Clippers outduel the Wizards 110-93

was feeling the same way. Not gonna be overly harsh. This is not going to define their season. It is still a victory. Bad teams be good teams pretty much every night in the NBA. It happens. I just didn't feel like the Clippers won this game as much as the Washington Wizards just lost it. Because they're the worst team in the NBA. They have six victories. They fell to six and thirty seven on the season. They fell

to straight twelve straight losses. This was not as focused of an effort like we saw against Brooklyn recently, where the Clippers won by fifty nine. It's at a franchise record. I wasn't expecting that. But when you're up by twenty two and a half, I'm expecting a thirty point victory, a twenty five point victory. I'm not expecting starters to have to come out back up off the bench cold in the four fourth quarter because it's a twelve point game.

All of a sudden, after Kyle Kuzma hits a three at the seven to forty one mark, did they respond the way you'd like to see them respond. Yes, Norm Powle layup, Norm pow three pointer, beats zubats floater Norman another three. They put them away. They did. They got back up by twenty two within three minutes after it was down to twelve. It's good to see they could

find the gas pedal again when they needed to. I was just a little bit alarmed that they did have to go back to the starters, and starters means no Kawai obviously because he hit twenty four minutes. And yeah, they might have gotten a little bit complacent, as Yannie Tears said in the chat here at Clippers Talk on the YouTube side, they looked a little bit disinterested. You're upe by as many as twenty five in the first half,

twenty seven early in the third quarter. But often what we've seen from this Clippers team is they'll put you away and they will get run for the backups and they will win convincingly handedly. They won't have to get Ooron Powell back out there to play thirty two minutes, or James Harden to play thirty two minutes, or beats the Zubas to play thirty or Dereck Jones Junior, after playing big minutes last night, playing twenty six Mere Coffee, had to play twenty eight. He just played heavy minutes

last night. Wasn't good process by them in the third quarter. To me, it looked like a team that was just trying to get by in the easiest way possible without really running their offense. Ah well, I so we have the better players. I will take some threes and get some kill shot threes up and hopefully put them away without having to go downhill. Ah, we'll cherry pick and get a couple of easy scores that way. That's what

I saw on the third quarter. I didn't see them running their offense, getting into their actions, playing with purpose. That's what I was looking for. The purpose seemed to be, let's just get this over with. Well, they messed around and almost found out it was as close as twelve. It was gonna take somebody getting ridiculously hot for the Wizards, probably, but it wasn't out of reach at the eight minute mark of the fourth. It's the modern NBA that stuff happens.

Probably lucky the Wizards are this bad with how the Clippers played tonight, and they have to play much better in this Aainst Milwaukee on Saturday. They do, they get that victory. Hey, I'll say, what did this game matter? But I still feel like there are opportunities to get better no matter who you're playing, to show some growth, to make progress, to become a little bit more sound with your game plan and how you want to execute, and just continue to build chemistry. I don't know if

they learned a lot tonight. I don't know if they got better. I could be wrong. They come out and slaughter Milwaukee on Saturday night. What did tonight mean? Could have just meant fourth game and five nights. But I have a hard time going there with the excuse when you know I didn't play last game. Narrated to Zubots, Norman Powell, James Harden, Nico. They still don't have Chris Dunn. Okay, I think they had plenty of guys. They had most

of the usuals. I was just hoping to see a more crisp, a more sound beating of the Washington Wizards tonight. And maybe that's getting greedy their professional team, but look, they shot thirty four percent. It's the Clippers offense that I didn't like. It's not that they couldn't execute their offense, because when they needed to that did. I just didn't like seeing them getting away from it throughout most of the second half and just kind of waiting for the

time to run out and going through the motions. I would have rather seen more high pick and roll, more reps there with Zubots and James Harden saw some of the first half beats of Zubots looked really good. A couple of fierce dunks that second quarter. Mobamba going off from three, went three of three. Maybe had his best game as a Clipper thirteen points, four of six, shooting six boards in fifteen minutes. So there's something to take

away from this game. Again, you know, we're here to try to do some analysis postgame and not just say, well, the Clippers won, so everything's great. That'd be a pretty short show. Or last night, oh they lost, everything's bad. No, I saw progress by certain players last night that carried over. Derek Jones Junior got up twenty shots last night. That was the blessing in disguise with all the guys out. He got up twenty shots and went four of seven

from three. After entering that game, he was seven for his last thirty five from the outside. And then tonight, guess what he had nineteen coming off his career high last night with twenty nine. He has nineteen tonight and went three of five from distance to seven of ten from the field, and really he was seven of eight before he had to come back in. He missed a couple of shots. He was three of three from three before he had to come back in. When the game was down to twelve. So that's why I say a

loss isn't a loss, a win isn't a win. You can build bad habits and a victory. You can have some good process and just get beaten a loss, but that good process eventually leads to a win later on. I hope tonight's lost didn't have them picking up any bad habits of coasting. It could have just been a tired team that feels like they've once again got the

short end of the stick with the schedule. And it's the second I have a back to back, a four and five where they did go to and two and they beat the Lakers, and that's all I asked for. When I saw the four and five with the rescheduling, I said to myself, just go to and two with a win against the Lakers and you're good. That's it. And that did happen. So there's a lot of praise

with this team. They're easily overachieving. There's six games over five hundred and they've only had Kawhi Leonard for six games so far. It's incredible. I'm just nitpicking the individual game tonight and saying what I liked, what I didn't, and there was probably more I didn't like, even in a win by seventeen. But overall, I love where this Clippers team is at. I love what we saw at times and spurts from Kawhi tonight. And we'll take a quick time out and we'll go through some of his plays.

We'll get to your phone calls eight sixty six nine eight seven two five seventy, eight sixty six, ninety seven two five seventy, and we'll also hear from coach Louke coming up add into a dumb after the Clippers win one ten to ninety three over the Wizards. I'm at a Mosland and you're listening to the Los Angeles Clippers Audio Network.

was just really good. He knows Kawhi really well from his time with the Lakers. That was the guy they would sick on. Kawhi Leonard long, strong, young player. Now he's twenty eight, twenty nine, still good and defensively seems to get up with the challenge. So Kawhi is getting frustrated and eventually has a dunk that made it twenty

three to twelve in the first quarter. He comes out of the game with the four to forty mark of the first, comes back in the second, starts the second, attacks that close out and gets to his fade away at the dotted line for his second bucket after the dunk in the first. Then he lost the basketball trying to go at Kuzma and Jordan Poole, but they took it away for an easy layup. On the other end, Kawhi has a straightaway three pointer, then misses a fade

away on the right elbow in the second. A Kawhi bad turnover on an inbounds pass that's taken away by Pool who hit a three, and Kawhi kind of put his hand up and acknowledge, Yeah, that's my bad. That is definitely my bad. But he would hit a midi on the far side mid post in the second quarter as well, and then the third Kawhi got a layup right away going right and there was some explosiveness there. He had a dho then from Vitze Zubas doing it again.

There was an early time out taken by the Washington Wizards in that third quarter as the Clippers got up by twenty seven, but Kawhi did have a nice defensive play against Kuzma that was noticeable to me in the third quarter. I think it ended up with Washington getting a tip in anyways, but Kuzma was driving left and Kawhi was all over him. But then he got blocked on a runout where he thought he had an easy one by Kyle Kuzma. Kawai was flexing his hand for

a second. I'm not trying to worry any but he looked to be fine. Afterwards, he would miss a fade away over Kuzma. Then he was short on a three short. On another three, it looked like the Clippers were just cherry picking as Harden found him for a long outlet pass. Who had and then Kawhi had a dump with his left hand. He wasn't getting locked this time. It was a nice play. I need to see the replay of that still, but that's when he reached minute twenty four

for him. That was the end of the ball game. I thought it was a little bit up and down from Kawhi, but there were definitely some good moments, just seeing him dunk the basketball again, because I think that's a confidence thing, just feeling like, Okay, I'm healthy, I'm good. And by the way, as I always tell you, he's a left legged leaper, so he can still get up. All the injuries have happened to his right leg. This

Clipper team, it was in ugly second half. They got out scored by five and I mentioned Kawhi in the third quarter, but some of those shots weren't great process. The Clippers are just one pass possessions, settling saying you go get a bucket, now, you get a bucket. They weren't playing hot potato with a basketball. They weren't going through their offense, and they let Washington back into it. Then to me, because they got up there was a timeout after they scored the first two buckets of the

third immediate timeout. First it was a DJ putback dunk, then that Kawhi layup. Then there's a timeout and Washington refocused a little bit and the Clippers just got sloppy. That's what I saw. We're still looking for Coach lou postgame audio here if you guys liked to get on eight six six ninety eight seven two five to seventy eight six six ninety seven, two five to seventy. I think somebody called in from Chicago a little bit earlier.

Just saw that dunk from Kauhi again with the left hand being the defender to the basket on that long outlet. But that's my problem is it was a lot of cherry picking. Kawhi just hanging around waiting to get a wide open dunk. I will finish him in the lowest effort way possible tonight. That's what it felt like in the third and fourth quarter. We'll we'll get to it, we'll put them away, but we're gonna do it in a low effort fashion. We're not gonna get into our offense.

We're not gonna just keep playing like at zero zero. I thought it was noticeable that the Clippers weren't going as hard in the second half, But maybe some of that is fatigue and I need to give him a break. I'm just looking big picture stuff and how you gotta play now, Mobaba, if you're looking for the bright side and the seventeen point win, I know that's plinty to say he had a three to start the second quarter. He's out there with Kawhi, and I've kind of speculated.

I wonder when Kawhi comes back, is that going to bring out the best of Mobamba? Because they're boys, they're friends. You know that stuff's funny. Sometimes it can work like that. He hits the three to start the second quarter, and he has a big block on Carrington at least to in a mirror three on the other ends. In the second Clippers are up nineteen. Bamba another three off of a shovel pass from Man to make it forty four

to twenty two at the eight minute mark. Man also found him for a dunk underneath the basket in this game, but overall, Mobama finished with thirteen points. In fifteen minutes, four of six, shooting three of three from three. He has been a career thirty six percent three point shooter league average. He has not been that as a Clipper

so far. In fact, coming into this game, as they look up the stats here, because it has been a little bit disappointing with him from beyond the arc of course obligatory low volume numbers here, but coming into this game, he was twelve of forty five from three. So now he is fifteen of forty eight. What's that put him up? So now he's at thirty one percent. One game takes him from twenty seven percent to thirty one percent just going three or three to one ball game, So he

still has time. And after last game, I asked coach Lupe pre game what he saw from Kobe Brown because I thought he played pretty well yesterday against Boston. I did preface the question saying, obviously, Boston's the perfect team for Kobe Brown because they play smaller and have a lot of switchability out there, and Kobe Brown's a versatile defender, or at least he projects to be. I thought he

showed some of that yesterday. I had a good possession against Jayson Tatum defensively really did before that three point made by Jalen Brown. He had to give it up because he couldn't lose Kobe Brown. But I asked him pregame about, you know, Kobe Brown playing the five in training camp and how much of that translated to that game and what he saw against Boston and overall it seemed like he was pleased with its performance. Obviously he

had eleven boards. It's just the outside shooting is not materialized yet with him not in the G League, not the professional level. And we talked about a pregame with Law Murray and this is something I've been thinking about too, but is shooting isn't as necessary when he's playing the five. It'd be nice he'd be a stretch five, but it's really when you're playing the four, because then you're playing

next to a big who likely isn't a shooter. We know beats Zubots isn't, or at least we haven't seen it yet. Never know, but you have to be able to shoot the ball if you're playing next to a beats Zuobots or else you're gonna clog up the paint on the offensive end. I having two guys that to be close to the basket. It may help you on defense,

it's not gonna help you on the offensive end. It may help you with rebounding, it's not going to help you spread the floor and stretch the floor and give the Clippers driving lanes and open looks unless somebody at the four and five can shoot it. So unfortunately, it just hasn't happened so far with Kobe Brown. Law thinks the shot looks a little bit flat, too much like a line drive shot. Not enough arc on Kobe Brown's three pointers, and I think he went like zero three

last night against Boston. But that's something we talked about this when they drafted him. The shooting has to be there from Kobe for him to get minutes, and I think that still is the case. But if he can play some small ball five where at least he can distribute a little bit and get boards and hustle and get put backs at the five, it's not as much of a problem him not shooting it well because there's gonna be somebody at the four who is a good shooter.

The other four guys out there could all be shooters, or at least three of them that's what it's about. So he doesn't play tonight, or he doesn't until very late in the ball game, obviously in consequential garbage time minutes Mobaba plays and that could just be because Jonas Balanceew. This is physical and big and it's a good matchup from and he played well. I just want to see if anything materializes moving forward here with Kobe Brown, because

I thought he looks olid last night against Boston. He played thirty eight minutes, forty minutes. We will see. We'll take a quick time out here. We'll get your phone calls at eight sixty six nine eight seven two five seventy eight sixty six nine eight seven two five seventy. I'm Madam Mosland, and you're listening to Clippers Talk here on MFI seventy LA Sports.

be fine to dunk it. Still, Yeah, it's significant because the last time I believe we saw Kawhi Leonard dunk the basketball, it was Game three in Dallas, off that oop from Paul George in transition where Kawhi to go up and get it, and then he was hanging on the rim because he was afraid of dropping to the floor and the impact that would have on his right knee. He was noticeably hurting that Game three, especially, he was not moving well. He goes up for that dunk, he's

hanging from the rim. That's the significance to me of him dunking for the first time tonight, having that confidence again of the impact of dropping to the floor. He ends up with fifteen points on sixteen shots in twenty four minutes, which is still his minutes limit. I made a prediction in the pregame show or during the broadcast that I think I have no knowledge of this. I'm just guessing. I think there's a chance Kawhi and his minutes go up on Saturday. Now, that's all assuming he

wakes up out of bed tomorrow and feels good. But I wouldn't be surprised by that. If his minutes went up to thirty or twenty eight against Milwaukee and we get Kawhi Leonard in the fourth quarter, I wouldn't be shot by that. But it's just an uneducated prediction. It's just going off of how many games in a row he's been at twenty four minutes now, that's all it is. And it's a big game, and he's been really good

against Johanna in the past defensively. Zoo started the game off in goggles, by the way, that was a subplot to this game. The Zoo vision era was short lived, maybe two minutes. He said enough. He didn't like it, couldn't see out of them. Some guys just hate it. Anthony Davis across town felt the same way, and he's had a couple of different eye injuries and he just it's just as rupts his vision. Can't have it. It's just too unfamiliar. They've been playing basketball one way forever.

They don't want to look through some goggles. Oh L, Frank, what's on the broadcast? I didn't even know. So he was right next to us over here talking with Jim Jackson and Brian Seman. I wasn't paying attention to that. I'm to check that audio post game. I did not know about that. That I record every game and I will be listening to that later. But Ray said, of course, he emphasized the need to get him healthy into the postseason.

Talking about Kawhi. Let's hear from coach lou post game after the Clippers win one, ten to ninety three over the Wizards, peered into it, don't you.

And you know, it doesn't surprise me by him climbing the charts, you know, for as triple doubles. The rebounding a little bit, but you know the system points.

way in the second half. I mean, so, if you want to say I'm being overly harsh, Coach Lou's echoing the same sentiment sentiments it This was the Clippers doing the bare minimum, it felt like at times in the second half to hold on and win this game. That's why I didn't like. That's how I felt about it. And Coach Lou said, sometimes they do get away from what got them that big lead. They stopped playing the right way. Now against Brooklyn, they did it for forty

eight minutes, and that's what can happen. You can beat a team by fifty nine, apparently, lead by as many as sixty four if you play it right for forty eight minutes. I'm not asking that every game, but there were far too many minutes in the second half of this one, where it was just very sloppy basketball, Jonathaning said to credit the Whiz though I was impressed they were prepared for the hardened lobbs of Derek Jones Jr.

They broke up a few of them they did. Let's hear from Mike in LA before we take a time out here. Mike, you're on Clipper stop with out of Mazen by way, I.

twenty one in three minutes. After the starters came back in. They said, okay, let's put it away. So a more serious, professional, focused approach on Saturday night is what we expect against Milwaukee. We'll take a quick time out, we'll come back, we'll close things out here on Clippers stock after they win one ten to ninety three over the Washington Wizards, hear it into a dome on a five seventy La sports.

the second half. Maybe you could say they were playing with their food a little bit. They got lackadaisical out there. I would say they were trying to do the bare minimum to beat this Wizard's team in the second half after leading by twenty two in the first half. And you just don't want to see too many instances like that. That leads to bad habits, that leads to bad patterns and trends out there. Amina Sean said, I thought the second half our offense kind of went cold, was like, well,

why did he go cold? They weren't running their offense. It was just Kawhi is gonna cheer you pick on one end. They'll hoistome threes and if they can build up the lead that way, a lower effort way, they're fine with that. But they weren't going through their actions and playing hard and cutting hard. And I get it, you're playing the worst team in the league, but you want to play the same way no matter who your opponent is. That's the sign of a great team. And

the Clippers have done that at times. They won by fifty nine over Brooklyn, so that's the standard, and they didn't meet it tonight. They still won by seventeen, and they come out and they're fully locked in against Milwaukee on Saturday. It's all good. I'm just telling you what I saw tonight. I don't think what happened tonight is some deep rooted issue with this ball club. It could just be a one off thing. It could just be fourth game, five nights. Saturday night, those their fifth game

and seven nights. Then they'll have six and nine. That

doesn't get much easier this Clippers team. I still am overall vary encouraged with where they're at, of course, and they put themselves in this position because they typically do play for forty eight minutes hard out there, so tonight is definitely the outlier guys, and I think, you know, I don't want to make too much out of this, but not having somebody like Chris Dunn who reinforces how hard you have to play every possession, just like Patrick

Beverley used to. I'm not gonna say that's nothing. I know they had plenty of guys back, everybody butt him, but Chris Dunn is a reminder of their identity. That is a loss not having him tonight. It is hopefully he's back. He's had a knee injury. It's not serious. Coach who said that pregame. Hopefully he's back on Saturday because they could use him against name Dalla in Milwaukee. They haven't played better. I'll do a full preview tomorrow.

What they just laid waste to the Miami Heat. They handled their business tonight in a big way at home against Miami. They get rest off tomorrow. They get the day off tomorrow, just like the Clippers. There's no rest advantage. There's a travel advantage. Clippers aren't going anywhere, but that's a big game on Saturday, a measuring stick type of game. Giannis is one of the best top five players in the NBA and has played at an MVP level this season.

It's just there's other guys whose teams have had more success. Hasn't really been in the conversation or front of mine as much. Jokic, SGA, It's gonna be SGA. But Giannis has been great this season and he's still just thirty, the Greek Creak, not exactly all grown up here. But tomorrow on the show, as I told you, during the break, we're gonna go through Lawrence Frank talking with Brian Semen and Jim Jackson. We'll have that for you at Clipper's Talk.

On the YouTube side is we don't miss any days. Tomorrow is gonna be like one hundred and eleven days straight. We haven't missed a show. This Clippers team. Defensively, guys, they hold a team under one hundred again mentioned it earlier, but fourteenth time this season they've done that. They only did it eleven times all of last year. I'm gonna check to see if they're updated offensive and defensive rating. Is out and it is so they're twenty third offensively

after tonight, there's still second defensively. As the season goes along, obviously we're deeper into the year now and the Clippers have played what forty four games, the numbers fluctuate much less. We've gotten that larger sample size for past the midway point. Now, as for the standings, this Clippers team, I'll give it to you because you wouldn't be able to hear Daniel

West down the line. But unfortunately the Lakers one tonight, and I said it last night, outside of not pulling off that big victory against Boston, the other thing that was bugging me about what happened last night was all they did was soften up the Celtics for the Lakers tonight. They gave the Celtics everything they could handle. They took them into ot and guess what it led to the Lakers getting a big victory over them tonight. As predicted,

They won one seventeen tonight the six. So the Lakers are still currently ahead of the Clippers in the standings. They're in the five spot, Clippers in the six spot. Clippers have one more victory than them. The difference in win percentage is it's better to have one less loss than one more win. Lakers are twenty four and eighteen. Clippers are twenty five and nineteen, so they're still right there.

They've won the first game between these two. I think the second is February fourth, and that game is here at Intoit Dome. But the Clippers are game and a half up on the Dallas Mavericks, who ended up getting a big victory in OKC. But Oklahoma City still far and away best team in the Western Conference. There's six and a half games up on the Houston Rockets who

are in the two spot. Memphis behind them by just a half game in the three spot, Denver a game behind Memphis in the fourth spot, and they have the tiebreaker because of conference record against the Clippers, and then they'll five Clippers six, Dallas seven, Minnesota two games behind the Clippers in the eight spot, same with the Sacramento Kings, and then Phoenix two and a half games behind the

Clippers in that tenth spot. So things are as tight as ever in the Western Conference, and a winning streak or a losing streak can vault you up or have you fall. Pre fall like Tom Petty towed the standings if you're not careful, needless to say, huge game coming up against Milwaukee on Saturday. They're eight and two in their last ten games. They're in the fourth spot in the Eastern Conference at twenty five and seventeen. Remember, after a slow start to the season, tip off a seven

thirty pre game at six thirty. Before we get out of here, I do want to thank the Clippers organization. Ralph Lawler, Brian Seemen, Carlo Jimenez on the call, Noah, Ego, what's up? Bro Y g big brother, Jake Warner, head engineer, here into it, dumb good hanging with Big Bro. As always. We were talking some jump back and forth for about five hours, as we do. Of course, big thanks to Daniel West back in Burbank, the callers, the listeners, statistician Joey.

Tonight Clippers win one ten to ninety three over the Wizards. Talk to you six point thirty on Saturday back here at the Dome.