The Celtics lost to the Clippers (in LA) by 29 points lastnight. The truth is this isn’t as newsworthy as we want it to be. The Celtics
are a .500 team with a slightly worse than middling offense (18th in
Hollinger’s PER), a slightly better than middling defense (11th in
Hollinger’s PER), and a “can I get that sandwich without rebounds?” aversion to
rebounds (29th in Rebound Rate, better than only Dirk-less Dallas to
this point). To make mediocre worse, last night’s game followed a cross-country
flight on the day after Christmas, a holiday in which Kevin Garnett and Paul
Pierce competed to out-spoil their grandchildren. Not a winning recipe.
On the flip side, the Clippers are 16 games over .500 (now
winners of 15 in a row) with a demonstrably excellent offense (4th
in Hollinger’s PER), an even more excellent defense (2nd in
Hollinger’s PER), and a “can I get that sandwich with a side of dunks?” love of
dunks (2 of the NBA’s top 5 dunkers). Plus, this game was at home two days
after Christmas, which the team celebrated by wrapping and unwrapping
Chris Paul to endless delight. Good times all around in Clipper Land.
Still, let’s see what the box score tells us about this
not-surprising, still-kinda-surprising beat down.
1.
The
Clippers are Straight Up Deep: You can point to the fact that Matt Barnes
and Willie Green combined to go 8 of 13 on threes, but those guys are good
three point shooters. You can point to the fact that Lamar Odom grabbed 13
boards, dropped 5 dimes, and logged 4 blocks in 29 minutes, but when Lamar Odom
isn’t fat and lives near the ocean, that’s the kind of thing he does. You can
even point to Eric Bledsoe going Danny Ocean with 6 steals in 19 minutes, but
Eric Bledsoe is really, really good at stealing basketballs, so….the Clippers
are just deep.
2.
Poor
Sully: Jared, I love ya. You’re an Ohio guy and all Buckeye, all the way.
But last night was a nightmare matchup for you and it showed. Fouling out in 18
minutes?? C’mon bro. I know Blake, DeAndre and Lamar present “athletic
challenges” for you on defense, but it sounds to me like every time they ran
away from you, you wrapped your arms around them and held on for dear life.
This portends bad things for your future.
3.
The
Unique Terribleness of Jason Collins: Mark Titus has popularized the notion
of the Club Trillion stat line: 1 minute played, no other stats registered (12
zeroes behind the one). This has become the height of basketball irrelevance.
But, last night, Jason Collins introduced us to something much worse: The
17,000,001,000,003 Club! You read that right, folks! Last night, Jason Collins
played 17 minutes of an NBA basketball game, failed to take a shot, dish an
assist, grab a steal, or, for that matter, do anything of statistical note,
aside from stumbling into a single measly rebound and clumsily handing out
three fouls. Congratulations, Jason, you are the worst!
