Are The Clippers Actually Good? Ballghazi Gate!

and some news from around the week. I said, it was crazy seasons. All these stars are losing their minds. So let's get into it, William and drop that motherfucker beating the should be Rihanna. Oh my goodness, there is just two much popping in the league right now. I tell you what. Draymond Green has been suspended indefinitely. Yannis goes off for sixty four points, which is a record, and loses his goddamn mind after the ball has to be restrained, has to be restrained. Yannis, the nicest guy

in the league. The guy with the dad jokes. That guy was putting his face finger in the face of Lloyd Pierce's assistant coach of the Indiana Pacers, putting his finger in the face of Tyrese Haliburton. All the while, Dame Willard is just like, yo, dude, it's not that deep. You'll get the ball. Pat Beverly is the only one willing to talk about Josh Giddy on the broadcast with Kevin Hart, almost said Josh Hart, Kevin Hart, we'll get onto all of that in a bit, not all of it.

We're not talking about Josh Giddy, obviously, but because so much is happening around the league, I think everybody is asleep on the LA Clippers. Last time that we checked in on the Clippers, everyone including me, was clowning them. The James Harden era got off to a very rocky start. He looked slightly washed. Russell Westbrook was discombobulated. You remember, I'm sure it was all the rage. Everybody was having it on their little debate shows. We were making fun

of the trade. We're mocking LA. Harden was the butt of every fat joke, except for the ones about Zion. They lost the first six games of the hardened area, and there was gully I mean, elation across the league and shock and awe in Clipperville. Guess what, Well the Clippers convinced Russell Westbrook to come off the bench or Russell Westbrook decided on his own, but let's be honest, doesn't really matter. And since then, the team is ten and three and they are the hottest team in basketball.

They're the only team in the league who hasn't lost in the month of December, and the much maligned Harden is actually averaging seventeen to five and eight. But get this, the turnstile is averaging two steals a game. Do not be sleeping on these Clipper folks. Do not be sleeping on them. If you break down their run of form, it is very impressive. First of all, Kawhi Leonard Paul George haven't missed the game all year. Paul George probably will end up missing some games because of a groin

strain or whatever it is. Paul George before his injury was top ten minutes played until he left at halftime against the Kings. This team Clippers have been also super balanced in the last ten games or so, the Big four ish Big three and one, Big Three and Change have all found a way to get theirs, which is a very very difficult thing to do. Russ coming off the bench has given them eleven to seven and five

and twenty five minutes. Kawhi Leonard is putting up MVP caliber numbers twenty three, six and fours with two and a half steals and blocks per game, stocks and the incredible thing, His thirty four point seven minutes per game is the highest in his entire career. Paul George twenty three, six and four with two stocks per game. His two point three turnovers per game is the lowest he's had since twenty fifteen. Nuts and as a team, they are gelling. That's what they said. We have time. We need time

to gel, we need time to click. All these other teams they've had time to figure each other out. We've had no time. This guy just got here midway through the season in December. Only three teams have a higher field goal percentage than the Clippers, and only four teams have allowed a lower field goal percentage. So the Clippers are top five in offense and top five in defense. If you take their last game when they played against the Kings, they used a suffocating defense to smother a

very good Sacramento Kings team. By twenty six, Clippers were plus twelve or better and eight players had eight or more points. Balanced scoring, their team shooting splits fifty two from the field, thirty eight percent from three, ninety three percent at the charity stripe. At the same time, they held a very good shooting Kings team to forty two percent from the field, twenty seven percent from three, and just seventy one percent they adam shook from the charity

towards stripe. All five Kings starters were negative eight or worse, and Darren Fox, which we know has MVP caliber talent, he was only held to fourteen points, which is less than half of what he's averaging in his All Star All NBA year. The Clipper team is just different. They're different than we thought that they were going to be. They're different than they were at the start of the season and the start of the hard and era, and nobody. Nobody is talking about it. Nuts. Do you want to

hear something wild? Harden has played eight games with PG and Kawhi, so that's already more than he played with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, which was sixteen. That is insane and we're only in December. The team is fun. They are deep, so deep they'll put your ass to sleep, So deep that Bones Highland has gotten ten straight dnps

in the last fifteen games, so deep. The PJ. Tucker has gotten six straight DMPs and also went six straight games before that without scoring a point, nearly eighty minutes of basketball and this man, PJ. Tucker only shot the ball twice in total. No wonder. He was like, Hey, I gotta figure out a place or a role for me, and there are not enough basketballs in the world for this team. That's right, That's true. Both Bones and Tucker

probably getting shipped out. They'll probably be for their own good as well, probably be a market for both of them. What the Clippers need is another big because with Mason plumbleing out, they're relying on a lot of Daniel Heice minutes right now in the backup center spot, and as just not Daniel Tice is not a very good sign. We'll know a lot more about where this Clippers team stacks up against the league over the next two weeks

or so. But not only has Paul George banged up, meaning they're gonna probably have to play without one of their stars for the first time this year. But they also play the Warriors, the Knicks, the Pacers, the MAVs, the Thunder and the Celtics in consecutive games. So if the Clippers were to come through this stretch at say four and two, I don't know, three and three, maybe watch out. This could be the team that we've been hoping that the Clippers could be. It would be are

they a contender? So many stars all on expiring contracts, Maybe, just maybe we could have faith that they can compete with the Denver Nuggets again like they did in the bubble. One thing is for sure, as long as the Clippers stay healthy, this is a dangerous ass team they're gonna very much have to worry about when they're in this playoff. Moving on, by now, everyone who's talking about what I

call game Ballgate? What Tom Ziller, who I absolutely love, I wish I thought of this name ball gaizy aka ben Ghazi no ball Ghazi ballghazi gate. If you're not one hundred percent up on it, let's set the stage. It is kind of fool gayzy, It is kind of ball gayzy. It is The Bucks played the Pacers last night and what has become a tiny, tiny bit of a rivalry. The Pacers beat Milwaukee in the semifinals in

season tournament. In the game where remember Tyrese Halliburton arrived, He's tapping on his wrist where his watch should be, looking at Damian Lillard saying, dame time, Nah, it's my time. Damian Lillard after that game was like, oh boy, you might God get humble. Your time's coming as well. And the Bucks they might have felt some kind of way about it. Damian Lillard must have fallen some kind of way about it. Giannis must have felt some kind of

way about it. Because Wednesday's game intents from the jump, hard fouls, closeouts on defense, bodies, let the bodies hit the flow, let the bodies hit the flow. Teams coming close to brawling on multiple occasions. Bobby Portis flashing those murder eyes, charging at everybody getting ejected. I think I watched. I thought it was the same highlight, but it was multiple scuffle highlights before the main event occurred, which happened postgame.

Of course, the Bucks, because they were feeling some kind of way and they were at the crib oh too much for the Pacers. In the second half, it looked like they were putting the game away for good. Giannis had just beaten Michael Red's scoring record in Milwaukee. He's going to the bench. Everything looks like it's normal, and then fifty eight points is what he scored. Five minutes left.

The whole Indiana Pacer bench was in all the scrubs and for development time, and they decided to bomb away, start making shots, and with like two minutes left, they gotta bring back in Dame. They got to bring back in Giannis. Adrian Grippin was like, we can't be losing to the Indiana Pacers at the crib. So Yannis proceeded to be dominant, scoring another six more points sixty four on twenty for twenty eight from the field, with fourteen boards,

four steals, and a block. What a monster game for Yiannis. By the way, woo. The kind of game that I don't know, you'd like to commemorate, right, like maybe pick the ball home, maybe, like I don't know, have the game ball given to you? Yeah, I don't know. The Pacers were like in Milwaukee, no, fuck your game ball.

As assistant coach Lloyd Pierce, you remember him from Atlanta, wasn't particularly well liked, apparently snatched one of the game balls and proceeded to spirit it away, to secrete it away to the Pacers locker room, and Giannis found out, and he lost his mind. He was so furious. He didn't know that. I guess a Milwaukee Bucks security guard grabbed the first game ball and he had it, but

he lost it. He went ape shit, started yelling at everyone, took a small army into the Pacers tunnel, where a scuffle ensued that ended with my guy Pacers GM Chad Buchanan taking an elbow to the ribs and maybe more. That's what Rick Carly'll say, and not allegedly that really happened, folks. The Pacers were apparently saving the game ball. They took the game ball for Oscar to Shebays first NBA point commemoration.

And I say apparently because this all seems petty and quite shady as hell, considering that I think Oscar to Sway has already scored a point in an NBA game in the nd season tournament. After the game, the tea continued to spill everywhere. Both Giannis and Dame claimed that the ball had been switched. They think that that was never been used in a game, that it seemed like a brand new ball, and that the Pacers were still

holding on to it. Where is the ball from the Milwaukee Buck security guard that he grabbed, probably already on eBay. There is so much about this that is just hilarious. Let's start with Rick Carlile's postgame presser. It's oh, it's tremendous.

of the Indiana Pacers. My guy Chad Buchanon aka Buck just getting no key respect at all, to the point where you've got head coach Rick Carlisle just not even saying his name, just the our GM Pacers GM just got elbowed in the ribs. We gotta put a little bit of respect on Bucks name. Second, as someone said on Twitter, the whole like give the game ball in a loss to the rookie scoring his first and only point of a game on a second free throw that

Carlisle tried to pull. It was said with the straight face like that is not a thing, and he knows. This is not like a real tradition, This is not something that normally happens like Shenanigan's are afoot. This is now an ongoing situation, and it appears in a video that a Buck's official secured the game ball from the rep at the end of the game, and that Lloyd Pierce might have gotten the second golf ball which Giannis flipped the fuck out over, And we don't really know,

We have absolutely no clue. What we do know, though, is that the Indiana Pacers just signed James Johnson, the scariest man in the league a day after this kerfuffle, this fracas, this scuffle. Why because they don't want to be bullied like this again. They don't want to be made out like they can just get elbowed in the ribs or GM isn't protected, like we need somebody like James Johnson to make sure this shit doesn't happen again, unlike the Draymond drama. This is what I live for.

This is the stuff that the NBA on social media is all about. And guess what, and guess what, and guess what. New Year's Day Baby pacers bucks in Indiana. Adam Silver cannot stop grinning from ear to ear. Maybe your girl will be there.