2015 Playoffs: (2) Houston vs. (3) LA Clippers

Who'd thought all series would be tied up at 1 apiece. Insanely fun 2nd round.

Kinda surprised the Clippers still hung around till the last minute without CP3.

Damn, the Clips were well on their way to taking 2 games in Houston, but Blake was not aggressive in looking for his shot in the 2nd half and the Clips wound up with a lot of low percentage Crawford jumpers as a result.

The Cilppers seem to have no problem scoring against Rockets D. I mean Rivers and Redick look like superstars out there. 3rd quarter was all theirs.

To be fair Reddick is a proven role player who doesn't overplay posessions like Rivers. One game fluke for him.

Blake really elevated his game in the Playoffs so far.

Them vs. The Warriors would be a perfect culmination to their rivalry.

McHale's a disappointment. Thought he'd have his team playing better defense by now. Get Harden to play some D too, do whatever you need as a coach to motivate him on D. This is just a disaster. How do you fail this bad defensively with players like Dwight, Josh, Ariza, etc. Perhaps they miss Beverley, cmon, that's not good enuf of excuse.

McHale's a disappointment. Thought he'd have his team playing better defense by now. Get Harden to play some D too, do whatever you need as a coach to motivate him on D. This is just a disaster. How do you fail this bad defensively with players like Dwight, Josh, Ariza, etc. Perhaps they miss Beverley, cmon, that's not good enuf of excuse.

Not to say McHale doesn't share in the blame or that he's the best coach in the league, or couldn't be doing more, or whatever, but how much blame can fairly be placed on him? I mean, he can harp on it until he's blue in the face, but if players like Harden don't want to put in the effort, that's on them at the end of the day. You can't really sit half the team to make a point, and even if we're just talking about Harden in particular, he's too talented and important at the offensive end to bench him in the name of punishing him into making more of an effort.

At this point, you do wonder whether Harden will ever make the effort, or whether - to paraphrase Jeff Van Gundy - he'll remain a player that has the tools and capability to play good defense, but instead be a "disinterested defender".

That's the thing. He doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on his high caliber players. (nor has his rotations been exceptional, what's he been good at all along)

We can blame individual player's effort but it's pretty clear that they do have tools to be pretty solid on defense as is. Now you as a coach need to put it together and make it work. I don't care if you gotta have Phil to Kobe like relationship, just do whatever it needs to be done on that end of the floor. Kevin McFail has failed last couple seasons and is once again a failure unless gets out of 2nd round imho. He's likely to be fired too for that.

Sure, but you can't get blood from a stone (or a turnip, as Krusty the Clown once put it). If Pops or Thibbs were coaching Harden, would it be any different? I'm not sure that it would; I get the impression that Harden's always going to be the offensive star whose teammates will have to cover for defensively.

I think Pop or Thibbs would have been able to implement better defensive system despite having Harden's motivation or not.

McFail's just not a good coach Andrew. In fact he's been quite often discussed as one of the worst in the league in recent years.

Oh, I'm not saying that he's a great coach, or that the Rockets can't do better. I'm just sceptical that anyone can get through to Harden and get him interested in living up to his potential as a defender.

Yeah, I didn't give the Clippers nearly enough credit, injury to CP3 or not.

Clippers are just destroying the Rockets.

not gonna lie im really impressed with the way the Clippers have been playing this post-season,they're controlling the tempo of the game and everyone is contributing its a beautiful thing to see.

Yeah, I didn't give the Clippers nearly enough credit, injury to CP3 or not.

Same here. Even without CP3, the Clippers just looked like a better team in game 1 and some parts throughout the series.

It's also that I gave Rockets much credits since they convincingly beat the Dirkvericks while CP3 barely survived the Spurs.

Meanwhile, DeAndre Jordan goes 14/34 from the foul line, thanks to the Hack-a-(Poor Free Throw Shooter) strategy.

To continue the harden discussion, I feel like he'll be the next melo. Somebody who's content with scoring a ton of points and making a ton of money but not much else

He is certainly going that way. But he's only 25, there's a lot of things that could happen.

Shhhhh. Just close your eyes. It will all be over soon.

I just don't know what's happening on the Rockets after halftime. These games are pretty close at the half.

Blake really elevated his game in the Playoffs so far.

IMO, that's the biggest reason for the Clippers solid playoff run so far.

Harden doesn't seem to play with fire. Always seems to have an uncaring demeanor. Also doesn't help that he is a blame shifter like Dwight Howard.

Doc Rivers showing why he was able to coach grown men to championships.

Or the Rockets are just that pathetic.

I am kinda shocked at how they are playing so well because I thought the Clippers' lack of depth would be their downfall. Glen Davis, Turkglu, Rivers, lol, not ideal players you want to see playing on a championship team.

But it looks like there's great chemistry in this team. But this Clippers is still 3 star led team and heavily reliant on them. DeAndre stepped up his game this year, Griffin has turned up the gear in the playoffs, CP3 is CP3. Let's see how far they take this team.

Shhhhh. Just close your eyes. It will all be over soon.

where's that rocket and explosion emoji??

Seriously, you people shouldn't be surprised. Everyone knew the Spurs would be a bigger challenge than the rockets

Can we post emojis here?
Meanwhile, Dwight having fun in LA.

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