Los Angeles Clippers to try their luck at home against in-form San Antonio Spurs
The Los Angeles Clippers are not in a mood to go down that easy. With Blake Griffin at their side they will fight back hard to beat San Antonio Spurs in Monday night matchup.
What makes this scenario difficult is the outstanding record of the Spurs’ against the Clippers. The Spurs have beaten the Clippers 24 times in their last 25 meetings that include last 16 straight wins. Blake Griffin is supposed
to change a lot of that in the court today.
Spurs have an exemplary stability in the NBA. A team built around a star like Tim Duncan with a dominating coach Gregg Popovich can surely prove its worth against any team in the NBA. The recent signing of Point Guard Tony Parker
for an astonishing 50 million dollars and the expertise of Shooting Guard Emanuel Ginobili makes the team even more invulnerable.
The major challenge for Spurs in this game will be the way they defend Blake Griffin. However, they already seem to have got that under control with the help of Tim Duncan, Antonio McDyess and DeJuan Blair. Tony Parker is going
to bring trouble on the court for a supposedly non-existent Clippers defence. Griffin can try his best from the bottom of the standings but so far the responsibility has been too much for him to handle. The Clippers lack a lot of good players and their weak
defence tells the rest of the story. They rank at 30th place in the NBA in terms of points per game and Spurs will love to see them keep those statistics intact.
With their excellent record against the Clippers, Spurs had no problem whatsoever beating the Clippers by large margins last season. The fans are taking this game as more of a Tim Duncan versus Blake Griffin instead of Spurs meeting
the Clippers. The Clippers are working hard to avoid a third 0-4 win-loss start in NBA.
Spurs are the confident ones here considering they haven’t lost to the Clippers since March 2006. Duncan has shown some of his best efforts against the Clippers so far but Popovich has already reduced his minutes to give him some
extra rest. The proposed matchup between the 21 year old Griffin and the 34 year old Duncan seems like a farfetched idea since Griffin is almost 12 years younger to Duncan in the NBA and certainly needs some time to matchup to the experience. With his 16 points
and 9 rebounds in Sunday’s 99-83 points loss to Dallas Mavericks, Griffin looked in good shape. He was also Clippers’ leading scorer as the Backcourt, Baron Davis and Eric Gordon, combined for a desperate 16 points.
Clippers are considered the worst shooting team due to their average of 37.7 percent and their offence is not the best of their weapons. Even their coach Vinny Del Negro knows where the problem lies but somehow has not been able
to remove it. In his post match statement he said, "Our tempo has to pick up. I don't like our tempo right now."
In contrast Spurs have been one of the best defensive teams in the NBA with Duncan onboard. Strangely enough, even with their excellent track record in defence they have not been at their best since the start of this season. They
allowed their opponents almost 50 percent shooting in their opening games which is not convincing enough. Duncan scored seven points and seven rebounds while Tony Parker had 13 points and 4 assists in the game. The performance was not good enough for the coach
who kept them on benches for most of the fourth quarter.
Emanuel Ginobili, who scored 23 points for his team that night, knew that his best teammates matter a lot. He said, "In 82 games, sometimes you are going to have a night off where the second unit comes in, plays better and pop
adjusts and sticks with it. What made it tough was that it was both Tim and Tony out."
All eyes will be on Los Angeles Clippers this evening as they are the underdogs who will be entering the court to prove a point. The home crowd support will be a certain advantage for them, but the visitors are proven champions
in road games so a good game is expected to hit the courts Monday night.
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