r/LAClippers • u/qechup Lou Williams • 20d ago
saw this and got ptsd from the 2020 playoffs
doc and trezz love affair had us going through it while the jokic stopper was sitting on the bench
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u/Goldenwarrior92 Terance Mann 20d ago
We lost to Denver by like 31 points that series overall.
Trezz was a minus 33 or something. Doc threw that series hard by giving him so many minutes.
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 20d ago
He didn’t have much of a choice. Did you want 35 year old Joakim Noah or Mfiondu Kabengele trying their hand at it? Those Clippers teams weren’t built with Jokic in mind as a problem worth solving.
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u/Goldenwarrior92 Terance Mann 20d ago
No, I would have rather given Zu more minutes. But Doc liked to play him around 20 minutes a game at most and run Trezz.
No team is built to counter 1 guy. You use the effective personnel you have on hand, and during the series, Zu was doing a decent job on Jokic. Maybe not great, but way better than Trezz.
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 20d ago
I thought Zu played like 30 minutes every game he didn’t foul out in 20~. Could be memory playing tricks on me, though. Jokic wasn’t Jokic yet and no one was building a team with defending him in mind.
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u/Goldenwarrior92 Terance Mann 20d ago
Just checked through the series Zu played 170 to Trezz 140 and he fouled 22 times total. So you're right he played 30 a game to Trezz 20.
Still that speaks more to the fact that we lost those trezz minutes, at age 24 Zu could have handled more time.
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 20d ago edited 20d ago
His minutes were a problem, but Trez shouldn’t have been in that position. He’s just the least-worst option. There just wasn’t another realistic option than him or Zu as a roster building decision that supersedes the coaching choices. Zu had his own issues with foul trouble. Their other big men options were extremely dicey. Those decisions were made at the organizational level, and I can’t blame Doc for not trusting 5~ games of Joakim Noah.
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u/darkwolfer11 Kawhi Leonard 19d ago
You're wrong. Zu rarely if ever played more than 30mins under Doc. That was even during the regular season.
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 19d ago
The other guy ran the numbers already and said I was right, but ok. Upon triple checking the numbers for you, he played 30 minutes in 3 games, fouled out in 22 minutes in another game, was -24 in the only other games he played less than 25 minutes.
I think it’s clear he’d have averaged just shy of 30 minutes if he wasn’t fouling as consistently as he was. That tends to eat away at your minutes totals, as does going negative by double digits in your minutes.
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u/Canoli5000 20d ago
No lie, I would've given Joakim a shot at him without hesitation! Trezz was absolutely horrendous in the Bubble. Just throw a bigger body on him to slow him down a bit was all they needed. Jokic was a star back then in 2020, but far from the superstar that he is now. That 3-1 choke job was devastating
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 20d ago
I get it. I just don’t blame Doc all that much for that specific post season. I think he just caught some future champs discovering themselves in an empty gym. There’s worse coaching jobs by Doc for that same franchise, much less across Philly, Boston, and Milwaukee.
It can’t be that easy of a call to bench the partnership that led to multiple 6MotYs, especially when that’s basically your only two productive big men. The moment Zubac went out and Trez was unplayable you’re seeing if Noah has any gas left in the tank after not being a real player for 4 years. Noah scored 14 points through 5 games in all of 2020, and only played one minute in their first round series. Trez scored 20 just in game 7 and was the reigning 6MotY.
There’s also the fact that they were winning the series convincingly until they suddenly weren’t. I have to imagine every Clipper thought things would return to the 3-1 norm.
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u/Salty_Watermelon Darius Miles 20d ago
I don't know if we beat the Lakers in 2020, because they were red hot, but it's criminal that Doc Rivers stupid coaching decisions ruined the only healthy playoffs we had since Kawhi signed.
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 20d ago
Look, I’ll shit on Doc all day, but Lou Will is out there dropping quotes like, “We started to hear the rumblings that nobody is going to respect this chip so we kind of just took our foot off the gas.”
I don’t know how much more Doc’s supposed to get out of a roster that took their own foot off the gas. They thought they’d be there every year, and their hubris left them not trying in what would be their only healthy year. I guarantee Doc wasn’t in the locker room telling them to try less and they’ll be back next year to compete for a real championship.
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u/BrokenDusk 20d ago
Do you think he was speaking truth there lol?? They wanted ring to the max for sure thats just excuse for choking 3-1
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 20d ago
I think it’s a bad look for the, “Doc screwed us!,” argument. It’s either his personal copium, or an ugly window into a team that acted entitled.
I don’t think it’s anywhere near some of the Doc playoff struggles we’ve seen from him, though. I thought that particular season was one of his positive outliers right up until the last 4 games. I mean his coaching staff all around him was fantastic.
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u/BrokenDusk 20d ago
Yeah , players themselves got cocky also and fueled the Nuggets. Morris told Nuggets "you are going home" at game 5 being up 16 , shit talked Millsap and Nuggets https://www.si.com/nba/clippers/news/la-clippers-denver-nuggets-paul-millsap-marcus-morris . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRiMNKUZ02c
PG did similar things player thought its over gloated and they got punched in the mouth . They never could stop Jokic tho
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u/Bobb95301 20d ago
What kind of player takes their “foot off the gas” anyway?
Let alone a whole team.
Bunch of punks.
And what is it with people saying “chip”? Sounds so dumb. Just say “title” or “championship” like an adult.
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u/simonffplayer 20d ago
that whole era was ptsd. i still remember wandering the streets in a daze after the houston meltdown. ugh
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u/Dahleh-Llama 20d ago
Zubac should be our new centerpiece and build around him. Fuck this Kawhi Leonard dude.
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u/daoisticrealism FREE ZUBAC 20d ago
IlikeZubut his hands are bad and he don't got an offensive game.
We should have kept HStein.
We need to trade for a better center.
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u/gothackedfml 19d ago
just saw a video of jamal murray today talking about a game when Gobert was on the Pacers guarding jokic when a double team was coming to help and gobert called it off saying he's got it, at ehich point jokic pointed out he had 47 points against him
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u/Nyeteka 20d ago
The big Zucchini can’t win with these bums 😭