Can LA Clippers Make It Four Straight Vs The Phoenix Suns?

Can LA Clippers Make It Four Straight Vs The Phoenix Suns?

On Wednesday night the Clippers face the Phoenix Suns the team that eliminated them from the first round of the playoffs last season and with both teams on a bit of a winning streak what should we expect from the matchup how different is it than last year’s Phoenix Suns

Versus Clippers matchup how can we beat them and the conversation around the Clippers starting to get louder from National media going to be talking about it all on today’s lock on Clippers you are locked on Clippers your daily Los Angeles Clippers podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every Day yes sir you are locking in with the clips thank you for making locked on Clippers the first listen of your day your team every day I’m your host Darren vizeri born and raised in LA and in my 19th season as a Clipper fan you can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram

At dim dropper pod And subscribe to my own YouTube channel dime dropper for even more LA Clipper LA Sports content and locked on Clippers free and available wherever you get your podcast including YouTube where I want you to comment and let me know your score prediction for the game against the

Phoenix Suns and this episode is brought to you by game time game time takes the guesswork out of buying tickets the best last minute deals on these tickets you can get just download the game time app create an account and use code locked on for $20 off your first

Purchase let’s talk about this Clipper game a little rematch with the Suns our first time playing them this season after what was a heartbreaking playoff defeat short-handed yet again against them just like in 2021 the Phoenix Suns of course being the only team that the Clippers have lost to in

The playoffs three times in franchise history so two of those of course in this era with no kawh Leonard I would really love to play them with Kawhi Leonard in the playoffs and just let the chips fall where they may but things change and what I mean by

That is this these rosters are pretty different than last season let’s start with the Phoenix Suns for example they made the tradeit to get Bradley Beal of course they don’t have DeAndre Aon anymore they don’t have Tory Craig who ended up becoming a huge part of why the

Suns beat the Clippers in five games he was making all his open threes that was extremely frustrating so no Tory Craig listen to all these guys they’ve got I mean Grayson Allen came over from Milwaukee and they’ve been all over the place with their rotations you know kada

Bates the op got minutes in the beginning of the season I’ve seen him involved less then there’s UDA wab who I saw earlier in this season and now I’ve been seeing him less Bradley Beal’s been constantly out they have bubo on this team Drew Eubanks is their backup nurkic is their starting

Center they have Eric Gordon from us Nasir little chimzi two former USC Trojan Josh aogi who they did have last season so they don’t have that many players from their team last season it’s a very new team but here’s the thing Clippers are on a three-game winning

Streak of 117 out of 22 while the Phoenix Suns are starting to find their groove and it’s with the return of Bradley Beal which makes this game a tough one even despite the fact that Kevin Durant is out and that’s major Kevin Durant missing a second straight game with the hamstring injury and

Hamstrings can be tricky so I would keep my eye on that you know if you’re a real basketball fan if you’re invested in the Phoenix Suns and any sort of way I’m not but they are a competitor of the Clippers and Kevin Durant is a major

Player in the NBA so pay attention to that Clippers won’t have to play KD so that automatically makes it and I thought going into it it was a should win should be winning situation the way we’re playing right now I thought we were better than the Suns before we got

James Harden I damn sure think we’re better than them right now we should beat him we should beat him especially without Kevin Durant now how we beat him I’m going to be talking about that more in the second segment but things change yeah the matchups are very different

That being said you might be saying if it’s so different so many different Suns players Clippers now have James Harden there’s no Nico Batum there’s no Robert Covington who actually got some burn in that series no Marcus Morris but you still got Ka Leonard you still got Russell Westbrook you still

Got Norman pal and a zubats these are all guys that played against them and teren man last season in the playoffs the some of these guys have lost to them twice and we should have that kind of hunger regardless it’s about the name on the front of the Jersey not the back the

Clippers have lost the Suns twice in this era the Clippers have lost the Suns twice and haven’t been healthy when to play them in either series let’s show that and with the offseason beef the Paul George Klay Thompson podcast that sparked a response from Devin Booker of kind of accusing

Paul George of being weird and asking him questions like fishing for some kind of discs when it was Klay Thompson that did say you know he was being butt hurt in that situation I forget his exact words but basically like he was being a baby and he was just frustrated because

The sons were working him and Deon Booker was giving him the Blues but Devin Booker kind of coming at Paul George out of nowhere I’m excited to see that there’s been the fair share of scuffles between the Suns and the Clippers in the past couple of years involving Paul George but I’m really

Looking forward to this one in Phoenix yes things change the teams are different the Clippers have James Harden now the Suns have Bradley Beal now they don’t have Chris Paul which was another element of the Suns Clippers kind of you know I don’t want to call it a rivalry

But that definitely was an added element of the matchup that made it something something bigger than just a normal game between two Western Conference contenders the Suns this one’s going to be tough they’ve won four straight games those wins include the Orlando Magic but also at Houston that’s not an easy game then

The two easier ones Portland Trailblazers and Charlotte Hornets both of those games coming in Phoenix now Kevin Durant missed the last one they still won by 21 but that’s the Portland Trailblazers that’s not the LA Clippers this season Bradley Beal he’s only played nine games but in those nine

Games he’s averaging wow only 16 points a game so he definitely hasn’t been able to really establish any sort of Rhythm his shooting splits are pretty good 49% from the field and 39 from three Devon Booker’s averaging 26 points a game to go along with five rebounds and eight

Assists which is actually more than I would have expected he’s shooting 47% and 37 from three so that’s just typical Devon Booker numbers and coming up going to be talking about how the Clippers can beat the Phoenix Suns let’s go in depth about the matchup and what we should

Expect I got to tell you a little something about FanDuel the NFL regular season is wrapping up but there’s still time to get in on the action with FanDuel America’s number one sports book right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed when you

Place a $5 bet that’s 150 bucks in bonus bets win or lose I’ve been saying place your bets on the Clippers to win it all the odds are only going to go up and it’s going to be tougher to make as much money do it now should have been done it

The app is so easy to use there’s so many ways to bet like live same game parlays find bets in the new explore tab you can make to Parlay in the parlay Hub which is the best way to find popular parlays so visit fanduel.com lockon and make your first bet a layup FanDuel

Official partner of the NFL all right so if you did not notice there was an extra episode uploaded to the audio version of locked on Clippers that was titled Clippers Heat postcast and that is a new addition that the locked on network has made with various channels that have channels for cities

So like locked on Atlanta locked on Minnesota locked on Los Angeles they play podcast from all the locked on channels and various Sports on the YouTube channel so like locked on Rams Dodgers Clippers Lakers they all they all run like my episodes they run on the locked on Sports Los Angeles Channel

Just like the same way the other ones do but now they’re adding postcast which is just like an immediate podcast right after the game so tap into those if you’re interested maybe a different perspective but of course nothing is changing I am still the host of lock on

Clippers the only five-day a week Clipper podcast and a podcast in which I am enjoying with the way we are playing this season 17 out of the last 22 games we’ve won but let me tell you something we haven’t played against the Phoenix Suns and I’m not going to really mince

Words here they’re not one of my favorite teams they’re bottom three least favorite is it because they’ve beaten us three times in the playoffs and the only team in the history of the NBA to do that absolutely are you kidding me can we beat the Suns please I

Know you can’t really avenge a playoff loss in a regular season but let’s get it and let’s see how we beat him now Kevin Durant is not playing right so we got to worry about Devin Booker and Bradley Beal Clippers have no injuries as reported on Tuesday so that means

We’re going into the matchup with Kawai Leonard a guy that would have beaten the Suns and knocked him right out of the first round last year if he hadn’t gotten hurt I stand by that strongly now kawh Leonard who’s he going to be guarding to start the game of course

Clippers switch one through four but who’s he going to be guarding Terren man will likely be guarding Devin Booker it would be nice though to see podcast P say you know what he was talking that mess about my podcast I’m going to go lock him up and show him what a two-way

Player does is he going to do it I doubt it I think we’re have Terrence guarding book and then PG with Beal maybe kawhai guarding him some possessions James Harden guarding Grayson Allen probably I’m interested to see who they start in place of Kevin Durant let’s actually

Check who they started in the last game because that’s probably the answer but yeah that’s my plan we’re going to switch one through four of course Kawhi Leonard teams aren’t going to just put him in the action they don’t want him to guard their best players that’s not

Ideal so if I again if our teams I would try to go with James Harden more James Harden’s still not very good at the point of attack regardless of how great his hands have been but I don’t think teams go at him enough and Terren Mann

Is doing better lately in the pick and roll defensively last couple of games so let’s see they started chimi metu so they want to still have some size but also some shooting and shout out to chimzi Great USC player uh four for eight from the field and two for four

From from three last game I’ve seen him shoot threes more this season but he’s only shooting 33% on the year so expect the Clippers to be totally okay when Devin Booker Bradley Beal run a little pick and pop which ji metu expect to see Zoo drop and not even be worried about

It and I’m interested to see how good zoo can be in this game because Bradley Beal Devin Booker they are just like Kevin Durant great pull-up mid-range guys or pull-up Shooters drop coverage that’s the biggest weakness of the defense unless your point of attack defense is exceptional where you’re

Basically not even gaining an advantage over the screen in terms of the offense then that’s the counter to drop coverage is hitting those pull-up jumpers in the space that you’re given or with the space that you’re given and Devin Booker and Bradley Beal are good at those so let’s

See how effective Zoo can be I think a lot of it comes down to our point of attack defense I’m looking at Terrence I’m looking at Paul George I’m looking at maybe the kawhai guy RZ brute yeah Russ has been defending well lately as well how do we beat Phoenix

Well their defens is not very good they’re not I mean who’s let’s talk about the other side who’s the primary defender on kawh Leonard if I’m them it’s probably going to be chimzi metu because in their minds Kawai may not be quick enough to get by him we’ll see

Kawai has looked a little bit more springy lately and H I wouldn’t say spring is not the right word but a little quicker lately and when I say that I mean before the injury yes but it didn’t look like it affected him much he didn’t look like he had really lost the

Step against Miami on Monday but that blow by in the game that he got hurt against Dereck Jones was the quickest Blow by I’ve seen him do from the top of the key in years so we’ll see if chimzi metu can stay in front of him I think

That’s what they’re going to do and try to switch one through four but if they concede the switch with Beal on Kawai lunch meet that’s what I think we should do try to put Beal in the action who’s Beal going to be guarding definitely Terren man they’ll put Grayson Allen on

James oh I would love if they put Grayson mikard Paul George and they put Booker on Harden I think that’s what they’ll probably do but I would love to see Booker get put his big boy pants on and Guard Paul George and then match up against each other like the good old

Days where you just guard him you guard each other no switch I’m kidding there’s going to be switches but still that’s good enough for me I would like to see that but yeah Devon Booker’s no slouch defensively people that think that still just don’t watch him play enough or

Haven’t been watching him play enough the last four years but Bradley Beal I would like to see us put him in the action and I would like to see if Grayson Allen can guard James Harden he’s no slouch defensively but James Harden talk about someone who’s been

Looking like he’s got a little bit more pep in a step lately James let’s look at some of the recent stats for James Arden how oh by the way actually you know what last 10 games 21 points 10 assists five and a half rebounds three stalks so that means Steals and blocks

Combined per game on 47% from the field 45% from three and 87% from the line and we are 8 and two in those 10 games with the seventh best offensive rating in the NBA in those games there’s no denying that James has just been fantastic so

Far as a Clipper on the season 18 points a game eight assists a steal and a block and he’s helped take our offense to new heights which was expected by giving him the keys in that starting lineup now speaking of our other point guard our other Hall of Fame to be

Russell Westbrook I want to give him a congratulations CU I didn’t even give him a shout out he passed the great Patrick ying and scoring let’s get some Applause in the comment section for Russ it is amazing to see James Harden you know hit 25,000 points see Russell

Westbrook and James Harden pass Patrick Ying in scoring all time as members of the Clippers you know obviously these aren’t guys that we started out with they had Hall of Fame careers and Hall of Fame resumés before they even set foot in a Clipper locker room but it’s

Really cool to see them add to their storied careers with the clippers because let’s be honest we haven’t really had players of this stature we haven’t had players of this caliber definitely not together on one team but it’s an amazing to be celebrating these kind of things you know James Harden and

Russell Westbrook are right next to each other on the all-time scoring list right now 24 and 20 for them to be the third and fourth options on this team and by the way Norman pal might be the fourth scoring option but in just terms of and I think Russ is the fourth

Best player on our team although zubot you can make an argument for recently I still take Russ though personally because of his confidence um and that matters Zeus is very wavering but I’m not ranking them this season I’m just saying who I think is the fourth best

Player on the team I believe it’s Westbrook that’s a good conversation for the comment section let me know but he and Harden to both be top 25 in scoring and they’re not even our two best scorers on this team that’s pretty funny Paul George and Kawhi Leonard

Aren’t even top 50 I want to see where they rank actually I’m on the page let me take a look at it Paul George Jesus are they not top 100 my goodness wow I still don’t see Paul George and Kawhi Leonard and I’m in the top 100 okay Paul George is 101 and

Kawhai Leonard is damn just shows his lack of availability over the years unfortunately God and by the way I did not plan on doing this before the episode so don’t think I’m just like trying to hate on Kawai he’s the best score of the four in my opinion even

Better than Prime Harden sorry Harden fans I’m taking kawhai all day long wow where is this guy are you kidding me he has less points than Pia sto yakovich wow he has less points than Eric Gordon no way Deon Booker has more points than kawh wow he’s

221st Devin Booker has more points than Kawhi Leonard all time that’s insane wow I didn’t even I shouldn’t have even done that well guess what Kawhi Leonard’s the best player in this matchup and he’s going to give him work let’s see who guards him coming up the conversation around the Clippers and

Winning the championship he starting to pick up real steam is that a good thing is that a bad thing should be a good thing right going to be talking about that coming up I got to tell you a little something about game time game time is the best

Place to find great deals on tickets last minute it’s the fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports music comedy and Theater events near you and with killer last minute deals all in prices and views from your seat so you can see exactly what it’s going to look

Like when you get there game time takes the guess work out of buying tickets and game time has deals on tickets right up to the start of the event and even an hour after it begins so if you’re in a situation where you don’t know if

Somebody’s going to go to the game with you and you don’t want to buy tickets yet or you’re getting off work you don’t know when you’re going to get off game time has you covered take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game time just download the game time app create

An account and use code locked on for $20 off your first purchase terms apply again creating an account and redeem code l o c k e d o n for $20 off download game time today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed all right Clippers and Phoenix Suns set to go on Wednesday

Night the first matchup of the Season we will also be seeing the Suns not too long from now next Monday at the Staple Center on January 8th I will actually be missing that game that will be my fourth missed game of the season but this January 3rd matchup this Wednesday night

Matchup I am excited for it and Terren men something to keep an eye on two straight double digit games I’m hoping to see another one here against the Phoenix Suns another mil Zone that I didn’t even get to mention besides Russell Westbrook moving into 25th in the all-time scoring

List and passing the great Patrick Ying Paul George just became the second highest or just past JJ reck for the second most three-pointers made in Clipper history let’s give him a hand in the comments as well and let me tell you something it feels really good to have

One of the greatest Clippers of all time Paul George who’s now spent 5 years with the clips played at an All-Star caliber every single year even in the the seasons that he missed games when he was on the court he was still an All-Star level player we have not had a guy

Besides Blake Griffin and Chris Paul where you can say he was an All-Star caliber player for five years in Los Angeles I don’t know if Elton was five years worth of All-Star caliber play in LA um I saw two years worth of Elton but Chris Paul and Blake are the only

Ones so Kawai and Paul George kawhai can’t even say that because of the 2022 season Paul George is one of the best clippers of all time and it tells me two things that he’s already the second highest three-point leader one it’s not that hard to climb up the Clippers

Franchise leaderboards if you’re really good like Paul George is and two there’s a lot more threes being shot these days cuz JJ had one more let’s see JJ had four seasons as a clip flipper this is Paul George’s fifth JJ was pretty available though I think that’s the

Difference so and Paul has played in two shorten Seasons 2020 and 2021 but yeah I guess it was about time right especially with the amount of three shot but JJ for that era used to shoot a lot of Threes so now Paul George has 675 threes the Polish Rifle Eric pakowski is

Number one with 738 so Paul George is 63 away 63 I think he’s passing that this season I think he’s passing that this season 60 more threes he’s not going to play every single game for the rest of the season but let’s say we have so there’s we’ve

Played 32 games right for 20 and 12 so we got 50 games left let’s say he plays 35 of those games and he makes on average two threes a night right let’s actually we can we have the stats right here let’s check how many threes Paul George makes per game I predict that

It’s around it’s between two to three I’d say Paul George makes three threes a game okay so three times I said yeah we have 50 games left times 35 so 115 I’m sorry no 105 105 yeah he passes it then oh yeah he’s going to do it he’s definitely

Going to do it so before we talk about that’ll be an exciting moment Paul George alltime leader and three-pointers made for the Clippers let’s talk about the chip talk I’ve heard some people even Laker fans some of which have said the Clippers are never going to win the

Championship you know the classic that’s one of their age-old Proverbs Clippers are never going to win a championship even say they got a real chance to win it can’t believe it I think we got a real chance um I know I said otherwise before the Harden trade and

Whatnot but right now the process is good all we can do is look at the what’s happening right now and we’re the process has been great even before the Harden trade the seriousness of the team has been totally different it’s almost like last year they got humbled it’s so

It’s great to see everyone’s noticing how well James Harden’s playing everyone’s starting to see cuz it was really quiet even after we had gone on that winning streak because we started 0 and and people were like yeah we knew this was already going to be a sketchy

In the playoffs based on Paul George Westbrook and Harden’s playoff history and the shaky health of the Clippers and the fact that they’re just the Clippers so we’re just going to write them off but now we’re starting to catch people’s attention and we’ve had some you know telling statistics that resemble that we

I saw we were fifth in the power rankings that NBA released it’s been a while since we’ve been top five in NBA Power Rankings so yeah Paul George by the way courtesy of LA Clippers film Justin he posted on Twitter 43% on catch and shoot threes this year

For PG and 47% on catch and shoot threes over his last 10 games so you see Paul George even for all the criticism he receives he still shoots so well from the field and how about Kawhi Leonard in his last 12 games courtesy of radio host

Adam Osan for the Clippers 29 points per game on 61 5290 splits and we’re 11-1 in those games and remember we are 10-0 in the last 10 Kawai games he’s won 10 straight I would like that to continue on Wednesday against Phoenix you know you talk that chip talk

That chip talk Clippers we are coming we’re coming let me know what you think in the comments section Clipper Nation what’s your prediction for the game what do you think about that conversation I was talking about fourth best player fourth option this and that go Clippers let’s see what’s going on on

Thursday when we talk about hopefully a win against the Phoenix Suns you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at di dropper pod subscribe to my own YouTube channel for even more LA Clipper LA Sports and NBA content and locked on Clippers free and available wherever you get your podcast make sure

You subscribe and hit the notification Bell so you know every single time we post an episode the age old proverb continues go Clippers yes sir

The LA Clippers face the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday Night in a rematch of last year’s first round series which resulted in the Clippers’ elimination.

With Kevin Durant out but Bradley Beal back and the Suns now on a four game winning streak, can the Clippers make it four straight from themselves by winning the first matchup of the season?

In this episode, die hard Los Angeles Clippers Fan and Host Darian Vaziri previews the game and how they can attack the Suns. He also harps on the growing noise about the Clippers potentially going all the way.

Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOClippers?sid=YouTube

Locked On NBA League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft, WNBA & More
🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNBA

#Clippers #LosAngelesClippers #NBA #KawhiLeonard #PaulGeorge