Clippers – Hornets Preview

The Clippers have a big game tonight against the New Orleans Hornets. I am really excited about this game. For one reason, I will be at the game tonight and with eight games left in the 2008 – 2009 season this is the time where the Clippers can gain some momentum and chemistry to take into next season. The Clippers have all the pieces on the court to be a play off team but they just have to build the chemistry and buy into a system. They can take all their talent, create the chemistry and actually be a play off team next season.

Tonight is going to be a huge challenge for the Clippers but I feel that we can beat the Hornets. The Clippers will be without Camby, Collins and Ricky Davis while the Hornets will be without James Posey and Tyson Chandler tonight. David West is going to be a really tough match up for the Clippers. He is much quicker than Kaman and is way too much for Randolph to handle. I’m not sure how Dunleavy is going to cover him but if I were the coach I would start DeAndre Jordan on him because he has the length, quickness, and size to give him some trouble. Even with Jordan covering West we will still have to double him and give him some different looks to keep West unsure about what’s coming and who’s coming on the double team. The Clippers need to have good rotation tonight on the defensive end if they want to win the game.

Another interesting match up to watch is at the point guard position. Baron Davis is listed as healthy on the injury report and Mike Taylor has been playing amazing the last few games. Mike Taylor is not even close to the level of Chris Paul but I have no doubt in my mind that Taylor is going to make Paul work on both ends of the court. Taylor plays tough aggressive defense and can blow by you with his quickness on the offensive end of the court. I am pumped up to see this Taylor vs. Paul match up, it should be a fun passion packed match up all game long.

The Clippers need to work the ball inside tonight to Randolph and Kaman and they need to be smart with the ball. Randolph is a beast down low on the offensive end but when the defense collapses he needs to kick it would which sometimes he is reluctant to do and just forces up a bad shot. We need to have good ball movement tonight and hit the boards hard. We should have five guys fighting for rebounds on the defensive end of the court. To many times we leave it to one person usually Camby to grab all the defensive boards. We need to out rebound the Hornets tonight, have more assists and I have no doubt that we can beat them.

I’ll try to snap a couple pictures on my camera phone tonight at the game and put them on the page tomorrow with my recap of the game. And I am going to change the motto for the Clippers for the last eight games from, “Play Loud” to “Play Hard!” Let’s go out there at Play Hard tonight. GO CLIPS!!!