Not All Was Lost In The Clippers First Loss Of The Season

Let's say what it is, the Clippers just lost a close, hard fought game not only against the defending champions, but against the team that is EASILY playing the best basketball in the entire league to this point. Unfortunately that team just happens to be their rival from up North, but strictly from a basketball standpoint, there is no shame in tonight's result. There are a lot of positives to take away from this game. For one, the Warriors needed extraordinary 4th quarter three point shooting from Steph Curry to pull it out. The bad news about that is extraordinary 4th quarter three point shooting has become something of a certainty for Steph Curry, but I digress. The Clippers overcame a first half that can only be described as disjointed, and even that is probably an understatement. Their unpredictable second unit went from hard-to-watch to game saving in the 3rd quarter when they brought the team back as Chris Paul sat down with foul trouble. That is encouraging for a group that was so overly dependent on their starters last year. This team, which has only 5 games experience with each other, showed what they are capable of when they are hitting on all cylinders. 

@TEN000HOURS wide open Blake pic.twitter.com/5qrcI2nq1z

— Fher McClane (@fernandocortez1) November 5, 2015

The one negative to take from the final outcome is a problem that persists from last year. This team's offense runs hot and cold, and far too often it's running cold when the game is on the line. Far too often they go from looking like a well oiled machine for a majority of the game to looking out of sorts when the pressure gets turned up a notch. First it was Blake falling down on a play he makes in his sleep, and then it was Chris Paul failing to find Blake wide open under the basket which led to an low percentage three point attempt. The backups are still coming around and developing chemistry, but the core of this team has been together long enough that there shouldn't be a distinct drop off in the quality of play late in games. At the end of the day, it's just one loss, and it's one loss for which there was a lot to be happy about. Clippers fans should be disappointed because of who it came against, but they shouldn't overreact to how it came about. If anything this shows that an improving Clippers team would make a hell of a playoff matchup for the defending champs, but I'll stop short of saying they were "lucky" to avoid that last year. We all know how sensitive the Warriors can get. Until next time...