabbing a rebound and going coast-to-coast. While none can doubt the ability of this group to be sublime in the open court, their half-court offense with Pierce on the post surrounded by shooters on the weak-side, makes it one of the best scoring benches in the league. Not surprisingly they had a big role in the 34 points the Clippers scored in the second quarter.
The addition of Stephenson, Pierce and also Wesley Johnson gives the Clippers great diversity at the three, a position that has bothered the Clippers since the past few years. Matt Barnes was a gritty defensive player, but he provided almost nothing on the offensive end. With Pierce, the Clippers have a goto guy who has the pedigree to take the Clippers home come clutch time. Stephenson gives them an explosive difference-maker and in Johnson they have an august athletic specimen.
The Clippers have made up for their deficiencies of last season adding much-needed athleticism and depth. Griffin and Jordan are expected to be All-Star players, but the addition of Cole Aldrich, Chuck Hayes and Josh Smith gives the Clippers some legitimate length and veteran presence. This will go a long way in shaping the identity of this team.
However, there is still some issues with the Clippers that seem unresolved. They still have no legitimate shooters outside of Reddick, Paul Pierce and Jamal Crawford. In a league that is increasingly looking to get multi-dimensional players who can stretch the floor and push the scoring pace, the Clippers are still quite thin on this department. Pierce’s contribution will depend a lot on how Doc Rivers manages his minutes, but he seems to settle better as the focus of the offense with the second unit.
He seems more comfortable in the mid-post rather than being the trailer behind Chris Paul or the weak-side spot-up shooter when Paul, Griffin and Jordan are running circles with their pick-and-rolls. Crawford is coming back from a quite pedestrian season and many are still surprised that the Clippers didn’t get rid of him after his performance in last year’s post-season. The level of production the Clippers get from him still needs to be realized.
Reddick is their best shooter, but the Clippers need much more shooting to contend with the likes of the Rockets and the Warriors. In the game, they managed a pedestrian 28% shooting going 9-32 from beyond the arc, and while Chris Paul does a great job in finding open shooters coming off screens, the Clippers offensive set doesn’t feature many down-screens or off-ball plays for their shooters. Doc Rivers did a great job in finding offense for Ray Allen, but he still doesn’t seem inclined to give Reddick the same importance in his offense.
Chris Paul almost waltzed through managing 12 points and 9 assists in 22 minutes of action. In this era of NBA basketball where we may have the most prodigious pantheon of point guards, with the likes of Curry, Westbrook, Lillard, Parker, Irving and many more, there is still nobody in the game who sets up the half-court offense better than Paul. He makes the likes of Jordan and Griffin look so much better than their abilities warrant.
While a healthy Chris Paul is paramount to the Clippers title-opportunities, one also has to realize that the rigors of NBA basketball has quite frequently left Paul wanting in the post-season. With the Clippers starting five, Paul is their best on-ball defender and with Reddick not being much of a defensive stopper, more often than not Paul has to defend the better guards of the opposition. Paul is still the alpha dog, but at 30 the twilight of his career isn’t far away and his failure to log in a significant play-off run still haunts his legacy. Paul being the competitor he is, will go all-out to prove his credentials as a superstar, and that is what the Clippers need to be wary of.
The back-up to Paul is the veteran Prigioni and the promising yet still not the finished article in Rivers. The Clippers can’t expect this duo to be much effective cover for Paul and while the Clippers would love to regulate Paul’s minutes, there isn’t much insurance they hold at the point guard spot.
While the Clippers hope to be a contender in the West the Nuggets clearly are a team under transition. The team is trying to build around Kenneth Faried and while nobody doubts his athleticism and effort, his inconsistency and tendency to have mental lapses in the game is what prevents him from turning into the star the Nuggets wish for. Faried was dismal as he went scoreless in 19 minutes and while his defense on Griffin was commendable, there were still no signs of him having added much to his arsenal in the off-season. The Nuggets hope he can translate into their franchise superstar, but clearly Faried needs improvement in a lot of areas to translate that potential into results.
While the Nuggets offense wasn’t exactly clicking, they still had a lot of positives to take from the game. It was heart-warming to see young faces like Emanuel Mudiay, Nikola Jokic and Joffrey Lauvergne getting an opportunity and they seemed to fit in much better than the Nuggets established stars. Emanuel Mudiay may be faulted for trying too hard as he ended with 14 points and 8 turn-overs, but his athleticism and fearlessness is quite the silver lining.
Mudiay will benefit from having Jameer Nelson in the squad. Nelson had a very effective game as he made up for his lost athleticism with veteran savvy and quietly raked up 10 points and 7 assists in 19 minutes. Most importantly he was responsible in bringing the young bigs’ Lauvergne and Jokic into the flow of the offense and the duo flourished against the small-ball Clippers line-up.
In 48 minutes of combined action, the duo managed 30 points, 19 rebounds on 13-18 shooting. The Nuggets have always had a knack of discovering young bigs’ and the duo certainly have a future in the league. Will Barton and Gary Harris provided good energy off the bench, and while the Nuggets would have wished the likes of Randon Foye and Wilson Chandler to have a better outing they can certainly take much heart from hos Harris and Barton played.
It is not wise to read much into pre-season games, but they surely are the blue-print for what to expect from teams. Both teams should be reasonably happy with how their players performed. The Clippers are expected to contend in the stacked Western Conference and they seem to have finally gotten the roster depth to contend with the likes of Warriors and the Spurs. The Nuggets are in a building mode and have a young core that if given the opportunity can go a long way in shaping the next decade for the franchise. There is still a lot of time to go for the season to commence and expect a lot to have changed come the starting day of the season for both the Clippers and the Nuggets.
Guess the Lakers players!
