Thanksgiving Night: Kings hosts the LA Clippers
The Los Angeles Clippers will come face to face with the Sacramento Kings at the famous Staples Centre tonight. It’s going to be thanksgiving night when the Clippers will host the Kings who have lost eight of nine matches even after the best start they gave
in seven years.
Clippers cling to hope
The Los Angeles Clippers can float on some clouds of hope as they clinched a recent victory against the New Orleans Hornets 99-95 on Monday. This season was their worst start ever since they had a tie and the worst record 0-17 in the beginning of 1998-99.
Eric Gordon had scored 27 points, as rookie Blake Griffin complemented the score with his eighth double-double as he had 24 points and 13 rebounds. This was their first victory ever since they beat the Oklahoma City Thunders 107-92 on 3rd November.
Optimism, it is
“We won this game against a good team, so that makes it even better,” Gordon who scored his career best 23.6 points per game on Monday said. “The chemistry is getting a little better, and we're moving the ball a little bit better. That's giving
us a good feel for the game, and guys are knocking down shots.” He exclaimed.
The Clippers have been shooting 52.6 percent from the field in the last two games, the Kings (4-9) are far behind with their 37.2 percent hitting in their last two matches. The Kings missed 11 out of 16 attempts at 3-points and shot their season low 35.8
percent (29 of 81) in a loss at Utah Jazz on Monday. The Kings played awfully in the second quarter and that’s when the lead changed and jumped for Utah Jazz.
Kings oblivious to their shooting and defence
The Kings were not in the least favour of playing a good game for and were being very lazy in shooting and also in defending themselves. This was evident as they shot just 4 for 22 in the second quarter. Jason Williams was not his usual self as he missed
six of his seven shots and was among the weakest players that night.
“We had some players playing defence tonight that will give us a chance to build something good with this team- when we start making shots, we’ll have some wins to show for it,” said the Kings coach Paul Westphal.
The Kings had a score of 108.8 points per game in their 3-1 start but after that their shooting started declining nearly 19 per game during their 1-8 stretch.
The leading scorer of Sacramento team Tyreke Evans has scored 20 points on a 7 of 24 shooting in the past two games.
“For me, I need to pick up more offense, be more aggressive,” he remarked.
In the last season rookie of the year Evans averaged 23.7 points in total three games against the Clippers.
Match-ups
Westphal is going to match up Evans against the tough Gordon. Samuel Dalembert, Carl Landry and Donte Green will have to suffer Griffin. Griffin is one of the four players having an average of at least 18.0 points and 11.0 rebounds.
Chris Kaman has not been showing up in the last seven games due to a sprained left ankle and Griffin has nicely covered up the place of the All Star centre. Despite his performance the top pick from last year’s draft is not happy with his 55.0 percent free
throw shooting.
Overview
The Clippers had won three consecutive games during 20-24 Feb. They haven’t been that impressive after that as they have lost three straight and seven out of nine games against the Kings.
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