Clippers Fans React to Game One

From SBN’s excellent Clippers blog, Clips Nation, comes away with some good and bad signs that Clippers fans can take away from last night’s loss:

The Good

The roster is indeed deeper this time around. Even without the injured Blake Griffin, the Clippers bench outplayed the defending champs’ reserves by a wide margin. Now, it must be noted that Pau Gasol did not play, forcing Lamar Odom into the starting lineup, but Phil Jackson was so distrustful of his bench that he played four of his starters between 38 and 41 minutes each. Meanwhile, Craig Smith with a dozen second quarter points and Sebastian Telfair with 8 points and 4 assists in 21 minutes were especially good for the Clippers. It’s particularly nice to have an effective backup point guard – Telfair is a significant upgrade over the second string (and in several cases first string) points we’ve been watching the last few seasons.

Eric Gordon looked very good. Gordon scored 21 points on 14 shots, and was actually +5 in his 33 minutes on the floor in a game the Clippers lost by seven. When Gordon picked up his second foul and went to the bench with 4 minutes left in the first quarter, the wheels came off for the Clippers temporarily. His ability to penetrate, to make shots or to create shots for his teammates, makes life a lot easier for the Clippers in the half court. It’ll be nice when he starts getting some calls, but he probably has a better chance of doing so against someone other than Kobe Bryant.

The bad
Baron Davis 1 for 10. In the first regular season game of his big bounce back year, Baron scored 2 points. You know that’s not what he wanted. How much was the foot bothering him? Who knows. But 10% shooting is brutal, and hard for a team to overcome. On the bright side, he did have 8 assists, and played hard on defense, often matched up against Bryant. But he was terrible shooting the ball, and after a while the Lakers were daring him to. It’s something of a comfort that he’s got an excuse for being bad this game – he was hurt – but at the same time, haven’t we been here before? He played hurt last year, and was terrible as a result.

There’s a whole lot more over at Clips Nation, so check out the full post. And really, far from the punchline that they’ve been for… oh, the better part of the last three decades, the Clippers could end up being one of the NBA’s more intriguing teams this year. With Baron Davis, Blake Griffin, Al Thornton, and most of all Eric Gordon, the Clippers have a ton of talent, and watching them try to put it all together will be entertaining. Maybe not for Clippers fans, who are plagued by the angst associated with 30 years of losing and deathly afraid that something will go wrong, but for anyone interested in basketball, the Clip show should be a lot of fun.