What The WCF Matchup Shows What LAC Majorly Lacks

What The WCF Matchup Shows What LAC Majorly Lacks

on today’s episode of lock on Clippers we just have found out who is going to make the Conference Finals or who’s going to be in the Conference Finals Dallas the team we lost to and the Minnesota Tims are beting the Denver Nuggets what have we seen about those two teams and those series that affect the Clippers and how you want to build the roster for next year and reacting to one of the lead assistants for the LA Clippers moving on to a new team going to be talking about it all on today’s Monday edition of lock on Cancun 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 were locking in with the clips thank you for making locked on Clippers the first listen of your day your team every day I’m I’m your host Daran vieri born and raised in LA and just finished my 19th season as a Clipper fan you can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram at di dropper pod And subscribe to my own YouTube channel dime dropper where I go live after every single night of games to talk about them all and of course more Clipper content and locked on Clippers is free and available wherever you get your podcast including YouTube what I want you to let me know after watching the series that have just taken place and seeing now who’s in the Conference Finals the Dallas Mavericks who we lost to in six and the Minnesota Timberwolves what have you you learn about this playoffs that makes you think huh maybe I was the wrong the Clippers weren’t that far off or maybe I was dead wrong and we’re really far off and we need this and that give me your thoughts on that in the comments and this episode before we get started is brought to you by prize piix prize piix is the best daily fantasy sports platform in North America all you got to do is download the app today and use code locked on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 all right so gber Nation I hope you had a good weekend I hope you guys are enjoying your vacation although for many of us we still have to work it’s not vacation but it’s vacation for the Clippers and vacation for all of us mentally from the Clippers except if you’re me and are still on here talking about it multiple times a week and this begins our new slate of episode so again I am still you know taking episode suggestions it is the summer there hasn’t been many you know free agency is nowhere near beg gun so again I’m taking suggestions so keep throwing those in the comments as well but we’re going to be talking about and I know it’s going to sound a little weird but we’re be talking about those other series and how what it showed me because I think what you see every year a team wins a championship is every team in the league that wants to contend in terms of when they build their roster their thinking how do we stop that team when it was Shaquille O’Neal’s Lakers every team was trying to stack up on big certain huge dudes that these are the kind of guys and this is not to disrespect those players because they’re not not bad at basketball or not good enough to make today’s NBA I don’t I don’t disrespect NBA players like that in any generation but I will say this those archetypes like the Eric dampers sagana jobs those guys that Dallas had for Shaq you know Todd McCulla like these big guys Greg Oster tag to just be a big body to absorb blows and defend in the post because that’s the thing they might I might have to go check the tape and see they might have been good post Defenders but that’s not something that’s valued today however since Nicola yic or since Shaq won those championships they valued it then obviously people were trying to counter the Warriors how can we have as much switch everything Personnel so we don’t put the defense in rotation against good shooting and now after yic is one everyone’s like huh we need multiple big bodies because the last time yic got limited kind of was against the Lakers in the bubble so the the teams in terms of Minnesota for example right they kind of set up their team to compete against the Nuggets three big bodies and when I say big bodies I mean good big bodies the Clippers have just three big bodies but only one of them is very is serviceable in a playoff setting and even then sometimes he has his struggles and that’s if it’s a zubot d the fact that we’re like oh we should have played Daniel Ty more like look we got Daniel Ty off a buyout you know he’s a 68 backup center that’s been in the league for many years like I love DT I think he had a really solid season All Things Considered but what Minnesota has and this is the big takeaway right the Dallas Mavericks and the Minnesota timber wolves what do they have in common in my opinion in Minnesota’s case it’s not even arguable but I would put Dallas after this after the trade in there too especially how they the the two guys I’m about to talk about complement Their Stars they have those two teams have the best big rotation in the Western Conference maybe in the whole league I mean when you at Minnesota you have NS Reed Carl Anthony towns and goar when you look at Dallas Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively were the main reason that they beat the Thunder they crushed them on the glass they had more RI Rim protection it was just too much of a wait on Chad holgren for the Thunder and Dallas having those two big bodies those athletic big bodies and then you had PJ Washington who was a bigger forward the Thunder had the same problem the Clippers had you know we were talking about all season our biggest guy at that big forward spot is kawh Leonard their biggest guy at that spot was Lou Dort and Lou Dort is usually guarding the point of attack so they were really thin there and PJ Washington Daniel Gafford and Derrik Lively I think and even Derek Jones I think these guys all were the reason that they got over the top against the Thunder but I also think that you know Kyrie Irving he kind of still did the same thing that he did in the Clippers series in terms of the first half he’d be quiet he had less second half explosions against the Thunder because I think Jaylen Williams is a better guy to guard him than what we had and plus like Mark dagnal wasn’t switching certain small guards onto Kyrie and Luca which which is which is you know when a coach does we always talk about tyo right and like not he switches everybody like he’ll switch everybody but the big man OKC was a little bit more cautious like we’re going to show our guards like Isaiah Joe and and Aaron Wiggins and those guys on Kyrie and Luca we’re not going to let them switch so then it ended up being like sometimes you know guys like Derrick Jones and PJ Washington would get shots in the short rooll and stuff like that but overall Kyrie Irving being a second star I think the Thunder kind of lacked that in terms of creation even though the stats for curri weren’t that great but the main takeaway I had from the series was size and the Clippers you know I was naive enough to be honest in in during the course of the season to believe that without the power forward thing like I was like every roster ass holds we’ll be able to get on fine nah you look at the teams that are still around they have a lot of Youth and size and the stars are on these teams like Halbert and Tatum Luca ant the one thing everyone’s talking about after the weekend is one of these young players that’s under 30 years old uh the oldest one is what is who Tatum 25 and man’s 22 Luca’s no Jason Tatum just turned 26 Luca’s 25 and then halton’s like less than that so A young Superstar is going to win their first championship and that doesn’t mean that the Clippers have to have a young Superstar are but the thing is our team is clearly too old this era it’s back to fast-paced basketball like it was in the ‘ 80s and prior and yeah the youth the younger players going to thrive in that environment more and also durability reasons you know the young players like the ants and you know yic in his prime these guys are the ones that you want carrying your team throughout the course of a season because they can play 65 plus games and you can rely on them plus a playoff off run so that’s where Kawai not being super reliable hurts us but my main takeaway from this segment I know you might be thinking I didn’t come to this pod to listen to you break down Oklahoma City and Dallas the point was the size of those two teams lets me know that we honestly very majorly need to upgrade the backup five and hopefully try to go for an athletic guy or we could try to give Kai Jones a shot and see if he can maybe be that guy but I think we should you know it’s like okay is Musa ever going to get a chance like if we’re not going to use these guys let’s trade him you know I’m being serious like I don’t want to trade him because I I really think that the 213 era look I’m just going to be honest with everybody the 213 era is cooked like you look at these teams and you look at how they’re defending there is no way a team that employs kawhai Paul George and James Harden as the three best players even if they’re healthy is going to have the juice to get enough easy baskets against this this kind of level of opposition Minnesota sunned us all year long besides that one game where we did play really good defense and we held them to a poor shooting game but to me watching the way that they played I mean look I was very confident the Denver Nuggets were going to win the championship and I kept mentioning Denver Denver this Denver that and I was wrong I was big time wrong the Clippers you know even if we had beaten Denver it wasn’t guaranteed that they were going to go all the way and our match up against Denver did get better with Harden that was something I was wrong on James Harden definitely put some pressure on their defense that we didn’t see in the past but Minnesota they clearly were Superior you win a game seven on the road you go up two nothing they had the deeper team and I think obviously point of attack defense is something the Clippers need to improve on and size the main takeaway is that the size of the Mavericks and the Wolves is why they’re in the Conference Finals primarily to me outside of their number one options like that you know what the number one option thing is always number one I think people they want to say oh but this and that they had help and this no no no yes they had help you can’t win championships without help all this you can’t go far without help but it’s all about those number one options leading and Luca and Ant-Man deserve a lot of credit so the main takeaway from the segment the Clippers need more size and youth and athleticism we talked about that previously but it’s even more abundantly clear now after watching who has made the Conference Finals and coming up going to be talking about some more things I noticed on the Dallas Mavericks that in this series that maybe have second thoughts about the Clippers and then also I kind of want to comment on OKC because yeah it’s the offseason and we get to reevaluate life here and we’re five years into the trade let’s talk about that I got to tell you a little something about Yahoo finance our official sponsor of this episode wouldn’t it be great if you could see all of your investment and retirement counts in one spot instead of them getting so jumbled up so you don’t even remember where to go to find them sometimes you’ll be like oh I put them in my I put them here in my nose I put them in this computer I put them on this well with Yahoo finance you can consolidate your views from all your accounts into one Hub and access the expert analysis you need to tend to your entire portfolio with confidence so like let me get right to it if you want to grow your portfolio to deal with the rising cost of inflation to pay off your debt or your mortgage pretty much anything that’s getting in your way and Financial Freedom right 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best regular season as a Clipper in terms of health but not the Long Haul so I tried everything I tried everything it didn’t work but I don’t think that this was the year I think top three seed again Dallas has a chance to prove me wrong on that and so do the Pacers but come on the Pacers AR not it’s a there’s a there’s three teams that can win the championship that I like I you know all due respect to the Pacers they’re not winning so there’s a three seed a one seed and a five seed in the uh in the running if the Dallas Mavericks win they become one of only three teams to do it they are the exception however they do have something in common with that 95 Rockets team big mid-season Acquisitions in the Rockets case it was Clyde Drexler which is much bigger than Daniel Gafford and PJ Washington but again you know so you know what this taught me too is us us Clipper fans I think this was abundantly obvious we lost but we completely underestimated PJ Washington and Gafford mainly PJ Washington and that that goes for me I knew who Gafford was but PJ Washington playing at this level shooting threes the way he has in both rounds it’s been ridiculous I don’t think anybody could have foreseen that as Clipper fans I don’t think Dallas fans even for saw him play shooting threes that well it was insane but you know it does make me feel a little bit better that a Harden and kais Clippers team lost to the Thunder I’m sorry lost to Dallas in the same amount of games as the Thunder thunder so I still stand by that we probably could have beaten Dallas healthy I still stand by it if affiliate with a healthy kawhai I just don’t think we’re going to beat Minnesota there’s nothing that I see that makes me think we’re going to beat Minnesota I think we had a chance against Dallas but who knows like who knows like I I think a healthy kawhai gets us over the top against Dallas and I think most Clipper fans would agree on that but it changes the Dynamics of things you know anyway like the pace that we played in game one that we won we’re not playing that Pace with Kawai uh not not with James Harden and kawhai era together only with Russ in the beginning of the Season were we playing that kind of pace with kawhai but yeah as far as the Thunder trade I guess let’s evaluate that right so as far as what I learned about the Clippers in terms of the Dallas OKC Series my first point was more about both series uh and what I learned but from the Dallas series it’s that you know we could have beaten Dallas with with Kawai you know took him to six games without him I think a fully healthy Kawai people people that mentioned Kawhi Leonard in Games 2 and three and like oh you had him like no we didn’t like that’s a shell of himself and that’s why he stopped playing you watch OG anobi in game seven he looked like he was he was given it a go and he looked even worse than Kawai so like when you can clearly tell it’s not like I’ll give you an example it’s not like Paul George in the season or James Harden when they had the the shoulder and groin injuries respectively and they had some games they were very good and then some games they weren’t great it’s like dude we see you guys do this healthy so like I’m not going to give you the pass of the injury same thing I was saying about Luca and I’m saying about Luca the first two rounds like it’s it’s always like he’s exaggerating when he’s missing like it’s just a weird time that he chooses to it’s just Luca is is I think he’s healthy enough to win a championship let’s put it that way if he can perform and my point is that Kawhi Leonard at his best fully healthy I think we could have beaten Dallas I just don’t know if we could have beaten the Timberwolves but let’s see if Dallas goes all the way then who knows matchups are are a thing though Styles make fights and I think our matchup with Dallas was better than Minnesota it might have even been better than our match up with OKC OKC’s speed was a lot for us but in the playoffs who knows I mean did it would have been interesting to see how teren man could have guarded SGA although he has done a decent job on SGA because SGA is like quick but he’s not the quickest so that’s where teren man can be really good but as far as the trade right we’re five years into this right and the Thunder have not made a Conference Finals yet we have we’ve made the playoffs more so so far we have won the trade still thing is this is where the Thunders part of the trade kicks in and the good part and now it looks like we’re going to be worse than them for years and years to come and I will say there’s a really Bittersweet feeling watching how great Shay gilis Alexander has become like would he have been able to develop in this with the Clippers probably not but if he’s just playing alongside Kawai as his only star what what makes me think he couldn’t develop into being still a great amazing player like the guy just put in the work he got better every year and we saw a lot of potential in year one you know he had the mid-range game he had the length and size he had the you know under control when he was dribbling the ball and pick and roll and here this and that need to work on his shot and his bag and his confidence and he’s really improved in every single facet and I never in my in my wildest imagination would think that he would be this good but the thing is I if you with kawh Leonard as Apex on the table and the Clippers organization you don’t say no you don’t say no so I’m not saying I regret the trade but I do I am a little bit butth hurt that Kawhi Leonard wanted a second star so badly off the Jump and didn’t give it a year to see you know what okay might we might not have a contending team this year but we’re pretty damn good I’m joining a 48- win team and we’re going to know what we need in the off season and sgaa he just like it’s almost like they neglected what he could become and like yeah I didn’t think he would average 30 points a game but I thought that he could be an All-Star it was like he was very good so that part’s really unfortunate however my point my moral story is this until the thunder make the Conference Finals we still won the trade right because it’s about who goes further it’s not about what’s the criteria for who wins trades who ends up benefiting the most right and while we might be in one of the worst positions in the league now and they are probably in the best or one of the best top top five easily I put them in in the top three for the coming years and and there will be tough conversations with the Thunder once you’re going to have to Max chat and uh Jaylen Williams out but like I take it one year at a time I take my life one week at a time one day at a time so if you’re the a thunder fan I’m only looking at next season and the Thunder it’s funny they need to improve on the similar things the Clippers need to improve on they need a four they need a backup five that’s better than what they’ve got Clippers need to do that so five years in we have still won the trade that is the moral of story but uh uh yeah man we really traded all that for Paul George after coming off two disappointing postseasons in a row oh great example talking about injuries Paul George’s shoulder injuries against the Blazers what I want every Clipper fan any Clipper fan that has league pass I will I will give you a challenge any Clipper that has League Pass right you can go up to watching games from 2013 on it so all the games from the 2019 playoffs are still on there if you can’t find them on YouTube they’re on there and YouTube has been pillaging games off the internet so like I would Adam Silver sucks for that and the league sucks for that because they want like control over the what they release yet they’ve literally deleted thousands of games off the internet from the past which is ridiculous but if you go to NBA league pass and you watch the 2019 playoff series I challenge any Clipper fan now that we’ve had Paul for five years go watch that series and here’s what you’re going to see in game one he looked like his shoulders were really bothering him right he shot awfully and the commentators watch it on the local feed don’t watch it on the on the national feed watch watch on the Thunders broadcast with fiser and Michael cage former Clipper Michael cage I might add and listen to what he’s saying and you can see the the truth the first game he’s massively Rusty and then in the second game he starts cooking in the first half then in the second half he starts that over dribbling and isolation stuff Mo harkless ripped him at half court and it was a huge turnover that changed the entire momentum of the quarter and Westbrook did a lot of the same momentum changing turnovers too and it was detrimental you put both them on the court with their Timely turnovers and it was detrimental and then he did not play very well in games I believe three it was game three game four he was pretty good and Russ was awful shooting the ball but and then game five Paul wasn’t bad and Russ was pretty bad shooting the ball but Paul the point is he was inconsistent he was very inconsistent which is exactly what we say about him when he’s healthy so that the shoulder stuff I I do agree that he was probably in pain but like come on we see you do the same stuff healthy you don’t get a pass anyway go to go watch that series don’t get back to me on it and it’s tell me if I’m right cuz in the second game when he starts going off in that first quarter Michael cage is like oh my God you can see he looks better now he just started making mistakes in the second half I don’t know what to tell you anyway coming up though going to be talking about the latest news in the Clippers Dan Craig not Al no longer with the team gonna be talking about what that means coming up I got to tell you a little something about fan Fu it’s winner take all time in the NBA and NHL and FanDuel is giving you a shot to bring home a big win of your own right now new customers get $150 in bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet that’s 150 bucks to bet on spreads money lines player props and more it’s the best time to BET right now Conference Finals finals coming up that’s 150 yes visit fanduel.com lockon and make every playoff shot count FanDuel America’s number one sports book all right so some breaking news or should I not breaking news it was breaking news yesterday Dan Craig our assistant coach associate head coach four years with the Clippers staff with tyo is now moving on to Chicago to join Billy Donovan must have gotone a better deal sad to see him go everyone’s talking about like he was our defensive mind he was our defensive coordinator so and I looked up like stuff about that and I didn’t really find it as just something I guess that’s spread from people that know the inner workings of the Clippers and like here’s what I’ll say about that it s always it sucks to lose a good assistant coach but it’s very hard from the outside to like judge the value of an assistant coach because we don’t see the interpersonal relationships we don’t see what what part of the schemes he’s The Mastermind of and all that we’ve been told he’s the defensive guy and here’s the thing our defense wasn’t that good this season so like at the end of the day Dan Craig like it doesn’t matter what freaking I almost cussed What freaking coach you have it’s about the Personnel first on your team and I mean the Clippers have decent defensive Personnel they don’t have great defensive Personnel you rely way too much on your best player defensively you traded good Defenders for a poor Defender that was good for two months decent for two months and everybody goes nuts about it because he gets a couple of steals nah James Harden’s defense is not good like let’s not kid ourselves he can be serviceable in in in over periods of time but it’s not it’s not Championship stuff um he need a great defensive team around him we don’t have that then Paul George fakest two-way player I’ve ever seen coming in such a pick and choose Defender mentally commun misc doesn’t communicate nearly enough on defense defense a his best defensive attributes are his one-on-one defense and he doesn’t even do that that much because he doesn’t guard elite players and then you we it’s a we switch everybody besides they’re bigs so if a team has Paul George on them like okay let’s put uh James hard and uh Terrence man in the action I’d still rather go at them so does it really matter but anyway Dan Craig being gone I mean I don’t really know what to say I think it’s not the end of the world so that’s all I have to to say on that we’ll replace him good I mean wish Dan Craig all the best in his Endeavors but that’s all I got for this one you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at di dropper pood subscribe to my own YouTube channel dime dropper let me know what you thought of what I said what you thought of the series and if you’re still watching and what you think the Clippers need to do as a result and maybe even Dan Craig and of course keep shooting the episode ideas out the agel the agel proverb continues and if you want to hear me talk about those other games my channel di dropper remember to subscribe to lock on Clippers and hit the notification Bell the and by the way episodes coming the rest of the week the age- old proverb continues go Clippers

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