The Arrival of Eric Bledsoe
by Charlie Widdoes, May 16, 2012, ClipperBlog.com
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It is often best to show restraint when it comes to young players. Expectations have a way of getting out of hand when you see eye-popping physical gifts and allow yourself to dream.
You see what they can do, and all of a sudden you find yourself just assuming that a turnover problem or iffy shooting stroke will correct itself with time, because that’s what can happen and that’s what we want to happen. But it doesn’t always go that way, as we know, and so patience is the play before declaring every player with potential the next Dwyane Wade.
The problem with that, of course, is that we risk missing out on the greatest thing in all of sports: being prepared for the arrival of the next Dwyane Wade.
And last night, for those of us who allowed ourselves to dream, the legend of Eric Bledsoe took another giant leap towards reality. His career may not approach the greatness of Wade’s — and the odds say it won’t — but for special players like him, odds only serve to isolate the believers from those who prefer to play it cool.
On a court that featured a minimum of two and up to five future Hall of Famers, only the great Tim Duncan impacted the game like the 22-year old Bledsoe. Which is fitting, because with every breathtaking defensive possession or composed foray into the lane, his facial expression grew more Duncan-like, completely unfazed by the magnitude of the moment. READ…..
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Focusing on the positives with Clippers amid the negative
By T.J. Simers, May 15, 2012, Los Angeles Times
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SAN ANTONIO — As I travel with our local teams across the country, I’m truly amazed to find so many negative columnists working out there.
Must the glass always be half empty?
Instead of writing about their own players, they want to tear into our fine, upstanding athletes. It’s just flat-out muckraking.
I sometimes wonder whether Dwyre and I are the only two columnists left in the land who want to always gush about a job well done.
Here we are in the NBA playoffs, the second round ever played by Blake Griffin, and how often do the Clippers ever advance to the second round?
Our kid Griffin deserves some credit for that.
But the columnist in San Antonio, whose first name is Buck and of course it is, ripped into Griffin before Game 1 as if Griffin had spat on the Alamo.
“Griffin, healthy or not,” concluded Bucko, “isn’t ready for this yet.”
“What Griffin becomes in two years won’t change this series,” Bucko wrote. “And the Spurs will be ready for what he is now. Playoff game-planning takes away one-dimensional talent, and it is likely Gregg Popovich’s staff already has a bead on Griffin.”
How mean can you be to cut the legs right out from under a kid when he’s already limping on a sore knee? Later in the night he will turn an ankle.
“It’s not fair,” said Coach Vinny Del Negro. “He’s not 100%, it is his first playoffs, he just came through a rugged series and there’s a learning curve. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
The fact that he is a marked man, as Bucko wrote, suggests the Spurs must think more highly of him than the local columnist. READ…..
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Still some red flags in this Grizzlies’ victory
By Ron Higgins, Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 10, 2012
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Is there ever going to be an easy game in this first-round Western Conference series between the Grizzlies and the Clippers?
The Grizzlies should be ecstatic that they won game five on Wednesday in FedExForum, 92-80, to stave off elimination and advance to a game six on Friday in Los Angeles trailing 3-2.
But here’s the problem.
A Clippers’ team, even with point guard Chris Paul being “held” to 19 points, with Blake Griffin sustaining a sprained knee in the fourth quarter, with the team shooting 37.1 percent from the field and getting outscored 48-26 in the paint, cut the Griz lead to six with 55.7 seconds left.
A Memphis team that scored 57 points in the first half, thanks to rediscovering that center Marc Gasol and forward Zach Randolph can score with enough touches, had just 35 points in the second half. READ…..
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Chauncey Billups’ take on the Clippers’ ‘Miracle in Memphis’
By Chauncey Billups, April 30, 2012, Los Angeles Times
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Clippers guard Chauncey Billups is sidelined with a season-ending torn left Achilles’ tendon, but he is with his team in Memphis as the Clippers face the Grizzlies in a Western Conference first-round playoff series.
And a day after the Clippers’ improbable Game 1 win here on Sunday, Billups shared his thoughts with The Times on his team’s performance and more.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Those first three quarters, some of our guys just didn’t know what playoff basketball was all about. It really took us three quarters to realize how hard you have to play in the playoffs.
And, honestly, when we started coming back, I was just happy that we had started coming back. And I was happy that probably the next day, we would be able to show some things on tape that we could say, “This is how hard you’ve got to play.” READ…..
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Clippers pull off grand theft comeback
by Billy Witz, Aril 30, 2012, FoxSportsTennessee
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MEMPHIS –When Rudy Gay’s jumper, over the outstretched arm of Kenyon Martin, bounced off the front of the rim and into the hands of Blake Griffin just before the buzzer sounded, the Clippers weren’t sure how to feel.
Elation? Griffin began to hug anyone he could find.
Redemption? Marc Iavaroni, the Clippers assistant and former Memphis coach, cupped his hand over his ear and shouted to the crowd that he couldn’t hear them.
Relief? Chris Paul suggested a newspaper headline would read: Phew!
But in sorting out all the emotions of the Clippers’ unlikely, ridiculous, inconceivable 99-98 comeback victory over the Grizzlies in Sunday’s opener of their first-round Western Conference series, there seemed to be one overriding all others.
This felt, more than anything else, like ill-gotten goods.
The Clippers trailed by 27 late in the third and tied the NBA playoff record for largest deficit overcome at the end of three quarters, when they trailed by 21.
When you come back after trailing by 24 in the final nine minutes, you walk away from the greatest fourth-quarter comeback in playoff history feeling not as if you’ve won a game, but as if you’ve pilfered it.
“We came in with ski masks on,” Griffin said in a locker room that was equal parts giddy and disbelieving.
“Of course we stole it,” Martin said, sitting at the neighboring stall. “There was no way we were supposed to win this game.”
Suddenly, the Grizzlies — the team nobody wanted to play — must shrug off a result that was as devastating for them as it was elating for the Clippers. Last year an unlikely late comeback by the Mavericks catapulted them to a sweep of the Lakers.
In the final 9:13, the Grizzlies made just 1 of 13 shots and turned the ball over four times. After Paul’s free throws put the Clippers ahead with 23.7 seconds left, Young was replaced by Martin for the final possession. Martin wanted to avoid fouling Gay and keep him from driving to the basket, but correctly figured that Gay would shoot a jumper. Gay pulled up at the free-throw line, but Martin contested the shot and it was short. READ…..
Related Video: LA Clippers Comeback to Shock Memphis Grizzlies
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UCLA recruit Shabazz Muhammad’s genes a great fit for basketball
By Chris Foster, April 21, 2012, Los Angeles Times
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Ron Holmes, then a USC basketball player, was with a buddy at a summer league basketball game in 1982 when he saw his future on the court.
Watching Faye Paige play, Holmes said to his friend, “See that No. 10? She’s going to be my wife and we’re going to make some All-Americans.”
Shabazz Muhammad has a chance to fulfill that prediction.
Muhammad, Ron and Faye’s 18-year-old son, is a 6-foot-6 swingman who is widely regarded as the nation’s best or second-best high school senior. He’s set to begin his college basketball education at UCLA in the fall, but has already been extensively home schooled on the subject.
Shake his family tree and basketballs drop out.
Or, as Holmes puts it: “The athletic genes were there.”
Holmes scored 1,211 points, 20th in school history, in four seasons at USC, and his allegiance to the Trojans has prompted some early personal ground rules about cheering for UCLA. For example, “I won’t do the eight clap,” he says. Also, powder blue remains out of the wardrobe.
Faye jokingly attributes her son’s college choice to “karma.”
“Shabazz got a UCLA throwback jersey when he was younger and came home one day to find his dad had cut the ‘UCLA’ out of it,” she says. “I brought that up the other day. I told Ron that he should have never done that to the jersey.” READ…..
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NBA Jersey Sponsorship Idea Rises as League Seeks More Revenue
By Ira Boudway, March 30, 2012, Bloomberg BusinessWeek
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National Basketball Association owners gather April 12 in New York for their first board of governors meeting since the labor dispute last fall.
During the lockout, Commissioner David Stern told anyone who would listen that the players would have to accept cuts because the NBA was losing more than $300 million annually, with 22 of its 30 teams in the red. The new collective bargaining agreement helped owners control costs, but many still badly need a revenue boost, which is why an old idea may get a new hearing at the April meeting: selling ad space on game jerseys, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its April 2 issue.
According to Sports Business Journal, the idea probably will be debated at the meeting. NBA spokesman Michael Bass says the agenda is not yet set but that “sponsor logos on NBA uniforms is a subject of ongoing conversation.” Marketing experts say it’s only a matter of time. READ….
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Chauncey Billups’ sage advice helps inspire Clippers
By Melissa Rohlin, March 29, 2012, Los Angeles Times
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Chauncey Billups is back on the Clippers bench.
The savvy veteran sits next to the coaches, watching his teammates with the sharp eye of a player who has been in the league for 14 seasons.
When a man is subbed out, he often pulls him aside and offers words of advice. He has told Chris Paul to be more aggressive. He has advised Randy Foye on when to shoot.
His suggestions seem to be working.
Wednesday marked the fifth game that Billups has attended since suffering a season-ending Achilles’ injury early February. With Billups in his new seat, the Clippers are 5-0.
The players don’t think that’s a coincidence.
“I told Chaunce he gotta stop being selfish again and come on the road with us too,” Chris Paul said. “It’s no secret, we are undefeated when he’s there.” READ…..
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Rival N.B.A. Siblings Share the Room in Los Angeles
By JAKE APPLEMAN, March 24, 2012, New York Times
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LOS ANGELES — When the first bus of Utah Jazz players and team personnel arrived at Staples Center for a 6:30 p.m. game against the Los Angeles Lakers last Sunday, players made their way to the locker room, only to stop and remain in the hallway.
The Jazz were not allowed to enter the visitors’ locker room because the Detroit Pistons were still in there after an overtime defeat to the Los Angeles Clippers in a game that began at 12:30 p.m.
So it went in the 56th N.B.A. doubleheader at Staples Center, which the two home teams have shared since 1999.
Last Sunday’s doubleheader was the fourth in this compressed season, with two more scheduled for March 31 and April 22. The games fit right in with the theme of endurance that crops up every March, when back-to-back (or back-to-back-to-back-to-back) N.C.A.A. tournament games are played in the same arena on the same day. READ….
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Should the Clippers fire Vinny Del Negro?
By Melissa Rohlin, March 23, 2012, Los Angeles Times
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After beginning the season with soaring expectations, the Clippers have skidded to a dismal low.
They have lost three games in a row for the first time this season after falling to New Orleans, 97-90, on Thursday. And since the All-Star break, during which they were at the top of the Pacific Division for the first time in franchise history, they have lost 11 of their last 16. They are now in second place in their division, three games behind the Lakers, and could be in danger of missing the playoffs if they don’t turn things around.
The team’s sudden collapse has led people to question whether Coach Vinny Del Negro should remain at the helm.
Chris Broussard of ESPN is reporting that sources have said that “Vinny has lost the team.” He added that a majority of the Clippers want a coaching change, according to his sources.
However, after the Clippers’ embarrassing loss on Thursday, the players publicly defended their coach.
“We’re still behind him,” Blake Griffin said. “It’s not that. It’s us. It’s on me. READ….
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