The Kings managed to make their game against the Clippers into a contest after it was looking like a serious blowout early in the game. The reason? J.J. Redick was neutralized after his 22-point first half. Now, I don’t actually know who did the neutralizing. That would involve watching the game, which I don’t have time to do. But I can compile a list of possible neutralizer candidates:
-Arron Afflalo (playing good individual defense)
-Dave Joerger (orchestrating intelligent team defense)
-Doc Rivers (not running enough plays for Redick)
-Blake Griffin (not passing the ball to Redick)
-Chris Paul (see above)
-Kings fans wielding cowbells (so distracting)
-J.J. Redick himself (trust nobody, not even yourself)
It could be any one of those people, although I’m guessing it wasn’t Chris Paul’s fault because Chris Paul is the best player in the league right now, so if it seems like he does something wrong, it’s actually his teammates who are doing the wrong things. If I had to pick one thing out of that list, it would be Doc Rivers, who should be reminding this team that plays for Redick threes need to be run once every three possessions at the very least.
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