Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Moving on, speaking of the Clippers, we got a special guest,
Speaker 2: law Murray from The Athletic joined my other show bet
Speaker 2: MGM The Night to talk all things Clippers. I was
Speaker 2: joined by my co host Ryan Horbaugh and Nick Ashu.
Speaker 2: So let's jump right into it, all right.
Speaker 1: Lawrence Murray covers the Clippers in the NBA for The Athletic.
Speaker 1: He jumps on with us, Now, what you were supposed
Speaker 1: to see Draymond Green in the Warriors tomorrow night against
Speaker 1: the Clippers, and now we're not gonna see that for
Speaker 1: who knows how long? Your thoughts on the suspension and
Speaker 1: where we are now, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I knew that wasn't happening. At halftime, my guy shows
Speaker 3: me his phone.
Speaker 4: It's like, Draymond ain't gonna be here Thursday night.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I didn't see it, Like I knew that
Speaker 3: it was some people were talking about, but I hadn't
Speaker 3: seen the clip.
Speaker 4: And then I seen the clip and I'm like, my
Speaker 4: guys got more finishing moves and you'll see in a
Speaker 4: royal rumble these days, man like he's.
Speaker 3: Got the closed line, you got the herd stop in
Speaker 3: the playoffs. What's the bonus they show Cole haul it
Speaker 3: off and punch you pull. That was not you know,
Speaker 3: not even what fourteen months ago, and it's it's a
Speaker 3: you know, it's not good that that's what we're talking
Speaker 3: about with Draymond, Like he's he's a he's a future
Speaker 3: Hall of Famer. But now you know, in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: going into possibly twenty twenty four, we're going to be
Speaker 3: talking about like another multi game suspension. So it's unfortunate
Speaker 3: for him, it's unfortunate for the Wars, and hopefully this
Speaker 3: particular suspension is something that gets him to stop getting suspended.
Speaker 3: Like when you get definitely suspended, it's not even like
Speaker 3: you can't even put a timeline on It is way
Speaker 3: bigger than basketball. And unlike most dudes who get and
Speaker 3: definitely suspend it, this happened on the basketball court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that Ja Morant. It feels like the first suspension
Speaker 2: for Ja Morant where they wanted to get it sorted
Speaker 2: out when he ended up going to his own counseling sessions.
Speaker 2: Never mind the fact that we've been I don't know
Speaker 2: since June since he stomped on Sabonus's chest and then
Speaker 2: like less than a month since he's choked out Rudy Gobert.
Speaker 2: So the Draymond incidents have piled up more than just
Speaker 2: the Jordan Poole. I want to talk about some stuff
Speaker 2: that's good though, because all of a sudden, what has
Speaker 2: happened since Russell Westbrook has decided to be the sacrificial
Speaker 2: lamb and go to the bench. This team is what
Speaker 2: ten and three? How good? How optimistic are we feeling
Speaker 2: about our clips right now?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, my reporting was different from everybody else's.
Speaker 3: So my line was not that this was Russ's decision.
Speaker 3: I termed it as a team decision, one that Russ
Speaker 3: had to go with because what leverage did anyone have
Speaker 3: in a situation where they were losing? You know, they
Speaker 3: had a six game losing streak. They were three and
Speaker 3: seven alone in twelfth place in the Western Conference. But
Speaker 3: Russell has played his role, which is as this team
Speaker 3: second point guard, and the key is having James Harden
Speaker 3: as the main point guard.
Speaker 4: It has allowed for.
Speaker 3: Everybody, especially James, to understand what their roles are, to
Speaker 3: understand what they have to do in certain lineups. And
Speaker 3: the Clippers aren't really throwing out a whole lot of
Speaker 3: crazy lineups, like they're actually a pretty streamlined team right
Speaker 3: now in terms of what everyone is being asked to do,
Speaker 3: and everyone's had a moment like James that first win
Speaker 3: to start this stretch of ten wins at their last
Speaker 3: thirteen was a four point play.
Speaker 4: Against a team that we thought he was going to.
Speaker 3: Sign with in the Houston Rockets, And you saw Paul
Speaker 3: George play some of like he's. I feel like Paul's
Speaker 3: always gotten off to great starts over these last few seasons.
Speaker 4: It's just a matter of his body holding up.
Speaker 3: And ironically, his body is going through some things right now.
Speaker 3: He may or may not play tomorrow against the Words. However,
Speaker 3: Paul's lably been the best player over the course of
Speaker 3: this entire season, even when they were losing six in
Speaker 3: a row, Like Paul was suggressively good on both ends
Speaker 3: of the floor, but especially offensively. But now what you're
Speaker 3: seeing this month of December is Kawhi Leonards turning up.
Speaker 3: Kawhi is not only playing in all of these games,
Speaker 3: but now he's starting to really cook teams. He's understanding
Speaker 3: where he's going to have his opportunities, and he is lethal.
Speaker 3: Unlike a lot of the superstars who come into the league.
Speaker 3: Kawhi and Paul are guys who they had the ball
Speaker 3: out of their hands and they had to be two
Speaker 3: way players before getting their opportunity to dominate the basketball.
Speaker 3: And then when they got to the Clippers, they were
Speaker 3: asked to increase their playmaking for their teammates. Now you're
Speaker 3: getting the best of all three of those worlds. You're
Speaker 3: still asking those guys to be top level defenders, and
Speaker 3: it helps that those guys can run a pick and
Speaker 3: roll and make the right passes.
Speaker 4: But now that you're playing with.
Speaker 3: James so much, you are allowing those guys to get
Speaker 3: catches in spots where they can be efficient with their offense.
Speaker 4: And you're seeing all of that come to the right now.
Speaker 5: And Lawrence, for the third consecutive season, I did buy
Speaker 5: into the Clippers.
Speaker 1: I'm a believer, and they made it.
Speaker 5: A whole twenty two games this season without an injury
Speaker 5: to Kawi or Paul George, like you said, he missed
Speaker 5: the second half. He's got some groin soreness they're calling it.
Speaker 5: And I just look at this week, this stretch, they
Speaker 5: got four games I believe in six nights, Blazers, Kings, Warriors, Knicks,
Speaker 5: and then after that like Pacers, MAVs, Thunder and like
Speaker 5: you said, they're figuring some things out right now with Kawhi,
Speaker 5: you know, with Russ coming off the bench and with
Speaker 5: Harden coming over. Does that concern you at all if
Speaker 5: he does have to miss some time, you know, just
Speaker 5: maybe like a little bit of a setback, and does
Speaker 5: he miss any time?
Speaker 3: I hope he honestly, I hope that the Clippers are
Speaker 3: smart and does not have him play through soft tissue
Speaker 3: stuff like something that might cost you a game or two.
Speaker 3: You don't want it to wind up costing a week
Speaker 3: or two because you're trying to prove something. I saw
Speaker 3: that last season. That's the thing that trip me up.
Speaker 3: I'm with this team all the damn time, and guys
Speaker 3: are talking about how dudes is just sitting out because
Speaker 3: they want to know. I saw dudes play when they
Speaker 3: shouldn't have. That's what we saw in Denver January, first
Speaker 3: week of January.
Speaker 4: They go there, it's today. I always remember because.
Speaker 3: It was my birthday and it stopped being my birthdays
Speaker 3: soon as that game started. Paul had a bad hamstring
Speaker 3: and decided and the team let him play like he
Speaker 3: was allowed to play it, I knew he wasn't right immediately,
Speaker 3: like a guy who is pretty good in the paint.
Speaker 4: Everything was outside of the paint, jump shots, short, not.
Speaker 3: Getting, not playing the type of game that you would
Speaker 3: play if he was healthy, And they were down thirty
Speaker 3: five at halftime, and of course we didn't see Paul
Speaker 3: again for two weeks, and he didn't play the second
Speaker 3: night of it back again until after the all start break.
Speaker 3: That's the kind of thing where it's like, Okay, you
Speaker 3: gotta be smart, But then we're seeing a team that
Speaker 3: is pushing each other, pushing themselves to play all these
Speaker 3: games high minutes and because they have to. So the
Speaker 3: concern now is can everybody adjust to doing a little
Speaker 3: bit more. Can guys who aren't playing and play competently,
Speaker 3: Can guys like Norman Powell or I'm not even sure
Speaker 3: how they would handle who would start, because we haven't
Speaker 3: seen it yet this season.
Speaker 4: It could be normal. They could be someone like a
Speaker 4: mere Coffee who.
Speaker 3: Right now out of the playing rotation, but someone who,
Speaker 3: if you look back at previous seasons, has been able
Speaker 3: to start and fill in, especially for Paul George. So
Speaker 3: I feel like because everyone else is playing so well,
Speaker 3: and these guys are talented players. These guys are guys
Speaker 3: who've been practicing and been on this team for years.
Speaker 3: It's not going to be that big of an adjustment. Obviously,
Speaker 3: you're not going to be as talented. But the cohesiveness
Speaker 3: is what matters in the basketball game, and I think
Speaker 3: it would help the Clippers to see what that looks
Speaker 3: like in December now that they have a little bit
Speaker 3: of a cushion or five hundred, not much though there's
Speaker 3: so only seventh in the West.
Speaker 2: I wanted to follow up on that point about guys
Speaker 2: playing through or deciding they wanted to push do tweaks
Speaker 2: and being banged up, Like, who's responsible for that change
Speaker 2: happening this season.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to put it on the NBA's player
Speaker 3: participace policy, that's for sure. I think that guys were
Speaker 3: I think last year was a year he probably could
Speaker 3: have taken for granted. I think when the season began
Speaker 3: last year, it was like, oh, Kawhi Leonards back from
Speaker 3: an ACL and Paul you know, after missing three months
Speaker 3: with and torn linkman and his elbow. You were thinking
Speaker 3: add that to a team that finished with a winning
Speaker 3: record and you could see how everyone thought they'd be
Speaker 3: a top five team easily. We learned a lot about
Speaker 3: how injuries in age, not just of the stars, but
Speaker 3: of the supporting cast can cause a team to decline.
Speaker 3: And that's what you saw last year. By the end
Speaker 3: of the year, the approach that the team took just
Speaker 3: for guys to get hurt any damn way, it really
Speaker 3: lit a fire up under everybody.
Speaker 4: But the other thing.
Speaker 3: Is, look at the contracts. Contracts speak for themselves. No
Speaker 3: one's guaranteed to be on this team again next year.
Speaker 4: You don't want to lead this season.
Speaker 3: Would regrets the whole Service had a great line in
Speaker 3: one of those songs. You know, I'd rather regret something
Speaker 3: that didn't regret something that didn't do. And what this
Speaker 3: team is doing is saying, you know what, we need
Speaker 3: to take the regular season seriously. But it's not a
Speaker 3: matter of, you know, guys having an attitude going into
Speaker 3: games that they weren't trying hard. It's a matter of
Speaker 3: you have a medical stat that's trying to protect injury
Speaker 3: prone players. But now the approach is to not, you know,
Speaker 3: put everything into protecting guys over a long term that
Speaker 3: isn't guaranteed instead play guys can help them sustain over
Speaker 3: the course of the year while they're playing back to backs,
Speaker 3: while they're playing instead of thirty minutes, thirty five minutes
Speaker 3: per game. And it's because this is the last real
Speaker 3: shot that this team might have with these group of
Speaker 3: guys being together. It's really as simple as that.
Speaker 1: Talking to Lawrence mury Bet MGM tonight, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the Western Conference standings now, and I know, like it's
Speaker 1: a long season. We're twenty two to twenty three games
Speaker 1: in for most of these teams. We got the Timberwolves
Speaker 1: at seventeen and five, the th Under at fifteen and seven,
Speaker 1: and then the MAVs at fifteen and eight. With the
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets sitting there in the four spot, I know,
Speaker 1: a long way to go. When you look at some
Speaker 1: of these younger teams, these up and coming teams, we
Speaker 1: all kind of sat here and agreed, the Thunder we're
Speaker 1: gonna take that next step. I didn't really expect him
Speaker 1: to be like a two seed when the season was done.
Speaker 1: But again, long season ago. If you look at the Timberwolves,
Speaker 1: the Thunder and even the MAVs, do you see all
Speaker 1: or even one of them kind of sustaining this type
Speaker 1: of momentum throughout the season.
Speaker 3: Not really, Wow, that's that's that's no disrespect to these teams. Look, man,
Speaker 3: at this time last year, December of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: we were looking at teams like Phoenix and the New
Speaker 3: Orleans Pelicans at the.
Speaker 4: Top of the West.
Speaker 3: Okay, tim, what happened to Phoenix? Yeah, like Utah had
Speaker 3: Mike Conley. You know who has Mike Conley now? The
Speaker 3: number one team in the conference, Minnesota Timberwolves, a team
Speaker 3: that I would not consider to be a young, up
Speaker 3: and coming team.
Speaker 4: Them dudes is pretty damn old.
Speaker 3: Not old as in you know Clippers old, but like
Speaker 3: those guys are established NBA players and talents outside of
Speaker 3: maybe Anthony Edwards, Like Anthony is the base of that
Speaker 3: team now, but Carl Anthony Towns is the guy who
Speaker 3: he's been around long enough to be the face and
Speaker 3: to kind of pass that along the end. Rudy Gobert
Speaker 3: is a guy who he's on the other side of
Speaker 3: thirty now. Mike Conley is in the twilight of his career,
Speaker 3: but he's still playing at a high level and has
Speaker 3: a lot to do with why.
Speaker 4: That team is so organized, like you saw it with
Speaker 4: the Utah.
Speaker 3: Jaz when they stopped being competitive once they made that
Speaker 3: trade with Minnesota. This is the Minnesota team that could
Speaker 3: have been. We could have seen this team last year,
Speaker 3: except Rudy didn't have his stuff together in his first
Speaker 3: year there. It took mid season to get the right
Speaker 3: point guard to be there in Mike Conley. He's a
Speaker 3: much better fit for those guys than d Low and
Speaker 3: was great, but Carl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 4: Was hurt pretty much the whole year.
Speaker 3: You're seeing a team that went through a lot of
Speaker 3: struggles and now they're coming together. I love what they're doing,
Speaker 3: but it's also like you take one or two of
Speaker 3: those guys out and you know they have some their
Speaker 3: ability issues. They're not deep at all, and that's the
Speaker 3: result of the Rudy gobertrade. We saw that last year.
Speaker 3: Hopefully that we don't have to see that this year.
Speaker 3: But that's what you have to guard for you O KC.
Speaker 4: Thunder.
Speaker 3: They're just young and they're doing great, but we got
Speaker 3: to see it over the course of a full season.
Speaker 3: So we'll give them credit for what they're doing now,
Speaker 3: and we know it's a long season.
Speaker 4: It's hard, So shout out to the Shout out to
Speaker 4: those dudes. And for Dallas, it's the same thing.
Speaker 3: Luca was playing great this time last year. He was
Speaker 3: coming up with fifty point games, sixty point games, and
Speaker 3: then in celebrations after some of the stuff that he
Speaker 3: was doing, like when he beat the Knicks off of
Speaker 3: that free throw, misterthrow, they go as far as Luca
Speaker 3: goes and relying on Kyrie Irving.
Speaker 4: Kyrie's already hurt, so we got to see it.
Speaker 2: Lauren's about thirty seconds. How sustainable is this performance that
Speaker 2: we're seeing lately from Harden.
Speaker 3: I think there's pretty damn sustainable. He's not doing anything
Speaker 3: too complicated. He's just kind of playing basketball. Set the screen,
Speaker 3: We're gonna make some decisions.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 1: You know what if they got if they can keep
Speaker 1: this going, Star, I will listen. I want to see
Speaker 1: the Clippers make a run again. They made the Western
Speaker 1: Conference finals and they actually kept that roster healthy a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. I mean, it would be it
Speaker 1: would be fun to watch them over the Lakers for
Speaker 1: a change. Lawrence Murray the athletic, great talking you man,
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on again.
Speaker 4: Appreciate y'all.
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