With one of the best formations in the NBA, the Los Angeles Clippers are considered by many foreign media and by gambling as the favorites to win the championship, and doubts are indispensable. For example, two stars with a rich injury history, can Kawhi Leonard finish the season healthy? Some people also think the Clippers are missing a center and it may be difficult to compete with the Gold Nuggets, Timberwolves and other teams in the playoffs. The Clippers have achieved 2 wins and 2 losses in the first 4 games of the season. The mediocre report card has bad game content, many mistakes and singles. Faced with Thunder and the Sun, they all lost to great scores. Unexpected.
Rehabilitation, run-in on the road
While many fans are being ridiculed for “taking a break”, the Clippers’ stars are truly vulnerable. In particular, Kawhi, who returned to the field after a one-season violation, adopted an extremely conservative attitude and dared not be negligent: facing the Thunder only for the pain before the game, even if he expressed his willingness to play, the he was however asked to rest for two games. The only two games so far have been off the bench, averaging just 21 minutes per game. According to Kawhi’s interview with the media, he suggested starting off the bench to ensure that playing time is continuous rather than dispersed, which is more suited to adjusting the state. The doctor also suggested that the ACL injury should be gradual. As for the new addition of former ball control star John Wall, he also has strict control of playing time, averaging 20 minutes per game.
Looking at the actual 2 games, Kawhi still made a huge contribution in the short playtime. At the last moment of the battle with the Lakers, he relied on his continued scoring in attack and defense to stabilize his position, but he didn’t have as much connection with his teammates, nor too much. After having tried various locations for a long time, the “Five forwards” that appeared at the beginning of the season have not yet been brought out. Kawhi is now more like a high-level individual soldier. He can run more actively than in warm-up games. Once the ball is in control, he can have above average offensive and defensive performances, but it will take a long time to be able to play more than 30 minutes.
“Break-in” isPre-Seasonal AnalysisThe expected question, coach Ty Lue has started experimenting with training from the warm-up game and has not yet had the best answer. There are no large-scale changes in the Clippers in the book, and Major General Kawhi, who has returned from injury, and the newly merged Wall are actually introduced. Additionally, Robert Covington and Norman Powell both joined the team in the second half of 2021-22 They have little cooperation in combat with their second brother Paul George and have never played in the Clippers system with Kawhi. Furthermore, after Serge Ibaka and Isaiah Hartenstein have left the team one after another, the Clippers have yet to find a suitable reserve center, and are forced to play only small ball formations in all of Ivica Zubac’s rest periods, which has never been seen in the regular seasons of the last challenge seasons.
Since John Wall and Kawhi both have “load management”, the speedboat cannot shut down the main formation for a long time and the break-in progress may not be too fast, it will be a long process. In the first 4 games, the most impressive tragedy was the double guard combination of Reggie Jackson and Powell, with a combined net efficiency value of -26.4 in 70 minutes, which is now used frequently (the standard of screening is approximately set at 40 minutes) The worst group in the mix. I personally blame him for two reasons. One is that the players themselves have not yet entered the state. In addition to the unsatisfactory shot selection, Powell has a very low understanding of the gap. The 8.3% three-point line shooting rate is still in need of warming up match after match, it’s a great opportunity for the team’s offensive system.
What about Powell’s gap?
The Clippers started the season with the sixth-best defensive score in the league, but only recorded an offensive score of 100, the penultimate in the league. The line-up is more complete than last season, why is it still scarce? There are several key points to watch out for: one is the reduction of passing, the lack of ball flow, the lack of decisive tactical execution, and the lack of focus of the attack. attack time, but the four people not holding the ball have stopped running, each standing in a corner watching the individual show. In the 2020-21 season, when Double Star was in good health, the Clippers averaged 281 passes per game, ranking 18th in the league. In the same bad offense last season, they dropped to 276.6, ranking 23rd in the league with an average of 276.8 passes per game He was even lower, finishing 26th in the league just 262 times.
Powell said on preseason media day that with the addition of Wall and the return of Kawhi, he and Luke Kennard would have a lot of open perimeters, which apparently haven’t come true yet. And in case of insufficient offensive flow, the two main shooters became the biggest victims. The former is the most famous weapon of the Clippers in the past in the 2020-21 season, the “three corner strikers”, which this season has completely disappeared. At the time the shots were 10.2, the second in the league, and the percentage of shots reached 47.1%. Now there are only 5 shots per game. The 20% hit rate is the third worst in the league.
Looking back on Powell’s 34-point blast in the warm-up match, I manually calculated that 7 goals were assisted by teammates and many of them were thrown from corners, whether it was a triple in open space or a center – distance shot that threw the defender away. , the opening season turned into a large number of singles scenes. Kennard’s victimization is even higher, dropping 3.8 three-point per game from 6 last season, although Ty Lue uses him as a pick-and-roll selector, unexpectedly showing very different offensive use of Kennard, but as the best player in the league. he can’t get comfortable shooting space, and there are many scenes where he cuts himself with the ball. It’s not hard to imagine how bad the Clippers’ offensive system is in these 4 games. Just 50% of Kennard’s offensive possessions were under 2 seconds in the first four games, up from 68.7% last season.
