In the LA Clippers’ nailbiting win against the Chicago Bulls, Coach Ty Lue showed that he’s more than willing to tinker and adjust.
The LA Clippers escaped with a 130-127 victory over the Chicago Bulls today, and a big part of the win was the willingness from Ty Lue to adjust and mess with the roster.
A big complaint from many fans of the team so far has been the tendency to go to a bench lineup featuring three guards: Reggie Jackson, Lou Williams and Luke Kennard. That lineup has been… less than successful, to say the least.
We’ve watched leads evaporate with that all-offense three guard lineup. Separately, all three are fine players, but the total is much less than the sum of its parts, and Ty’s experiments came around to give us a game without ever seeing that combination.
In fact, Reggie never saw the court this game; Paul George played 40 minutes and Lou played 24, pushing Jackson out of the rotation. While I don’t expect Reggie to continue to rack up DNPs, it’s an encouraging sign that Lue felt comfortable without playing the trio.
The return of Marcus Morris will probably be an aid to those of us concerned about the Reggie/Lou/Luke lineups. Morris presents another scoring option Lue can deploy, and he can do so without sacrificing as much in terms of defense.
With Mook being happy to come off the bench right now, it’s another body for Coach Lue to throw in to create lineups that are net positives, and Lue is more than willing to explore all of the permutations at his disposal to find what works and what doesn’t.
While we’ve been upset about the trio of guards playing together, I’d much rather it happen in the first 10 games of the season than the final 10 games. Let Tinkering Ty get the bad lineups out of the way now, and once the playoffs come around, he’ll know how to respond to the various matchups he’ll see.
That’s not to say that there’s nothing to be frustrated about or worried about, but Ty is surely throwing out some lineups that have little chance of success, just to confirm that they aren’t the answer in a tight postseason game.
If today’s anything to go by, Lue is crossing off the combinations that don’t work, and that should be a very encouraging sign for fans of the LA Clippers.